Guest post by Erastes
We’ve talked about covers, and we’ve talked about expectations but today I’m going to quickly say something about titles.
Do titles have any impact on your deciding to pick up a book?
Be honest now.
They do for me. I don’t have much time to shop for books and I’ll skim somewhere like Fictionwise and I admit very honestly that if a title sounds dull or evokes the sort of thing I can’t bear reading for pleasure (and no, you aren’t going to get me to admit that, do you think I’m entirely mental? Don’t answer that.) then I’ll simply skim past. I’m more likely to pick up something like “Feathers in Florence” than “The Weregild of Araminthia” for example, even if they are about the same subject.
There’s a ton of ways that an author uses to select a title. Sometimes they’ll pick a part of a quote (I have a novella yet to be finished called “Shoulders of Giants” for example. Sometimes it will be something that describes the theme of the piece. My “Chiaroscuro” reflects that the main protagonist is an artist, and that the word means the contrast between dark and light. “Transgressions” is pretty obvious–and my newest, which will be out shortly is called “Tributary” which plays on the theme that the protag has reached a fork in the road of his life.
For impact – how can you be sure you aren’t doing the same as someone else? Personally, when I decide on a title, I do a bit a research. I do a Google, and I do a search on Amazon and Googlebooks. There’s probably an internet page which lists every book ever to ensure you don’t overlap, but I haven’t found it yet. The good thing about book titles is that they aren’t copyrighted, so if you REALLY wanted to call your book “The Turn of the Screw” or “Great Expectations” then there’s nothing to stop you, but people will probably snigger at you. There is a book out this month by Ann Herendeen which is Pride and Prejudice fanfic about Darcy/Bingley (among others) which is snappily called Pride/Prejudice. That’s pretty clever, I have to admit, because slash lovers at least will understand the reference.
An author has to be careful that their title isn’t misconstrued, too. A well known author in the genre has had to change the working title of three of her books, because they meant different things to her, as an English writer, than they did to American audiences. It’s always best to ask around, because you don’t want to stuck with a title called “Faggots in the Wood” when you’ve written a story about some guy who lives in the forest collecting bundles of wood, and then offending everyone in the gay fiction universe. (Made up title, entirely tongue in cheek, by the way.) But with the famous/infamous case of “Beautiful Cocksocker” it is possible to insult people, and the genre was split down the middle with that one. However–that being said–we’ve all heard of it, even if we haven’t read it!
What’s disappointing for me is that I’m seeing quite a few books with duplicated titles – and for a genre that’s so young, it’s a bit surprising. There’s two Tangled Webs that I know of, a Lover’s Knot and a Lovers’ Knots, at least two m/m Sins of the Father (not to mention other books of the same title, and a film.)
Again, personally, I prefer to have–if not a completely unique title–then as unique as I can make it.
I don’t think I’ll be using the title from that cover, though….
What do you think? Perhaps the title is one of the least effective marketing tools, or I suspect it might be (I think book trailers are the very least effective) but a title is something every book has to have, whereas it doesn’t need a trailer.
So readers: What influence does a title have? Do you care or not about titles with the same as other books? Are you tempted to read something with a risque title?
Authors: How do you choose a title?
All: What’s the best/cleverest title you can think of? Or the worst?
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I would totally buy ‘Faggots in the Wood’ for the sheer LOL value.
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Maybe the duplication of titles is because of film or song titles, such as the ‘Sins of the Fathers’ one you mentioned. Popular culture has a lot to answer for *g*
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There was a piece of online software a few years ago that rated book titles on how catchy they were and how likely readers would pick it up and buy it. As I recall, anything with a definite article was a winner, as was anything with a command or even an infinitive, which would probably make the most effective title something like ‘Stop to Buy the Book’. How scientific this test was, I’m not sure.
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Personally I pick something descriptive but basic or take words from a quote. I rarely buy a book based on title alone, so as long as the title gives me an indication of what’s contained within, I don’t mind too much.
