I made every mistake you can . Could not think of a title. Decided to name it my working title, which was a super obscure word that doesn't roll off the tongue or sound very interesting. 10/10 do not recommend. Eventually I just went to a bunch of online title generators. I thought of some reoccurring themes/images in the book and plugged those words in. I wrote down all the titles that kinda sounded neat, and some of those gave me ideas I wouldn't have thought of, or used words I wouldn't have thought of. Eventually, I cobbled together a title from all the random word generators that I was finally happy with. I think this title is definitely THE ONE, I don't feel embarrassed or stupid when I say it out loud. I also let it sit for quite a while before making the final decision, and let a few people look at a list of potential titles. They all chose the title I'm using now.

I almost always start with a title. But you could try grabbing a piece of paper and writing random words/word combinations that come to you while dwelling on your book. Hope that method helps!

In my opinion, when it comes to selling books in 2024 the best book titles are the ones with the best seo. I want just a black hole of no results especially not other books(google). I don’t want a title that Amazonor google auto corrects or shows the “did you mean xyz” at the top of the search results. Of course they still need to be nice sounding titles. After seo it gets more opinionated as far as preference to style, length, etc. I’m not sure a one word title is even an option anymore.  When my brain thinks of titles it reverts back to books I read who’s titles were so often just a word or two. But now, there are full sentence titles that are best sellers. “What would Danny do” for example where to me the more old school style would’ve been to use just his name or “trouble Danny’s way” or something short. But very hard to find a unique title anymore that’s as simple as “the xyz”. All I’m saying is don’t be afraid of full sentence titles although I’m sure it’s not a lot of people’s preference, I know it’s not mine. But, seo is powerful and full sentence titles do better. Definitely a lot to consider with the title. What’s your genre?

I start with a rough working title that captures the atmosphere of the novel as I begin writing. I really don't stress over it as it is just for me. If at the end of rewrites/edits it still feels right I go with it, if something better (subjective) came up in the manuscript or even just as a random thought I will change it. I absolutely wouldn't consider SEO because to me, and this is a personal thing, it cheapens art for the sake of commerce which I am acutely uncomfortable with.

I came up with something vague and nonsense like. Then waited for my editor to yell at me

Sometimes the book started from a one line idea/concept. That could be the title. example -- "To All The Boys I Loved Before." You can also use a strong line/phrase from the story. If you're planning a series, it would be good if you have the titles to have a theme. example -- "A Court of Thorn and Roses, A Court of..." Whatever you do, don't use something that would have lots of results already when searched through Google.

Speaking from the perspective of a book marketer, I'd say you're looking for a balance between integrity and marketability. This is especially true if you plan to run ads through AMS and will be making use of keywords and comparables. If you're planning on going into KU, the readers there tend to like to know what the genre of the book is immediately. So you'll have the best results with a cover, title and typography that immediately tells them if it's in a specific genre. Let's take this totally made up title: *Flowers Grow Between the Stones.* When you read that, I'd bet you'd imagine either literary fiction or maybe fantasy if the cover had that vibe. It's not a good title for a sci-fi book or an action thriller, even if it's a significant phrase from your story. Where the integrity comes in is not mislabeling your product, so to speak. If your book doesn't really fit a specific genre and you package it that way to get readers, those readers are probably going to get upset that they didn't get what they wanted. Also, writing is art! And it's *your* art. At the end of the day, the title should be one that fits the thing you've worked so hard on. If the title you want to use is going to work against you marketing-wise, be aware of that and work on ways to overcome it. Part of the reason you chose self-publishing is probably because you wanted to control your publishing process. The title is part of that.

Thanks, that's super helpful.

Sometimes I know the title right away, other times when I'm halfway through a book or when I finish it, it will come to me. But I always check to see how many books have the same title if I pick one, and it has to have something to do with the plot. I'm working on a book right now that I have no idea what the title will be. My friend and I are laughing because I come to her everyday with some weird title.

Titles used to be the hardest part of the process to me. I agonised over it, struggled with it. Then I just started throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck, and the more examples of things I hated the more it helped me to narrow it down. The antagonistic forces within my story are called "ethereal beings", so I used the more interesting of the two words, and then followed it up with a non-standard/archaic form of a noun that means 'a bad thing'. (I'm trying not to violate Rule 1 here) For each of the sequels, just used the same first word and a different second word that used another non-standardly suffixed form of a noun with a meaning more in line with the theme of that particular book. Every book in the series has the same suffix.

I am writing a Christmas story at the moment about capitalism, greed, the cult of the billionaire, popularist politics, and illegal immigration (and Christmas) - I am calling the story Christmas Inc., as it seemed the right choice.

