The title of the article says it all – we are talking about titles! A book title is a first impression, it’s how you know it and how you recommend it to friends. It gives the book its identity.
But what makes a title a good title? What makes a title a bad title? Does a bad title keep a good book from being great? Can the author choose whatever title, or should marketing and mass appeal be considered? Is it even all that important? I will try to answer those questions for myself and hopefully bring you some entertainment and food for thought in the process!
What is a Good Book Title?
I think that a book’s title can be judged in two ways: subjectively and objectively. Subjectively, you may like a title very much, others may find it awful. Those are the situations where you say: ”This sounds so cool!” , and your friend replies, ”I think it sucks”. That’s personal preference. You can talk about why you think that is, but you can’t prove someone right or wrong, so no point in arguing personal tastes.
However, I also think there are some objective measures you can use to judge how good a title is. For example, if you read a book titled ”How I lost a friend”, and neither a friend nor a loss come up throughout the whole book, readers might be disappointed or confused. Why would you choose a title that has nothing to do with the book? Maybe there are some instances where you want to purposefully use this in some strategic way, but generally, it seems to me that it’s best to avoid making promises and not deliver on them. So for me, a good book title should in some way give you an idea of what it’s about, or at least don’t deceive you.
To continue the route of what a book title probably should not be, I would say: too long and complicated. Nobody wants to see an essay as a book title, and that is more or less reflected nicely in most books. Think of all your favorite or famous books, and chances are most of them have a title that has 1 to 3 words. This makes it easier to remember and refer to. Plus, in that way it sounds more like a title than a description. There are exceptions of course, and a long title doesn’t necessarily mean a bad title.
Long and/or Complicated
Book titles that are a bit longer or complicated do, in my opinion, have a place in the ”great titles” category. Most titles are short and simple, so when something a bit more spicy comes up, it has a better chance to stand out. Authors can get creative or a bit provocative to make their work attract more attention. Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is quite a long title, but very memorable and attention grabbing. There are multiple beloved novels with long titles, like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Long, but memorable, and well suited to the book’s content.
In a special ”long title” category, I would put the titles of book series. It’s when you put the series name first and then follow up with a kind of series subtitle. The Harry Potter series comes to mind here. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a pretty long title, but no one is complaining. The series name is so recognizable that you don’t even think about it, you just accept that it exists by default. In that way, the title comes down to Order of the Phoenix.
So I would say it is definitely better to have a longer memorable title, than a short generic one. However, in most cases, a short and simple title does the job well, so I guess that’s why it is chosen most of the time.
By the way, one very famous book with a long title is Defoe’s Robinson Cruise. The original title being: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates. Written by Himself. It just rolls off the tongue!
Damage of a Poorly Chosen Title?
Can a poorly chosen title hold back a book’s success? I would say yes. You can have an amazing book that just doesn’t attract readers to pick it up if the title is off-putting. So I guess the biggest damage of a poorly chosen title is its potential struggle for good marketing and reaching audiences in the first place.
Then there is the other aspect of false promises with a title that I mentioned before. Even if it sounds good, if an author betrays or disappoints their readers with the title, they will likely stay away from the author’s future work.
And then there are titles which are just meh. They do the job, but they are nothing special. I’m curious how much thought an average writer puts into choosing a title. Is it something they brake their heads about or just choose something and move on?
Now, if a book is bad, no good title can help it. Still, a bad title does make it harder to market and sell the book, which is not in the interest of the author or publisher. This brings me to the next point: who exactly chooses the title?
Who Chooses the Title?
The obvious answer is that the author chooses the title. Since I have never published a book, nor do I have any experience in that industry, I have no idea how exactly all of it works. But I suspect that the publisher has a big say in that decision. The book publisher needs to think about being able to sell the work and make his business profitable, so I assume there are negotiations and suggestions on the topic of the title. Experienced publishers probably have a good idea from experience what titles sell well and grab the attention of readers. They also have literary experts who may be able to help with choosing a title that better fits the work as a whole.
In an ideal world, the author should have the last word on that, but I can imagine it is a back-and-forth process. The above points are written with traditional book publishing in mind, so when talking about self-publishing, I guess it’s a different story. I would love to hear comments from someone who actually went through the publishing process!
The Oscar-nominated movie American Fiction deals with some of those topics. Not a perfect movie, but a fun watch with a great performance by Jeffrey Wright. It’s probably even more interesting if you’re a writer yourself.
Different Types of Good Titles
I think a title can be good in different ways. It can simply sound good. It can sound good and have some deeper meaning. It can have a deeper meaning, but not sound too special.
Take Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I think this is a great title, it describes the book in more ways than one. It makes you appreciate it even more after you read it and think about all the psychological things going on. So it’s very easy to remember, straightforward, but at the same time has layers to it. However, just by judging how it sounds like, maybe it’s nothing too special. For example, Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita maybe lacks the depth of Crime and Punishment as a title, but it sounds better in my opinion.
I also have to mention Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, an instance where the series title is awesome, and the titles of individual books in the series also all have a very nice ring to them:
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows
A Dance with Dragons
The Winds of Winter
A Dream of Spring
Although no individual book title matches the title of the series in this case I would say!
Should You Even Care About the Title?
I can imagine there are a lot of people out there who don’t care about the title at all. As long as a book is good, that’s all that matters. And that’s totally fine. You read the book for its content, so that really is the most important aspect of a book. So if there is a book, either fiction or non-fiction, that has really valuable content for you, you’ll probably want to read it no matter the title.
For me however, a good title brings that extra something to the experience. It’s so much more fun every time you pick it up or every time you mention the book to friends. I sometimes read a book for weeks and still, after picking it up, think ”wow that is such an awesome title”. I guess it’s just fun to say cool names, be it in your head or out loud.
Of course, what’s cool and what’s not is for you to decide. With the objective things we talked about out of the way, at the end of the day, you will think about your experience with a book. So you choose how much you care about the title and how much fun you’ll have with it!
Some Cool Book Titles
Here I want to list some titles that I think are very good for whatever reason (only my opinion!):
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dune
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (sometimes I can’t decide if it’s a great or pretentious title)
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Devil Wears Prada
Pride and Prejudice
East of Eden
Sputnik Sweetheart
The Three Body Problem (you can read the review here)
The Master and Margarita
There are many more, but for now, those are some of my favorites I can think of. Shout out to all the authors, editors, and publishers who come up with cool book titles!
What are some of your favorite book titles?