It’s the Titular Role
About Book Titles
Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today to talk about book titles because I needed a topic that was not too long or too difficult. February is my least favorite month and I am at the end of my creative energy. Unfortunately, March around always begins with a reprise of the worst parts of February so it might be all low-effort Shelf Lifes till the Ides. Which is fine, the low-effort Shelf Lifes are everyone’s favorites, including mine.
Today’s Shelf Life, as I already said, is about book titles. This will be a short and inconsequential Shelf Life because titles are the shortest and most inconsequential part of the book (or the short story, novella, play, or whatever).
I know authors don’t always feel this way. I see a lot of hopeful authors on social discussing how much they hope their agent or publisher won’t try to change their title; or boldly stating that they’d never allow an agent or editor to make a change to their title; because they’ve already got their heart set on the title of their book and neither hell nor high water will get them to change it.
Which I understand, because as the writer of many things I often feel like the title I have put on something is very important. It might carry multiple layers of meaning and I like the ring of it and maybe it was that title that generated the idea for that story in the first place. Perhaps the title’s been in my mind longer than the story.
I had an editor last year blithely (I say blithely but this was over email so I really have no idea how they said it) suggest I change the title on a story I had been toiling over for months and I was so irritated. The editor had a good, solid reason for their suggestion, which in summary was that current (at that time) political events—that occurred after I had written and titled the story—shared some key words with my title. The editor pointed out that anyone who saw the title was likely to make a (wrong) assumption about the story being related to the political thing.
Let me tell you: I wanted to respond to the email with a point by point explanation of why the title was well actually a perfect fit for the story and explain the layers upon layers of meaning but—
I would not have the opportunity to do that with a reader. I would not have the opportunity to tap a reader on the shoulder if they were getting the wrong impression about the title, and say “Hey, I’m the author and let me explain about the title for you.” Further, as I submit the story to magazine editors and contest judges for consideration, I don’t have the opportunity to explain it to them (and their slush readers).
It is worth considering that we, writers and authors, feel that we know our story best. After all, we wrote it. Sometimes, though, a fresh set of eyes sees something we can’t. We’re too close to see some things on a big-picture level.
Let me ask you this: Are you a fan of the novel The Last Man in Europe? That’s what George Orwell wanted to call his opus but his publisher didn’t see the title as marketable so they persuaded him to go with his second choice—1984—instead. Another good example is Strangers from Within, which William Golding’s editor at Faber and Faber suggested he ditch in favor of Lord of the Flies.
Lots of working titles change (sometimes many times) before the final one is settled on but I picked these two because, anecdotally, the author had chosen the title they wanted and publisher personnel came along and said “you really need to change this” and they did and that’s why none of us read The Last Man in Europe in high school.
The title is a book is part of the content, like the text and any illustrations between the covers. But it is also part of the book’s marketing materials—like the synopsis on the back cover, the author bio, and any endorsements you and/or the marketing team collected from your fellow authors. That makes the title unique among all the parts of the book.
I know a lot of people think of the cover as part of the content but it’s not. It’s a marketing tool that often (not always) reflects the content within. The cover exists to entice readers to buy. As does the copy on the back cover (or inside front dust jacket flap) that describes the plot in a hopefully intriguing way to get readers interested enough to buy.
Even if you’re completely closed to feedback on your title from agents, editors, beta readers, and other publishing personnel, you should bear in mind that it is at least 50 percent marketing tool and will influence readers’ purchasing decisions. To that end, let’s consider a few truths about story titles.
Titles Aren’t Copyrightable
First, titles are not protected by copyright and there is no requirement—neither legal nor ethical—that titles be unique. Multiple books can have the same title. Do you have any idea how many books there are titled Person of Interest? I don’t either because I stopped counting after a full page of Amazon search results.
This means you could name your regency romance novel Pride and Prejudice and no one could stop you. However, you will have a terrible time getting your book to come to the top of the search results because you will almost certainly never be the Pride and Prejudice someone is looking for. You should try to choose a title that doesn’t already belong to a famous book, or at least not a famous book in your same genre that could be mistaken for yours. That’s only going to lead to search engine optimization problems for you and probably cost you money in returns when people buy your book by accident.
That said, you needn’t search the Library of Congress’s archives to make sure your title is unique and has never been used before. It probably has been. And that doesn’t matter unless it’s a title that large amounts of readers are already searching for.
This also means that if you choose the perfect title for your book and someone else comes along and uses that title for their book, you can’t sue them or anything just because you thought of that title first.
Title Constructions Follow Trends
It’s not an unusual phenomenon for book titles to kind of bunch up around trendy constructions. Consider A Song of Ice and Fire, the series of books by George RR Martin that contains A Game of Thrones et al. This construction:
A [noun] of [noun(s)] and [noun(s)]
Has become a popular one in the last few years, especially since the TV show aired, and especially in the fantasy fiction space, for instance:
A Court of Thorns and Roses (Sarah J Maas)
House of Earth and Blood (it’s Sarah J Maas again but with a different series)
Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Jennifer Armentrout)
Look, I could go on. There are just so many. I found so many more.
Another popular one that I particularly hate is the construction that goes:
The [person identified by their job]’s [another person identified by relationship to that first person]
For instance,
The Bonesetter’s Daughter (Amy Tan)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
The Orphan Master’s Son (Adam Johnson)
Listen, I don’t know about you, but I like my characters identified by who they are and not as an appendage of somebody else.
Anyway, all this to say, a certain grammatical construction will come into vogue for book titles, carry on for a bit, and then lose momentum after a while. What you do with this information is up to you—jump on the trend? Avoid it like the plague? I only suggest you consider whether the title you have chosen falls into a title fad and, if it does, be sure you’re comfortable with that.
Titles Are and Aren’t That Important
When I say “are and aren’t” what I mean is this. If a book becomes popular, a bestseller, then famous, and then ultimately a classic, the title it has will come to feel iconic. It won’t matter which of your top three choices for title you chose—whichever one ultimately is associated with the book will feel like that perfectly fitting title to all your readers and fans and they won’t be able to imagine it with any other title.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was almost titled The War of the Rings. If that feels wrong and like the series wouldn’t be as impactful with that title, I think that’s just our bias for the title we’ve associated with the beloved series for like seventy years. Likewise, Lolita by Nabakov had a working title of The Kingdom by the Sea. If the book had come out with the title The Kingdom by the Sea, that would be the iconic title we’re all attached to and if somebody said “You know, they almost changed the title of that book to Lolita?” we would all be like “oh I’m so glad they didn’t that’s a terrible title for this book it doesn’t feel right at all.”
So what I mean is, while a title might become iconic in the fullness of time, they don’t start out that way. Whatever title you slap on your book is the one whose fortunes will rise or fall with your book.
If you have a choice of two titles:
One title you feel is deeper, more meaningful, and more reflective of your book; and
Another title that is catchier, more marketable, and more likely to help move units
Consider that no book’s title becomes iconic unless (a lot of) people read the book.
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