Every week I answer a question from a reader or writer here on my blog. You can add a question to the queue by putting it in the comments on any blog. This week’s question is:
How do you come up with titles for your books?
Titles are one of the hardest thing for me to come up with. I write 65,000-80,000 word novels usually so trying to encompass that book into a 2-5 word title is… hard. I want my titles to evoke something about the book, but also be pleasing for someone who has never read me and is just looking for an amazing historical romance. I oftentimes just scribble down every word I can think of to describe the book, the characters, the plot and then try to build something from that. Sometimes it’s easier (The Other Duke was a title I had in my head before the book, actually) and sometime it’s HARD.
Once I’m fully indie, all my titles will be chosen by me, of course. But when I was with HarperCollins, they often changed my titles, so I never expected anything I chose to stick. Probably about half my Avon titles were ones I picked and half were ones marketing came up with. So it really depends on the author and their situation when it comes to who picks the titles and how.
Any favorite titles? Not books, necessarily, but titles that have drawn you in?
