Titles. They can be a bitch. I always felt I had a bit of a knack for them because of my poetry days. You have to think up a lot of titles when you write poems. My finest (in my humble): “My Life as a Rash”; “Two Poets Assemble a VCR”, and my signature sestina, “Calories and Other Counts.”
First Place
I push my clients very hard to come up with good (selling) titles before we send out their books. And I toil beside them. It just makes it that much easier to sell if you can get the concept/tone/hook in the title. When the editor on the other end of the line says great title, you’re through the door.
Second Place
I’m always astonished by some of the titles for deals reported in Publisher’s Marketplace. Today, for instance, Pacific Rims. Is it just me or does this sound like a gay book set in Hawaii? Mahu Blood: this one is set in Hawaii and it’s a detective story. Mahu? Is this a fish?I love the sound of this one: Tarnsman of Gor, a 27-volume fantasy series (oh, to sell a franchise!). I really like Think of a Number. It’s a thriller and I love titles that take a figure of speech and creepify it. I felt that way about my client Eli Gottlieb’s Now You See Him. Then we have the generic titles: Small Miracles, Escape and, god help us, Window to the Soul.
Third Place
Filed under: Books, Publishing |
Betsy Lerner 
Album titles — that’s what I use as inspiration when I think of what to title a book (of mine). Albums that use the name of a song as its title don’t count, no matter how great the song is.
I love the Dave Matthews album title: August and Everything After. I’ve never heard the album – I hope there’s not a song called August and Everything After on it.
The old Oasis album: Definitely Maybe. This one I’ve listened to a lot, and it ‘s the kind of record that will make you feel OK if you have a lot of bad behavior to regret, but that is besides the point. It’s a great title.
The Beatles: Revolver. Even without the cover, it’s a killer title.
T Rex: Also, the best name for a rock band EVER.
I bought an album in 1973 by someone I’d never heard of, Renee Armand, because it was called Rain Book. I want to write a book called Rain Book.
I was reading record reviews in Q magazine a few years ago and there was a review for an album called Woodsmoke and Oranges. Just saying “Woodsmoke and Oranges” to myself makes me happy. I have no iea who made the record, I suspect it’s a folk singer (eww), but I remember the title after all these years. A three-word poem. Lovely.
Best book title ever: Gone WIth The Wind.
Right?
Your comment on Pacific Rims made me laugh so hard I spit coffee across my monitor. Then I laughed about that. Thank you, I needed that this morning.
Your comment on Pacific Rims was funny. Putting Mahu Blood right after it and asking if it’s a fish was even funnier.
A hilarious coincidence if it was unintentional. But a very subtly and smartly written “in-joke” if intended.
I find two of your three illustrated examples pretty mind boggling – poo and douch bags. I almost want to ask, are these for real? I suspect they are. And do they sell? Probably?
Until I bequeathed it to the Sally Ann, I possessed a copy of What’s Your Poo Telling You. The publisher, Chronicle, mailed it to me and I pitched it to my editor, this was two/three years ago. I review/profile tons of quirky books for a weekly, national magazine. Generally, the quirkier the better but my editor emailed back, “Nah, too gross.” Now I’m wondering if the thing got any press at all or if the title was a total schemozzle.
Whoever wrote the poo book should have a follow-up: I Have Big Nuts. Clearly, one would need large cajones to have one’s name on a poo book.
And Vivian, I’m with you on album/song titles. Once had a partially finished ms. – Lady Madonna. And I have a ms. lingering on the hard drive titled August After Everything, a riff on August and Everything After. But I believe it’s the Counting Crows.
Betsy, you’re one funny chick!
I so want to read “Two Poets Assemble a VCR.” Let’s see Dan Brown ink a title like that.
And then there’s:
CREEPIFY
(It crawled out of the last paragraph of your post.)