This series of posts was first published here on December 11, 2008 Sometimes the right title for a book is easy to think of and it fits perfectly with the storyline through any rewrites. Other times you may struggle to find a title you’re happy with, or the one you chose early on doesn’t bear any relation to the story once you change some aspect of the plot that the title initially referred to. If you’re not sure of your title, or don’t yet know enough about your story to choose one, you might want to settle for a working title so that you have something you can use to refer to your story, save it as, and file your notes under. Personally, I tend to refer to each of my stories by the name of the main character, even if I have a perfect title. It’s usually shorter and easy to remember. But think of what defines the story for you. If you write a lot of mysteries with the same protagonist, using his name won’t work for you, but using the murder style or weapon might be a better refe...

Every writer must think about marketing. Why spend all that time, effort, blood and sweat on something which no one (other than those you emotionally blackmail) will read? You need to think outside the box. So why not… 1. Don’t do the normal postcard advertising your book launch. How about a postcard in the shape of a triangle and something about ‘getting the point’?  2. Start a blog/Pinterest account/whatever featuring recipes your main character would love. People love recipes. Pictures of food stops people scrolling down the screen. 3. But so do cute pictures of animals. Does one of your characters have a pet? Post pictures of the beast. Also a scroll-stopper. 4. Non-writers are curious about the Secret World of the Writer. Make this shadowy world a feature of your marketing. Why not make a list of music that helps you write? Is there a certain genre that you listen to when you’re writing a first draft? Editing? A romantic scene? A cliff-hanger? Don’t forget about w...

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng Back for another visit, dearies? Splendid. Things have been far too exciting around here lately; a bit of coffee and chat will be just the thing. We've touched on titles before, if I recall. The niceties of Your Majesty and all that, yes? In a same-but-different vein, let’s consider titles again. I’m thinking of blogs and books and such. Yes, those titles. There are two main types of treatment for titles of works. The most straightforward is sentence-style capitalization. In addition to the first word of the title (and subtitle, should you have one), you need only worry about capitalizing any proper names. High heels: A look at torture devices through the ages. Simple, but a bit boring, don’t you think? I’m inclined to believe that a title should grab the reader’s interest right off, and headline-style capitalization will help in that regard. While the CMOS allows for a certain amount of aesthetically-inspired deviation from the rul...

The other night an editing client and I traded a bunch of text messages over what to title his next fantasy novel. Since a fan of Robert Jordan was sitting by me in the room, I asked him to rattle off some of the fourteen titles in Jordan’s Wheel of Time series—but off the top of his head, he couldn’t remember a one. My ensuing search for Jordan’s titles yielded some pretty generic results. It’s no wonder they’re hard to remember. I thought it might be fun to compare Jordan’s titles to those of authors who, in my opinion, came up with more memorable titles using a similar keyword. Before Jordan’s numerous fans go all rabid on me, I want to acknowledge the substantial storytelling skills of Robert Jordan (James Oliver Rigney, Jr.), that The Wheel of Time is an awesome name for a good long series, and that I’d be more than happy to achieve this author’s sales numbers. While this post will at times compare dragons to teacups—a title should suggest genre, after all—this exercis...

I've lately noticed that authors have started typing their book titles in capital letters on many social forums. I suppose this trend began on sites that didn't allow for formatting. Properly, book titles should be typed in italics like this: My Best Book Italics are also used for the titles of: Plays Movies TV shows Newspapers Magazines Ships Spacecraft Another curious and recent practice comes from news services which have decided to blare their headlines in all caps. This, too, is incorrect. Quotation marks are correctly used to enclose headlines. Quotations are also used for other shorter works like the titles of: Short stories Poems Songs Chapters Articles So there you have the rules as they stand today, subject to public abuse and change, of course. Do any items on either list surprise you? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dani Greer runs the Blog Book Tours yahoogroup which teaches authors how to promote their books with a virtual tour. Next class starts May 1. She is a founding mem...

Have you found the perfect title for your book? Don't get too attached to it. Before you send your manuscript to an agent, do a Google and Amazon search for your title, and also ask your local librarian to search for possible matches to your title. Titles aren’t copyrighted, but if there is another recent book in a similar genre with the same title, you may want to change yours, or discuss the implications with your agent. While you might get lucky with readers buying your book thinking it is the other author’s, it could just as easily work against you with a good review of your book sending a reader to mistakenly grab the other author’s book. Or a reader might simply assume he’s already read your book. However you feel about your title, remember that there’s always a possibility that your publisher might want you to change it. As the author you might get the final sign-off, but if you can live with the title your publisher proposes, you might want to give in and save your veto...

In Part 1 of this series on Book Titles , I discussed using a working title for your book if you couldn't immediately think of a suitable title. But what happens if you’ve completed a draft of your book and still can’t come up with a title? Firstly, try brainstorming on the key themes of your book. Write down what your story is about and pull out the keywords from that blurb. What stands out for you? Can you rearrange the words to make a title? Draw a spider diagram of word associations based on your keywords, and keep rearranging until you find a combination you like. What titles do you like of other books? Do you prefer short or long titles? Punchy or elegant? If you aim for the same number of syllables, you will probably enjoy the sound of the title more – perhaps you only need to add or remove one word from your keyword combination to get a perfect fit. Continue reading: Part 3: Checking Your Proposed Title Elle Carter Neal is the author of the picture book I Own...