Monday 31 January 2011

What’s in a Name? – 31st January 2011.

For several authors I know, choosing a title for their book is almost as hard as writing a good synopsis. Many authors start their book under a working title and then change it several times during the process of producing the first draft, indeed on one memorable occasion after four name changes it reverted back to the original working title.

There are endless “rules” – the two word rule, the three word rule and a multitude of other more obscure and frankly ridiculous guidelines which, simply put, don’t work. The most important thing about a title was it needed to be memorable, so once glanced, en passant, the casual browser would be drawn to it the next time they saw it or heard it. It of course also needs to, in an ideal world encapsulate some part of the book itself.

The more memorable the book title, the more it stands out. You tend to wonder if some of today’s classics would have worked with a different title, Animal Farm for example, or The Hobbit.

These days, though, you need to look further than simply a catchy title that encapsulates the book. My very first published book, the first book of my Seven Sisters trilogy, the eponymous one, suffers from several coincidental names when you search for it on-line. There are two books which also respond to that as a two word phrase, several geographical features and a large electrical contractor in America with the same name. As a result seeing the book on the first page of Google is often dependant on who is blogging about what.

Another of our books has a similar problem, we were quite happy with the title the author was using, there were no other books even close to that title. Unfortunately the three word title (and I’m not directly naming it to save the author’s blushes (Ed: Yeah – Right!)) also forms the first three words of a phrase that is used frequently to search for a particular youngish chef’s popular recipes. Instead of seeing the book on the first page you see lots of searches for the recipes for carbonara, foraccia, kedgeree or a Waldorf salad!

Sometimes Google can be such a pain.

Do you check your titles on Google and Amazon first?

Pen names can be an issue too, especially if, like me, your name has already been used in a well known context. Science Fiction buffs won’t need help to work out my particular problem – but for the rest of you 2001 A Space Odyssey has caused literally thousands of references to my name to appear all over Google. There are also two other authors, a Mormon writer, and an East Coast photographer that share my name. Since I want my real name associated with at least some of my work, what can I do?

So tell me, when you picked your pen-name, what research did you do?

3 comments:

  1. To date, my working title has remained the final title in all my work but one. Try working up a Greek myth type title with a lead character named Walt, lol. I've been lucky that my name is unusual enough that I haven't had issues the way you have so no pen name.

    My preference is for short titles. Most people aren't going to remember some long phrase no matter how poetic but a quick tease of what the story is about will stick. It's easier to plug into whatever search engine suits your fancy, too. (For future reference, however, any title I submit with a story is a working title until my publisher agrees to it.)

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  2. LOL. Very true, Deborah, very true.

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  3. Diane and I picked our book titles from phrases within the books (sort of). Our penname was a bit of a struggle though. I wanted to use both our real names, but Diane didn't. We finally compromised with our two initials and surname combined... so not much of an anonymous penname. Though I guess if we write in other genres we can invent something to match the genre... hmmm...

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