Thursday, March 19, 2009

Creating a Title for a Book

Publisher informs me she doesn't like the working title on my book of interviews, Fame. It will have a subtitle but I worked hard to find this main title. Ideally, in my mind, a book's title should be
  • unique
  • memorable
  • short (A big marbly mouthful can work if it's fun to say, such as Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form, or What Narcissism Means to Me. Nobody would have read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius had it been titled Generation Y Male Discovers That Life is Hard.)
  • fun to say
  • intriguing
  • appealing (the sunny version of "intriguing")
  • convey the gist of the book
  • pleasing to the author
Publisher suggested calling it InterViews but that title doesn't meet my criteria.

My impulse is to keep my choice, but we'll brainstorm for something we agree on. I brainstormed and searched for my poetry book's title, Fierce Consent, for four solid months. The phrase was in the manuscript. The right title often hides out there.

1 comment:

  1. Titles are the hardest things ever.

    I like "Fame"-- except that it does make me think of the musical. But I can easily open to it representing something else.

    Your comment on AHWOSG is hilarious. You're absolutely right.

    ReplyDelete