In fine-dining game, they say that you eat first with your eyes. Because even the best quality food prepared by a culinary artist—but slopped onto a chipped, plate ringed with rust stains is simply not appetizing. This same logic applies to books.
Oh, but we do judge books by their covers…
How important is a title for your book? It’s so important that publishers often, (like 90% of the time) have contractual right to determine book titles without author-approval.
As I have written before, traditional publishing is in trouble and the publishing employee who makes bad choices not only loses the money that the publishing house put into the book, they lose the money the publishing house would’ve potentially made, had they backed another horse/book/metaphor thingy.
A lot of freelancers “used to be in publishing” for a reason
Seems extreme? We’re talking anywhere from $50,000 to $300,000 in revenue—or loss for a first book, even more for a book from an established author.
So, while that edgy or poetic or evocative title that came to you in a dream sings to your heart, if it doesn’t drive sales by stirring interest in your book, it's useless. So, you best believe that the publisher has some wiz-bang marketing types ready to roll out a title that will, (hopefully) get some cha-chings-a-ringing. Those marketing mavens understand how titles speak to readers—how bad titles can confuse a reader or worse, completely fly under the readers’ attention.
How did we get here?
There are writers who, through relationships with publishers or success in sales, get some leeway on their titles. Thomas Harris’ first book, Black Sunday was a smash. About a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl, the title really sold the drama as well as the tone of the times. But if Black Sunday was published today, readers would be more inclined to think it’s about our (U.S.) tradition of full-contact consumerism.
Harris’ follow up, The Red Dragon also captured the imagination of thriller readers, whether they “got” the reference to the William Blake painting or not. Harris was going great guns, right? Then came his third book: Silence of the Lambs.
Needle scratch
Yeah, nobody got that one. Contrary to popular mystique, the book was not a hit… at first. You had to read the book to understand the title. The cover art, (butterflies with Punisher-skull tattoos or something) did the book no favors and readers had no idea what was going on. It would take multiple glowing reviews, awards, and book club inclusions for Harris’ book to find a second life in paperback.
The publishers took no chance with the follow up and Hannibal KILLED it in sales. Likewise Hannibal Rising.
No author is immune, even the late-great Ellmore Leonard. For every Bandits or Killshot—on-message, direct, the reader knows what the book is about—there is a Get Shorty. Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark) wrote The Score and Somebody Owes Me Money, but he also wrote Lemons Never Lie.
Seriously, what does that even mean?
Love them or not, there is no disputing the magic of John Sandford’s book names: Rules of Prey, Shadow Prey, Eyes of Prey, et al. Those titles are short and to-the-very-sharp point, just like the taut, suspenseful stories they introduce.
Thrillers not your bag? How about the master class in romance that is Jane Eyre? We know what the book is about from the title. Still, we are COMPELLED by the mysterious name to find out who Jane is and what she’s about. We MUST read Brontë’s book and plumb the depths of Jane’s character.
Mystery? Sure you can go in for Robert B. Parker’s “smartened up” references to his literary bonafides: Pale Kings and Princes, etc. Or, as Parter found, you can cut straight to the chase a la Looking for Rachel Wallace. But if you really got the touch, you’ll nail the sale, as Wilkie Collins did with “The Woman in White” because it gets no shorter or sweeter or delicious.
Often we’re taught that the title is your thesis. It is the point you intend to prove or at least expound upon. That's nice for a scolarly piece on meal worms.
But if you’re writing fiction and you’re NOT Stephen Hawking, nobody cares how clever you are. Readers want to be delighted. Your title should be one part “sell” but must also be two-parts treat.
The image at the top—the cover of Malcolm Bradbury's Eating People is Wrong—is the property of Penguin Press. The photo above, (seriously, I don't know how to call it) is from the internet. Both are used here for instructional/educational purposes as defined by the Fair Use Doctrine.
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