Monday 31 May 2010

My Kingdom For A Title

I must confess, I’m a title whore. Catchy book titles make me yearn to crack them open, discover their innerds. Case in point – Girl With A Dragon Tattoo. That immediately grabbed my attention. Another title – The Lovely Bones. Of course any Harlequin title with Sheikh in it gets my undivided attention too! I could go on and on.

So imagine my frustration when I can’t seem to come up with any decent ones for my books! I had a book titled From A Whisper To A Scream, which I particularly loved.

Unfortunately, I was alone in that title love. That book, sold to AN Other publisher, went on to become another title, which I loved btw and almost wished I’d come up with myself.

But I’m beginning to realise that I have no talent when it comes to naming my stories. That said, I know not to sweat the small stuff because there’s someone whose job it is to come up with a title that sells the book. Can’t help wishing that maybe… just once, I could come up with a knockout title that blows an editor’s sock off.

Yeah, I know, I’ll carry on dreaming…

How about you? Do book titles make you want to read or scream?

11 comments:

  1. I am a hopeless titler. Just can't do it. I think I've only come up with two titles I actually liked in all the 20 years I've been writing! So I come up with stupid titles instead of serious ones. For my wips, they're inevitably called after the heroine and that's about it. Thank God for marketing departments I say! ;-)

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  2. I hate writing titles, just as well it doesn't matter too much. I'm with Jackie, thankfully there are marketing peops to do it instead.

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  3. Yeah, as you can see above, I've gone your way with naming my stories after my hero and heroine! But I still dream, you know?

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  4. Thank God for marketing peeps, Lorraine! I guess they're the reason I keep buying more books than I can ever read in a lifetime :)

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  5. I love writing titles. I guess I'm just lucky that way. The title comes first, and the book comes later. Its getting the book to come later thats my problem!

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  6. oh, ps. I think nailing a tagline helps with the title. Am doing a post on taglines next, hope it helps! (otherwise we can have a minxy skype session on your title!)

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  7. Sometimes I go with titles first too before I start the story, but I'm finding out (much to my regret) that they're never any good, hehehee. Yes, might need some minx help on naming some of the mss!

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  8. I hate thinking up titles - my attempts always make me cringe.

    XX

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  9. Lol, Sally. I tend to love mine, except I seem to be the only one!

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  10. Erg. I kind of liked the title of my first book, which has been retitled (LOL), but now I just slap a working title on it. Marketing has made me lazy. I'm just glad other people do it, and not me! (in my last submission though, my heroine is a public relations specialist, so, I working titles it Public Relations, Private Mistress, because I COULD NOT stop myself. :-) )

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  11. Maisey, lol on not being able to stop yourself. I do like your title though, very very sassy!

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