The titles I particularly hate, and one trend we haven’t yet seem mirrored in gay fiction is the pattern of “definite article-profession-adjective-type of of person” e.g. “The Billionaire’s reluctant husband”
http://facstaff.unca.edu/pbahls/TitleGenerator.html
But I dare say it will come. We’ll get it all eventually.
There’s JL Langley’s “His Convenient Husband”, which uses that pattern, but that works for me, because it’s a witty take on the conventional romance titles. It’s like them, but with that crucial difference that makes you go “Hang on…”
I’m very bad at remembering titles unless they are exceptional. I’m better at remembering covers! So I hate it when the romance publishers reuse cover art.
Titles are a weird one for me to come up with. They either show up fully formed in a burst of inspiration, or I have to sweat blood over them and the result usually sucks. There’s no middle ground.
oh dear… faggots go so well with bacon and oxtail
I think book titles will make me pick up the book to investigate further or pass it as “I know” I wouldn’t be interested in it. So it is quite important in terms of getting readers’ attention, I don’t think it will lead to ultimate buying decision (solely) on the title, but you certainly don’t want readers to miss out on your book just because you put a bad or silly title for your work!
I expect the book title to convey the “mood” and, to a certain extend, the sub-genre of the book. For example, a comedic romance should have a funny title or at least light-hearted one. I skim many titles with strong BDSM or menage implications because I already know they are not for me – so if you use a title that misrepresent your story, that’s… not good.
that’s a good point, thelastaerie,- I don’t want to find that the book has misrepresented itself, and that “Rockstar” is about fossil hunters or something.
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Titles I liked recently include Ice Cream on the Side, Hemovore, She’s Got Balls, and Man-Amorphosis.
I agree, they were intriguing, specially Hemovore!
Actually, I love when a book title is vague but then the author finds a way to pull the title into the book in a way that just clicks.
The best analogy of this I have is not m/m but is the book The Color Purple. It is only referenced toward the end but it works in such a profound way.
It can work, but I’ve sometimes closed a book and thought “why the hell was it called that?”
You ask such hard questions. I think if a book is trying to be serious and is called “Faggots in the Woods” which invokes the 12 year old boy giggles in me (North American background) it’s not good. Do I care? Well, of course it grabs your attention first as you said skimming through lists of books. I like the title to say something about the book. Can I tell it’s a fantasy vs an historical. I just read a short called “We Are Such Stuff” and I have no clue why it’s called that. The phrase isn’t in the book and maybe there is some profound meaning connecting to the theme (how much theme in 12 pages?) but I found the whole book confusing let alone the title.
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I can’t think of a book though I’ve passed because of a title. A title combined with a cover yes. It may show me that a) it’s combo I don’t care for m/f or m/f/m b) it’s in a genre I’m not big on (historical or fantasy) but usually even if I’m not keen on the title I’ll least look at the blurb to see if it’s to my taste. So on the whole I don’t really care about the title that much. Unless it’s god awful of course.
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I do find it annoying though when books have similar titles because I think it’s one book when it’s another. In the same genre anyway. I’m unlikely to be confused by a book of children’s poetry and an m/m romance of the same title as I won’t know the other exists, but as you say, in m/m which is still fairly new you’d think there’d be a way to ensure that doesn’t happen. I know if you go to Good Reads and “add a new book” and type in a name it will give you all the books registered there that have the same name or something similar. I’m always amazed sometimes how many will come up, of course not necessarily in the genre but still there.
Exactly, Tam, and as I said, it is possible to do a fair bit of searching to see if your book title already exists, and sometimes i wish authors put a bit more thought into them when I see the same titles repeating already.
Prospero:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158
I think titles influence me more for a “yay/nay” decision than a cover does. Of course, Satan Burger is the exception to that rule–the cover is terrible, as it the title. But, even if Beautiful Cocksucker won a Pulitzer Prize, I doubt I’d read it. I also have no interest in Immortality is the Suck, even though it’s gotten quite a few positive reviews.
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I like titles that tie into the story in clever ways, such as Frost Fair. The story takes place during the 1814 Frost Fair on the Thames (and I never knew about that before reading the book) but it is also the main character’s last name. And Gideon Frost was a perfect name, too.
