Choosing a Good Book Title

      When most writers sit down to write many of them don't know what they will title their book in the beginning. Sometimes it just comes to them instantly during the writing process and sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes writer's will start out with a title, only to change it after they finish their book.  Book titles, believe it or not, will be one of the most important things you will have to come up with along with the look of your book cover.  If you get this wrong, it can cost you book sells, or it can get you a lot of bad book reviews.

     So how does a writer come up with a good book title that will work for what you are writing?  This is a question that I've struggled with myself over and I have to admit that I have gotten this wrong along the way.  If you are a writer who intends to self-publish this will be one of the hardest things you will have to be in control of.  If you plan to get traditionally published then the publisher will probably do this for you along with designing your book cover.  I don't know about you but I personally like to be in control of my title and what my cover looks like even if it is quite a challenging thing to do.

     An example of this happened to me when I first self-published back in 2012 for the first time with a book that I titled: "The To Nowhere Train".  I actually wanted to title it: "The Train to Nowhere", but I found out there were many books with this title already, so hence the first title.  Now, I realize that book titles aren't copyrighted, but I also know that having your own book title identity is somewhat important. Yes, I know someone can come along and copy my book title eventually, but I think every author should at least try to be different.  Anyway, I received a (1) star review on this book just based on the "The To Nowhere Train" title alone.  It had nothing to do with the story, it was just that they thought the title was clumsy as they referred to it.  I have since unpublished this book and I am currently working on revising it because the book never really took off.  In the end, I did decide to change the name of this book and the look of the book cover. This is the great thing about self-publishing, you can change things as you go because you are in more control than you would be with traditional publishing.

     I ended up watching a lot of videos to help me with thinking up another title for this book.  The one thing I learned was that a writer needs to list a lot of main words on a page about what their book is about.  Then gather the best words and try to put them together.  What I learned about "The To Nowhere Train" was that the train really wasn't the main center point of this story, it was actually a red door. Yes, a train is in the book, but the red door is the key to the story. Anyway, I republish this book with the title of: "Beyond the Mysterious Red Door".  Here is also what the new book cover looks like.

     In case you're wondering if Pearly Gates is my actual name, it's not.  It's another pen name that I decided to use for this book series because it is more a Paranormal/Science Fiction Mystery.  I decided to use a different pen name for this genre.   Some authors will do this when they write in different genres.  If you haven't read my previous blog article: "Pen Names: Are They a Good Idea" it will explain why I've chosen to go this route.

   So are you struggling to come up with a good title for your book?  Here is a video that might just help you with this.  

     Here is also another video talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly book titles:

     So don't take titling your book for granted.  Take this seriously because any future reader you might obtain WILL!

     In my next blog entry, I am going to talk about writing a book description, and how getting this wrong can force your possible customer to go elsewhere.

 So stay tuned!