Recommendation for Authors: 8 Essential Tips for Choosing the Right Book Title June 9, 2017
In fact, choosing the right book title can be harder than picking a name for your own child. Because, no matter what name the baby ends up with, family and friends will be obligated to love it.
Whereas a daring book title won’t boost sales at all and—on the contrary—may even put readers off for years to come.
Basically, all great book titles have one or more of the following characteristics:
- You can say the title out loud. That means: use words; numbers are also okay, but symbols or even ancient runes are absolutely out of the question. It shouldn’t be embarrassing for anyone to say the title out loud.
- The title should be ladylike or have something to do with water, perhaps vaguely biblical, and numerical references are also welcome.
- A book title may also state exactly what the reader can expect, and so on… more on this in Bill Ferris’s article—well worth reading: