How to Choose a Title for Your Book

Choosing a title for your book is one of the most important parts of the publishing process. Your book title is a large part of what attracts readers to your story and gets them to pick it up. I thought I’d write about this topic today because I’ve just changed the title of my current work in progress and thought walking you through why I did this might help anyone else playing around with title ideas.

My book primarily takes place during one weekend at a hotel on the marsh in Charleston, South Carolina and tells the story of a fashion blogger who is questioning her identity and a man with a secret who steps in as her photographer during a sponsored trip that goes terribly wrong. Originally, I was thinking of calling the story The Influencer. I liked this title for several reasons. One: I thought it was punchy. Two: I thought it was timely. And three: I thought it worked for my genre (women’s fiction).

What wasn’t working for me was this: At its core the book is a love story just like my last novel, Waiting at Hayden’s and I didn’t feel like The Influencer made this clear. My editor said the story reminds her a bit of Before, Sunrise. Like that movie, it’s full for lots of philosophical conversations about life and love and takes place over a short period of time. While a blogger is one of the main characters and social media plays a role in the story, it is not what the book is about.

So I changed the title to One Perfect Weekend instead.

Here’s what I love about this:

1. It’s clear that it’s a love story (so it will attract the right audience!). If readers can’t tell from the title that a book is up their alley, it’s unlikely they will pick it up and even check out the back cover copy.
2. It’s short and easy to remember (so important!). You want readers to be able to easily recommend your book to their friends and not forget it. Word of mouth is one of the biggest ways your readership grows. And you want the friends they recommend it to to easily be able to search for it.
3. It hasn’t been used before. A lot of book titles are recycled. And I get why! There are so many books out there, it can be hard to come up with one that hasn’t been used already. But with an original title, when readers search for the book, there will be no confusion that the one they find is the one they were recommended.
4. I love the sound and feel of it. I made several mock-ups of my front cover just to play around with how different titles felt when I saw them on a “real” book cover. When I saw The Influencer, it felt wrong. I tried out several others. And when I printed out the sample that read One Perfect Weekend, I thought: that’s it! If you are trying to decide between a few different titles for your current work in progress, that can be a fun exercise.

Are you working on a story? I’d love to hear your title and what it’s about!