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In my own writing, I find that the title comes to mind fairly early in the process. It usually occurs in the “aha!” moment of inspiration as the story is forming in my mind.
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L
Well, I’m guilty of my own accusation there, Leslie – Frost Fair isn’t a unique title at all – there are quite a lot of other books with the same title – both fiction and non-fiction. But it fits the theme!
I think I am more put off – or attracted – by a book’s cover than by the title. Maybe I’m more visually oriented? Unless a book has a very unique or striking title, I more easily recognize it by the cover.
I’m with you, Wren, I think it’s the cover that really clinches it for me.
Titles do impact my buying decisions.
My favorite m/m titles are the ones with layers of meaning, like False Colors, or colorful titles like Death of a Pirate King. I like titles that make me stop and read them a second time and wonder what they can be about, like Remastering Jerna or A Note in the Margin. Also, well thought-out titles that are visceral, like As Meat Loves Salt or A Strong and Sudden Thaw. And titles that are just simply lovely, like Frost Fair and The Twilight Gods. I love titles that give a strong sense of the book’s overall theme. And titles that charm me and promise a complex story with emotional impact.
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Titles that put me off buying are the ones that persuade me (usually along with the cover art) that the book is primarily about teh sex. Those titles are too numerous to list.
I personally like stories that are more about the romance than the sex, so at least the sex-themed titles are useful in letting me know which books to steer clear of.
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I also don’t like a title that makes me feel as though the point of it is to deliberately manipulate me into buying (rather than being the best title to suit the book). Maybe “Beautiful Cocksucker” was the best title to suit that book, but I’ll never know because it was too crass and blatantly manipulative to make me want to look at it twice. Guess I am pig-headed that way. YMMV.
Whistling in the Dark was a lovely title, and perfectly suited to that book (I have the right Mara, right?)
That was also one where I liked the cover, too. A perfect combo.
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L
Thank you, Leslie. It’s the only title I’ve ever chosen before writing the story. It’s a title I share with an excellent coming-of-age thriller which wins away a quarter of readers hunting for the title on Amazon. Whether that helps or hurts me, I’m not sure. But in future, I think I’ll try to come up with more unique titles. (Still, even if I’d known, I couldn’t have changed Whistling because I knew that was the right title from the moment I had the idea.)
Absolutely, Mara, you make every point I should have done!
Not to channel a 90’s hit on purpose, but isn’t it ironic that when I saw the name of your book Chiaroscuro I thought well that is an original surely not duplicated title and Hey I read that book …so that is what that word means. Then I realized the one I read is by Jenna Jones.
I think not duplicating titles would be really really difficult. The only true exceptions would be for made-up words and names. These are the titles that I find myself most willing to breeze on past. I am not sure why as I am a huge sci-fi / fantasy fan. I just am leary about picking up a book that is going to make me learn a whole new and what might be daunting vocabulary, if it starts in the title I imagine it can only get more complex from there.
Yes – as with Frost Fair, Chiaroscuro was a deliberate – I knew that Jenna’s existed, but assumed it was about cooking, going by the title, not the artform. I agree wit you about made up names. Specially if it has a lot of z’s in it!
I do think common phrases should be avoided. Not only is there too much risk of duplication, there’s the danger of readers thinking, “Couldn’t s/he come up with something more original than that? If the title is so unimaginative, what’s the story like?”
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Yeah, I’m definitely swayed by them, as one of my guest blogs for Wave suggested.
I often end up having to retitle my books as mine are seldom sexy enough.
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GLAD HANDS… I was sitting in class in truck-driving school and the minute the teacher said those words, I knew I was going to use them as a title for a trucking novel. (Glad hands are the airhose connectors)
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Heart of A Forest started out as All in the Merry Greenwood. It came too damn close to being Naughty in Nottingham. Eight Days Ablaze was originally Burning for Eight Days. My editor said that sounded like a yeast infection. (I then proceded to refer to it as “Burning and Itching for Eight Days”)
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These days I mostly read books by people I know. That said, I’m more likely to pick up “Candy in the Dumpster” than “From a Chinese Tattoo” although both are horror anths, based solely on title.
