Coming Up with Compelling Book Titles
What to call a book is harder than you might think. Or maybe it's just as hard as you might think. After all, the title of a book is the first tool of marketing it. So, it needs to be compelling. To give the reader a reason to read the blurb on the back cover or the blurb on the Amazon site that includes more details.
I've been pretty pleased with my choices for book titles. My first novel, Life Reimagined, was exactly that. It was a novel based on my life and what might have happened if a critical moment in my life had happened differently than it did. It includes, in fact, two versions of my life - reimagined - one in a good way and another in a bad. Two different versions of a "what-if kind of love story".
I had the name for Pre-Bound Girl almost immediately. I just thought it was a clever riff off the idea of the rebound, instead being the girl before the guy commits to marriage. I even went so far with the concept as to make the main character her own pre-bound - as she gets back together with the last guy.
The Drum Set is probably as far away from telling anything really about the story as any of my titles. In that case, the title is a riff - pun intended - off the childhood nickname of the male lead - Tom, also called tom-tom - and the female lead, Tiffany, also known as tympany. Get it? Probably too clever for most people. And I do wonder if the cover image of a drum set only further confuses the issue. It's my least successful book, in fact.
The Gift for Michael is another bit of cleverness, as Hermione might say. Our fictional biographer has a gift for time travel. We don't know why she time travels, and she has little control over when or how. But in the end, we come to find out that she's "fixing" the main male character's brokenness. Her gift is for him.
I did quite a bit of soul-searching about the title, Best Meet-Cute Ever. I took an informal poll among my friends on the term, meet-cute, to see how well known it was. Enough people knew the term that I was satisfied. And there were several books with versions of that term already on Amazon, though none with exactly the same title. That, too, is important. As with most of my books, there's a subtitle of "If We Can Just Get There", which I hoped would help the reader who might not know the term, meet-cute, at least get some of the context. Personally, I didn't know the term until I was the movie, The Holiday, where one of the characters is a screenwriter, and he talks about the first time the main male and female character meeting as the "meet-cute", a cute way to meet. My books are, in many ways, romantic comedies waiting to be filmed. So, that term also seemed appropriate for that reason.
When I first started writing my current novel, I came up with the title, Rich People's Problems: The Story of Raggedy Ann and Andy. The first part of the title has been used, but for books on finances. I hoped that the subtitle would generate interest, and Raggedy Ann is the cover image, as well. Still I wondered if the title would be off-putting. I mean, who cares about rich people's problems? Isn't that the joke? But today, as I was writing, I used the title of the book in the narrative. And I intend to use it again as the two main characters finally admit their love - and all the drama that comes with it - as the problem of two rich people. And laugh at themselves for it.
So, I think I'm going to stick with that title. For now, at least.
I've been pretty pleased with my choices for book titles. My first novel, Life Reimagined, was exactly that. It was a novel based on my life and what might have happened if a critical moment in my life had happened differently than it did. It includes, in fact, two versions of my life - reimagined - one in a good way and another in a bad. Two different versions of a "what-if kind of love story".
I had the name for Pre-Bound Girl almost immediately. I just thought it was a clever riff off the idea of the rebound, instead being the girl before the guy commits to marriage. I even went so far with the concept as to make the main character her own pre-bound - as she gets back together with the last guy.
The Drum Set is probably as far away from telling anything really about the story as any of my titles. In that case, the title is a riff - pun intended - off the childhood nickname of the male lead - Tom, also called tom-tom - and the female lead, Tiffany, also known as tympany. Get it? Probably too clever for most people. And I do wonder if the cover image of a drum set only further confuses the issue. It's my least successful book, in fact.
The Gift for Michael is another bit of cleverness, as Hermione might say. Our fictional biographer has a gift for time travel. We don't know why she time travels, and she has little control over when or how. But in the end, we come to find out that she's "fixing" the main male character's brokenness. Her gift is for him.
I did quite a bit of soul-searching about the title, Best Meet-Cute Ever. I took an informal poll among my friends on the term, meet-cute, to see how well known it was. Enough people knew the term that I was satisfied. And there were several books with versions of that term already on Amazon, though none with exactly the same title. That, too, is important. As with most of my books, there's a subtitle of "If We Can Just Get There", which I hoped would help the reader who might not know the term, meet-cute, at least get some of the context. Personally, I didn't know the term until I was the movie, The Holiday, where one of the characters is a screenwriter, and he talks about the first time the main male and female character meeting as the "meet-cute", a cute way to meet. My books are, in many ways, romantic comedies waiting to be filmed. So, that term also seemed appropriate for that reason.
When I first started writing my current novel, I came up with the title, Rich People's Problems: The Story of Raggedy Ann and Andy. The first part of the title has been used, but for books on finances. I hoped that the subtitle would generate interest, and Raggedy Ann is the cover image, as well. Still I wondered if the title would be off-putting. I mean, who cares about rich people's problems? Isn't that the joke? But today, as I was writing, I used the title of the book in the narrative. And I intend to use it again as the two main characters finally admit their love - and all the drama that comes with it - as the problem of two rich people. And laugh at themselves for it.
So, I think I'm going to stick with that title. For now, at least.
No comments have been added yet.