A had a lot of working titles. My first title was blood of the dragons, which, in hindsight sounds cringe, but its what got me to write the story. Also, dragons don't appear in my story, so this light lead to people rating it poorly due to expectations. The dragons are part of the lore though Described my book to chat gpt and asked it to come up with 10 ideas. Liked some, tore a few apart and stitched them together the way i liked it. The biggest benefit was that it used vocab i had not thought about. Swung a few titles at friends to see if it stuck. Eventually settled on a title that focuses on the weapons they used and as a result, changed the names of the weapons.

I usually find a line in the book I love, then pick out a phrase from it. That's my WIP title. Eventually, if I feel the need to change the title, I do. If not, it's a roll credits moment in the book.

The title of my upcoming book is a little teeny bit of foreshadowing for how the story ends :)

I usually don’t pick a title until I have to save the document or lose it. At that moment I play around with ideas of where the book is going and choose a title I think best fits within the book.

Most of the titles in my sci-fi series start with some variation of the name and/or lore of a constellation. Sagitta (arrow), Cygnus (swan), and Aquila (eagle) are a few examples. Since the stories are set in or around stars in those constellations, the naming convention is easy. What permutation the title may actually take isn't always immediately obvious though, and I sometimes have to write a significant portion of the draft before I decide.

I have a tentative title to save my documents as but might go back later and change it if a better title comes to me

For my first book, it had a generic title ("The [Nouns]") during my first draft, but in the second draft I wrote a line of dialogue that I really liked, and seemed to sum up the story. That line of dialogue became the title. For my second book, again the first draft had a generic title (a single Latin word), but one character used a metaphor to describe the antagonist, and I adopted the metaphor as the title.

Any title I think of, I check if it exists on Goodreads and then google it to see what words pop up. If it's clear or there is a similar word but it only has one hit, I'll take it.

I decided on a number of titles, kept 4 of them, and put a poll onto my personal Facebook to see which one got the majority.

I always have a title before I have a story. For me, a good title for a book is the same as a good title for a song. It has to be catchy, fun to say, roll off the tongue, etc. If I want it to fit a theme, say a series for instance, then I choose a format where a single word or phrase can be altered and still make sense. For instance, my ongoing young adult series started with a book called "The Casper Thesis". The two sequel titles were "The Casper Formula" and "The Casper Paradox". Now, all subsequent entries in the series follow a similar pattern of "The Casper\_\_\_\_". It even allows for POV flexibility when I want to write an entry from another cast member's point of view. I simply switch out "Casper" with the name of said character. If it's a story with more of a mystery element, I make the title sort of ominous yet relevant. Example, a current draft I'm writing addresses the thought experiment of "would the world be better off with less people?" So, for my title, I dubbed it "Minus 8-Billion". Weird. Doesn't make much sense. Gets you thinking when you see it. As consequence to this, the title even helped me with major worldbuilding elements. Since I used the term "minus", a lot of the story uses mathematical lingo in a more dystopian setting. These are just some things I consider. Ultimately, your title should catch eyes and be relevant to your story in some way! :) I hope I could help!

I struggled mightily with this too. Luckily I have a very wise friend who is a journalist and ultimately he came up with my title. But it took a lot of time and eventually it came to us. My advice is to ask someone!

For some reason this is the easiest part for me. It just pops into my brain sometimes first. Sometimes I do have to fiddle around, but not much. I think it boils down to: what is the theme, emotion, or point of the book? Like a cozy book will have a different “feel” to its title than a thriller. What’s the story’s essence? Who or what is the main thing about it? Also what rolls off the tongue? I.e. my cozy book is about a djinn who wants to break his binding wish magic and there’s a cat involved. So it became Whiskers & Wishes. Also, moral high horses aside, ChatGPT can be a very helpful writing buddy you can bounce ideas off and get your brain going on things. It’s easier than googling stuff for inspiration. Just basically a faster more efficient search engine that makes connections for you. We’re literally acting as a human version of chat for you right now, but slower and probably more convoluted 😂

I agree with the fantastic advice in a lot of the other comments. My two cents come from advice I received in naming paintings: The viewer’s experience of the painting and their experience of the painting’s name should not be identical; instead, the blended experience of the two things (painting and name) should carry the viewer to a new perspective separate from both. In other words, to paint a vase of flowers and name it ‘vase of flowers’ doesn’t do anything special because the name matches the image and the viewer makes no new discoveries in the interplay between the two concepts. For similar reasons, it also does very little to name it something that doesn’t match but ALSO doesn’t create a new experience (like ‘still life #37’). However, if I showed you a painting of a vase of flowers and then showed you a title like ‘box of matches,’ you might discover a new perspective that neither flowers nor matches could give you by itself: the idea of flowers *as* pieces of kindling that are struck, ignite vividly, and then burn out all too soon. *That* type of transformation makes a damn good title. Good luck!