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I like layered titles. When I came up with an evil carnival and poor Nicky who “covers teh ghay with Jezus” (as they say on lolcats), I knew “Alive on the Inside” was the proper title. It is the classic come-on. It refers to Nick’s internal deadening in the name of God. It has a couple of other meanings that are spoilers.
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The worst title? Any of the Harlequin presents.
The Greek Tycoons secret mistress’ suprise baby’s inconvenient bride. On the m/m side, anything using song lyrics. Seriously.
I find it frustrating when m/m books have the same title it makes finding and cataloging a chore and accidental erasing all too possible. I wish more people would check first or compare titles. To me the title doesn’t really matter. That said I do appreciate witty, apropos, or terrible titles purely for amusement. I can see it being a bother to browse all of fictionwise new books or subjects by title I have actually gotten to the point of searching by publishers because i often miss a good one just going by title.
Apt discussion, as I have a WIP I’m about to finish and am agonizing over the title, as the working title is really generic and stupid. I think a lot of the good titles people have mentioned are good because they’re memorable — they’re interesting or use a clever turn of phrase. And I appreciate a good title. Though, as a writer, I suck at coming up with them.
Personally I like witty titles. Things like Charmed and Dangerous or Every Witch way etc. (of course not the best out there)
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What turns me off at the moment is simple titles. Like Christine Feehan did with her series. Dark Lover, Dark Soul, Dark This Dark That. *rolls eyes*
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That and provocative titles. To me it’s important a title reflects the story or one of the characters. If you can’t do that, then make it funny!
I have terrible, terrible problems with titles, as you know. ‘Captain’s Surrender’ was chosen for me by the publisher – it started life as ‘A Sea Change’. False Colors was suggested by Lee, and then I started getting into the streak of titles that apparently have something to do with baseball even though the book doesn’t… I wish I could farm out my titling to someone who does it better.
I like unusual titles, particularly if I can’t immediately tell what relevance it has. I love the titles of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency books, which are long and gently whimsical. And I would definitely pick up “The Weregild of Araminthia” in preference to “Feathers in Florence.”
I’m funny, I get the title from early on. My next release, “Test of Faith”, is really about that. A Templar and a Saracen in 1187, faith and sex and hope and death. It’s not a flashy title, more the quiet and profound title. No idea if people will like that, I’ve been told it’ll turn off the pagans and the Christians and anybody looking for easy smut. Well, but it fits the title.
Regarding “Beautiful Cocksucker” (not -socker) – I actually read the book in question (and its sequel), and it was well-written and hot. I do admit it gave me pause for a moment, but I’m not the type to get turned off a book if just one of many criteria are “wrong”. The writing was good, and that’s the main thing for me. All that snickering and sneering about that title seems a tiny bit juvenile (“look, he’s got red hair”) when it should really be about other qualities (just my few euro cents…)
The other title I did, “Deliverance”, was another one of those where I knew what the story is called/will be about, another faith/religion/identity story, and “Deliverance” can mean several things. Freedom from loneliness, a new approach to one’s faith…whatever. It’s a bit open for interpretation, but it resonates well with the story.
Then there’s “Return on Investment”, which is a financial term and so very, very dark when applied to human relationships. The sense of exploitation and manipulation is right there in athe title – lucky it’s a gay financial thriller.
“Special Forces”, my long long free epic gay soldier story is a pun. Love is a “special force”, is it not? The fact that the guys in question are also kick-ass hardcore soldiers just works there, too.
And “Not America” is a Bowie quote. But that was for a Bowie anthology and isn’t m/m, but zombie apokalypse in London’s financial sector.
Yeah. I could write an essay on all my titles. I might just, but I’ll stop here.
I’m terrible at titles. I rarely pick one till the story is done for precisely that reason. I envy people who can know, before a story starts, what to call it. I generally end up referring to the story as “the monstrosity” or “the horror” when I’m writing it, because it seems to have gotten so big and out of control. And on the few occasions when I have named the story early on, I’ve had to change the name later.
