Hi everyone
Does anyone have any tips/ ideas of how to come up with a book title? It took me ages to come up with the one I have 'damaged', I googled it and couldn't find many books with that title. But then someone told me it's actually quite a popular one, and a search on iBooks confirmed this. Now I'm back to the drawing board.
I didn't think it would be this hard to think of a title!
Thanks
Not sure what others do but I tend to jot ideas down while I'm writing the story or even notes for an outline. So far that's given me a half-dozen or so options before I'm halfway through, sometimes before I've even begun.
The first book title was a biblical reference and had been used by several other authors but at the time I thought it suited the storyline quite well and my alternatives weren't as good. With a few years hindsight I'm not so sure, but no point changing it now!
The second referred to a line of conversation in the story which was an oblique reference to a period comment by Napoleon. That seemed to work quite well too, being a single word action adventure-ish title that matched the story style. The publishers liked it enough to keep it.
At the moment the third story's title is a naval term as there's a sea battle halfway through and an ending which involves a gang of sailors. I've got 4 alternative options so far if I decide to change because again, it's been used before (though not for a novel). But the fourth story (it's a series) has a title I thought of when I came up with the original idea. I have another 8 options for this one, mainly because I was trying to improve on that I first thought of, but none of them seem to fit as well. Plus it's never been used before.
Bear in mind that if publishers picks up your book they may not like what you've chosen, however long you agonised over it :(