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Unique or generic?
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Not initially, but I quickly enough realized how some words are popular in book titles. For example, the fourth novel of my Nancy Laplante series is titled 'TIMELINES', a title describing well the meat of my book. Well, guess how many other books have 'TIMELINE' or 'TIMELINES' in their titles? That included Michael Crichton's TIMELINE, of course! Still, I kept my original choice of title, since it fitted my story to a 'T' (no pun intended), and damn the torpedoes! On the other hand, I had no worries about plagiarizing someone with the title of the last book of my Nancy Laplante series, 'FROM THE FIELDS OF CRIMEA TO THE SANDS OF MARS'. If you can find a similar title, I will kiss your a..!
Yeah, Timeline must be a popular word -:)Like Crimea and Mars title! Do you actually have some scenes set in Crimea?
I certainly did! My book was a time travel story and, in a number of chapters, my main heroine (a Time Patrol agent working in the 19th Century) went to Crimea in 1854 with the British troops sent to fight the Crimean War. As for Mars, my other main heroine, who commands the U.S. Military Space Command in the 1950s and 1960s, commands the first manned Mars expedition to land on the Red Planet, thus the title 'FROM THE FIELDS OF CRIMEA TO THE SANDS OF MARS'.
On the other hand, using a generic title or one that is close to a popular work could improve discovery. When someone is looking for a specific book called Timelines, yours will come up in the results and provided it is high enough in the list, it comes to the attention of everyone searching for the other book with the title.But I see it here when I review a book. I search for a title, and a page of books with the same title come up. If the default cover for the book I want is different, I then have to remember who the author is.
Michel wrote: "I certainly did! My book was a time travel story and, in a number of chapters, my main heroine (a Time Patrol agent working in the 19th Century) went to Crimea in 1854 with the British troops sent ..."Sounds interesting. So many hands it changed, Crimea for centuries is a pretty 'popular' peninsula -:)
J.J. wrote: "On the other hand, using a generic title or one that is close to a popular work could improve discovery. ..."But, of course, bearing exactly that in mind mimicking of popular titles, covers and so on is a big thing, hence all those 'shades'
Sooo...*awkward laugh*
I don't care about my titles. At all.
I DO care if it looks good on my book cover. If it's a series, I want them all to match. If the title spans the width of the book, I want them all to be roughly the same length. Recently, I scrapped a title because the letters "O" and "G" didn't look good in the font I wanted to use.
I have this theory that IF you can catch someone's attention with the tiny little thumbnail AND hook them with your blurb, you're golden.
But I don't claim to be smart either. Sooo...
Hugs,
Ann
Annie wrote: "I have this theory that IF you can catch someone's attention with the tiny little thumbnail AND hook them with your blurb, you're golden...."A theory that has a very true sound to it
Originality is a great plus if the title comes out that way, but originality can suffer up to a point* if a title fits well with a book. Eli Wiesel's "Night" is one of the most finely constructed and engaging stories I've ever read, but I wouldn't say the title is "original" by any means. *I can’t imagine any sane person naming their book Jurassic Park or Pride and Prejudice. Jurassic Pride and Prejudice is, however, still up for grabs.
A more interesting question is, how original do you ant your title to be? One of my more frustrating titles was "Troubles". Guess how many titles Amazon finds with either trouble or troubles in the title, and the wretched search engine will NOT prioritise the exact match. So the book languished way down the list because (a) when published it had no sales, and (b) it never gained many because, well, it was way down the list. On the other hand, my latest title was "Ranh". Not a lot of others like that! Equally, not a lot of people would put that in a s a browse term. You can't win.As for those who say you need "a great cover", that does not help if it languishes of p34 of the search results, because nobody wills ee this great cover.
I think a title is definitely one of the elements of your 'sale package' together with blurb, cover and so on. And the examples Tim brings definitely grab attention. In my own case, I try to combine something that would convey an immediate message, would be harmonious with the content of the book and desirably - unique, at expense of not being paired with known titles on search engines.
