Can a bad title be the kiss of death?

I have a book I’m getting ready to put up as my first offering in the self-published arena.  So far my quest for perfection has left me frustrated.  In my pursuit for happiness, this processes has been a royal pain in the arse. I’m passionate (passion increases happiness) about getting this done, but I don’t want to cause any negative feelings and influences when dealing with cancer.

So I’m fighting to find balance. Right now the hold up is my title. This will be the third time this book has been released. It was my first story in January of 2005 with Romance at Heart.  It was included in an anthology entitled Animal Attraction.   My story was entitled Monkey Around.  That anthology was the number one book at Romance at Heart for a very, very long time.

Later it was republished by Sapphire Blue Publications and renamed Monkey Business where it too had a stint at #1.  At that point the little story had a solo cover.

When Sapphire Blue closed its doors, I was not only returned the rights for the book, I was given the rights to the cover.

However…

The guys face on the cover looks way too young to me…like a teenager. I HATE the monkey and I have no clue why there is a window in the cover or what is the leafy thing behind the monkey’s head.

And what about the title?  MONKEY BUSINESS  It doesn’t DO it for me.  Frankly, I wouldn’t be attracted to a book with that title. Would you?  So I need a new title to put on my NEW cover.

Here it is…

Nothing like the one above.

And I don’t have a title…

I’m thinking of PLAYING DOCTOR.

I’ve had to change my character’s eye color because I HAD to have this guy as my hero.  He’s not showing a chest, but I think this cover by Erin Dameron-Hill is so much sexier than the first one.

SO much sexier than the first one

The character is a doctor and he definitely is playing doctor the old fashioned way with the heroine.  Help!  What do you think?

Another worry when changing a title…somewhere you have to let the reader know in advance.  No one likes to pay for book they already have owned under the old name.  I’m adding new content to the story, but not enough for it to be unrecognizable.  So at the beginning of the book I need to clearly state that this is a reissue!