Friday, January 21, 2011

How do you decide on a title for your book? And is that important?

Title contest went well. I had lots of entries with Candy taking the first prize and Lydia taking the second. And I have a title for my WIP. I usually don't have any trouble picking out titles. But for some reason with this one, I could NOT think of any.  Lucky for me, I know some clever writers. hehe

Usually the title comes to me first. Then I write the AWESOME book around the AWESOME title.

Did you know that TWILIGHT was once called FORKS? The word twilight was on a list of "words with atmosphere" that Stephenie Meyer sent her agent. And the title to end all titles (or one of the MOST recognized title) was born. Catchy titles sell books.

How do you go about picking titles for your books?


  1. Well, ahem..., I haven't written a book, but I do agree, catchy titles help sell books. Well written inside cover synopsis are hooks for me too. I also read first lines of paragraphs, but never the last page. If the title does not catch a book, I won't even pick it up to peruse.

    My thought would be a few zinger words holding forth the theme, the lesson learned, a key to the mystery, a phrase giving a glimpse of the main character, a brief splash of word color relevant to the story, etc.. Ahhh...I know this is not always easy. That's why we have friends, right?! :)

    Wishing you a special day!


  2. I still think it was genius of you to hold a contest. Sometimes I think people have the perfect idea for the title, but most times it's a struggle to find the right one.
    Have a good day, my friend.

  3. I love making up titles, have pages of them. Sometimes I read through them, looking for the spark of an idea. It works.

  4. I just sold a book with what I thought was a very catchy, intriguing title. But the publisher said it was all wrong for the genre, so it got changed.

    Guess I'm not a very goo person to answer your question!!

  5. I'm like you - the tiltle usually comes to me first, and I go from there! :-)

    Forks? Really? Ugh!

  6. Sometimes a title comes to me early on, other times it comes later. I've got two WIP progressing right now and I'm pretty I'm going to change the titles they have right now.

  7. My titles make the worst named list every time:) I'm glad there is an option to leave this creativity to the professionals.

  8. I'm forever struggling with titles! That's so funny about Forks. Not nearly the same level of goodness at Twilight.

  9. My titles usually come to me after I've been working on the book for a while and I know more about the plot/setting/characters. Most of the time my titles are based on those factors.

  10. I'm having a really hard time coming up with a title for my current WIP. I'm hoping that it will come to me during revisions. If not I may seek help from the blogging community!

  11. Congrats to the winners! I agree catchy titles are key. :o)
    Happy weekend,

  12. Congratulations to the winners! I love a great title. When I'm writing a poem, I usually only give myself a few minutes to find a word or phrase that jumps out of my consciousness after reading my poem. Who knows if it makes sense? But I kind of like just being all spontaneous with the title. If I write a novel, I'll definitely put more thought into it. Robyn, hope you're having a great weekend and feeling good!

  13. The title comes to me early on when I'm planning. It's theme-y and I can work it in as a line in the manuscript.

    FORKS definitely isn't as punchy as TWILIGHT.


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