Ian wrote: "Equally, not a lot of people would put that in a s a browse term. You can't win.As for those who say you need "a great cover", that does not help if it languishes of p34 of the search results, because nobody wills ee this great cover...."
Sure, to be very low on search results doesn't give anything. Most searchers would never even check the 2-nd page of results.
If you end up in list like "new hot release" or something like that then the chances increase dramatically. Also, some exposure through different promo sites, blogs, social media should give a chance to roadshow a book.
Agree that counting on the search engines alone, you can't win, unless of course, you deliberately mislead and use powerful SEOs unrelated to a book to bring the traffic.
Ian wrote: "Equally, not a lot of people would put that in a s a browse term. You can't win.As for those who say you need "a great cover", that does not help if it languishes of p34 of the search results, because nobody wills ee this great cover...."
Sure, to be very low on search results doesn't give anything. Most searchers would never even check the 2-nd page of results.
If you end up in list like "new hot release" or something like that then the chances increase dramatically. Also, some exposure through different promo sites, blogs, social media should give a chance to roadshow a book.
Agree that counting on the search engines alone, you can't win, unless of course, you deliberately mislead and use powerful SEOs unrelated to a book to bring the traffic.
Absolutely you have to check titles and character names. Its an Internet world and Google is the King. As an indie SEO is vital to people finding your book. Im blogging 2-3 times a day just to raise my SEO with Google 60+ days before presale. So far Ive been able to cut my Alexa ranking in half in 20 days and Im picking up Google search hits.
Its slow going but I know it will increase sales down the road.
Interesting stuff. I wasn't even aware of Alexa until you've mentioned. Will go check a few things -:)
Daniel J. wrote: "*I can’t imagine any sane person naming their book Jurassic Park or Pride and Prejudice. Jurassic Pride and Prejudice is, however, still up for grabs...."
Pride, and Prejudice, and Zombies however has already been taken...
Do you do title and character searches to avoid repetition/proximity?
At a writers conference once, the topic of copyright came up and one of the authors said that even though titles could not be copyrighted, there is a prohibition - something called "second meaning" or "secondary meaning" - where an author can't use a title that is uniquely associated with a particular work - the example they used was "Gone With The Wind." Of course, I can't imagine an author actually thinking they could get away with giving that title to their book.But its interesting to do a title search before naming your book - I just read (and reviewed) a mystery called "Unthinkable" - looked it up on Amazon and there had to be 20-30 books with that title, both fiction and non fiction.
I suppose that adds value to good subtitles.
One of my books was called THEM. It was a perfect title for my book but when I discovered there were already a number of other Thems, did I care?Not one whit. Mine is the only one capitalised.
There have been several Thems published since, including a quite famous one by Jon Ronson.
There are a few Straitjackets but not many Straight Jacket (as mine is called). More than one The Fighting Man - but my title was absolutely perfect as the fighting man was the name of Harold Godwinson's personal banner - even though it mainly refers to the main character who is promised to the church at 14 but becomes one of the greatest fighting men in Harold's army.
I suspect I am the only author with a novel called Welcome to Ord City, and my next novel (my first sci-fi) is surely the only one called Asparagus Grass.
My concern with a generic title is suppose someone has heard of it but lacks a link so uses a search engine on Amazon? What happens is titles come back based on sales volume, and they don't have to even match. I have an ebook "Troubles". When I tried to see what would happen with a search engine, back came anything with the word "trouble" in it, even if there were several other words. It is hard enough to have a book discovered without it being deliberately concealed by a search engine's desire to promote sales.
And in general, with each prospective title I run Amazon search to avoid identical titles and run google search for the names I give to my characters + profession, so that some boxer, for example, I introduce will likely not coincide some existing one. I know we all put this 'purely coincidental' disclaimer, but still I try to minimize those chances of coincidence.
Am I exaggerating? Do you do anything of a sort?