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That said, there are some kinds of titles that I honestly don’t like. I don’t like books that name themselves after other books, films or TV shows, because I always feel such titles are trying to cash in on the fame of some other writer’s work.
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I do like clever titles that have more than one meaning, such as “False Colors” (both a ship and a person can sail under false colors, for example); titles that allude to other works, like Guy Gavriel Kay’s “Sailing to Sarantium” or Terry Pratchett’s “The Fifth Elephant”; or titles that hint at some portion of the plot without overtly explaining what they mean. And I’d definitely read something called “The Weregild of Araminthia.”
Titles are odd for me, in that a really good one can definitely cause me to give a book a closer look, while a bad one might make me laugh but not deter me from looking closer.
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Part of the problem with similar or identical titles (from personal experience, sadly) is that sometimes you’ve got a book coming out with a publisher while someone else has a very different book with a different one, and you guessed it: same title.
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In my case, my book “The One That Got Away” came out within two weeks of Urban & Roux’s book of the same name. Both m/m, different publishers, very different stories… and no way of knowing until then (which may be an unusual way for this to happen).
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I like titles within a series to have some common element tying them together, though I think those linked titles should be interesting or clever or at least give some hint as to what happens in the story. That said, titles really aren’t my forte. *blushes*
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I’d also read the Weregild of Araminthia, btw. Just because it sounds interesting. Rather, I’d be more likely to check out the blurb, based upon title than I would for Feathers in Florence. LOL
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~Tis
I like catchy titles, but I hate titles that are a bastardization of famous titles like “How the West Was Done”
For “The Filly,” a title which has a double meaning I was surprised to find out it was so un-common. There were no books on Amazon that used it and the few kiddie books that had were long out-of-print and forgotten.
Mark
Oh, geez, not another Austen knockoff. Quelle surprise.
But you must write Faggots in the Wood. That cover’s very appealing, even though my first reaction was “Wow, that boy has the biggest asparagus I’ve ever seen!” (Sorry, that’s how the color comes out on my monitor.)
As for “cocksucker,” beautiful or not, no. I know the name “McDonald’s,” too, but I never eat the stuff. BC makes me think of a very small child who might not even know what a word means, but says it to get attention. I might buy the book if I’d read the author’s work before and knew it to be good, but not if that’s the first title I see from that writer. Vocabulary counts in my shopping list.
Worst possible title(s):
The (Ethnic) (plutocrat’s) (adjective) (adjective) (subservient feminine occupation) or (Gerund) the (adjective) (dominant male occupation). These things are such parody-bait it amazes me that anyone still uses them, but they do make for fun web generators.
Oh, and anything with “seducing.” Call me a romantic, but to me, that implies one party taking advantage, and I don’t think you have a snowball’s chance of HEA when one partner “seduces” another. You don’t have to ’seduce’ someone who’s genuinely in love.
My titles… are not the most original, but they aren’t swiped from any famous work or pop music, and it’s usually clear how they relate to the story. (I knew there were other books with Ransom in the title, but what else could I have called it?) When it turned into a series, I thought of doing “Winds” titles (except that a) Mercedes Lackey had already done that, and b) more to the point, so had Herman Wouk. A friend gave me “Eye of the Storm” when I was describing the short break in the decades-long conflict involving England, France, and most of Europe.
Tangled Web was a case of my checking, seeing that there was a story with a very different plotline that had been out for awhile, and my editor deciding that it wasn’t likely to be mistaken for my book. (Another possible title was ‘Masks.’) And then, after TW was in Running Press’ catalog, another m/m TW showed up. (If googled without author name, though, I find a lot of yarn and knitting sites…)
I like titles that are reasonably short, clearly related to the content of the story, and not too obviously lifted from recent pop culture. Frost Fair is a good example. St. Nacho’s is clever, gives a strong sense of place, and fits the story. Series that are easy to place (like the Lessons In books) are okay for a limited run, but sometimes that gets unwieldy (what’s Janet Evanovich up to in her “one for the money” mystery series now, fifteen?)
Yeah, titles count. What’s in a name? You call a rose a skunk cabbage and it may smell the same, but who’s going to get close enough to find out?
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