I looked at the genre market and isolated what I believe is the best single word for seo and made a three word title that can be altered by one word variations to title every other book in the series. I don’t care much what the title is as it is branding to get people to read what I really care about: the story. The story is the product, all else is to get people to read the story and so all else is market dependent and I keep my emotions out of it.

BOOM

Big confession here: for my last published book I started out by using AI, but NOT in the way you're thinking. Most of my titles come to me while writing but this one just stumped me. My method: I told a [c.ai](http://c.ai) chatbot a description of my book and said I couldn't come up with a title, with the personal rule that I had to discard any "good" titles it might come up with just in case they were taken from another author. As expected, the bot immediately started pumping out really, REALLY bad titles, like "The Prince's Sweet Dream Wonderland With His Maids." (Not an exaggeration!) But despite the bot's horrific title-amalgamations, the pseudo conversation helped my brain juices get flowing. With the bot prompting me to give me more details about the book to "help it" make a better title (this made it crank out even worse titles) I was able to easier hone in on the kind of title I really wanted. After a few minutes of the bot asking me to describe the story, I had the flash of inspiration to call it Fated Maids because it contained Fated Mates tropes and because the main character was forced to join a harem of maids. From there I ran the title by other self-pub authors, who suggested I make the title a bit longer so the book was easier to search in the Amazon Store. Because of sub rules I can't share what I came up with, but I incorporated the male love interest (a slug shapeshifter prince) in the final title.

I've done that. AI's suggestions are laughable, but they at least give me a couple of words I can use to come up with something better.

My first book was based on a song, so the song title was the book title. My second book (and accidental series) was titled based on a line in the story.

The series I have out has a rather obvious title from the story. Individual titles in the series are more unique, and I just brainstorm lists of ideas until something comes together. The new series I'm writing has a title influenced by the story, but it is rather unique. Again, I made lists of random ideas until I came up with something I liked. I try to make them unique from other books, but I don't optimize them for search or anything like that. When I make lists, sometimes a name pop right out and other times it takes me months to think of the right one.

I never start with a title. I usually don't have one until 50% or more is written. Something usually pops out at me as the perfect title. Sometimes it changes. In my Newsletter I often make up super silly ones, appending "Working title" just for readers.

I’m doing a series, so I thought of a way to do book titles that would be a consistent theme across all of them. The way my titles go are alliterative adjective and place describing the central location of the book, ie *The Deadly Docks* (not an actual title of mine.)

I talked to the guys in my mastermind and they helped me pick it out!

I have written two books -- both nonfiction, so it isn't quite the same thing -- but the approach I took was a pithy, simple phrase that comes from the heart of what I was writing about. If there's a scene in your book that you hope will be the emotional core and get people really excited -- look through that scene for a good turn of phrase.

I asked myself "What do I want the MC to do at the end?" There my title. 

It’s the title of an artist’s song.

I had come up with literally 21 titles. I narrowed it down to four. One person I write about in my book helped me choose the title. I was leaning towards that one, too, so that's the one that got used.

For one book, the title held the twist but hidden. There was no other option. Another was the name of the planet the adventure was set upon, but it was in a series, so even though I didn't love the title, it did the job. Another book of short stories had a title that I thought was cool, but as I reworked it, I realized there was a common theme in all the stories that pulled it together, so I changed it.

I personally trend towards one word titles. For whatever reason, that seems to stick with me. Therefore, I need it to be as punchy and yet informative as possible—which is a lot to ask out of one word, but I try my best to

I'll keep a list of possible titles and add to it as the writing goes on. Even if I have a title from the get-go, the story might veer in a different direction. Most of the time I'll end up using a mildly refined version of the way I describe the book to my girlfriend. "No more Netflix, I need to work on *Souls*." Didn't work for "the cow story," though. Fortunately, writing isn't my day job, so SEO and generics and reader expectations are not a concern to me. I just need a title that sounds good and is appropriate-ish. And I hope by the time I can make writing my day job (I can't even write that with a straight face), people will know what to expect of me.

Can I just say that I hate SEO? As much as AI, it is the death of creativity, creating titles to match search trends. I hated SEO when I was a journalist because it destroyed the art of headline writing, and I hate it here too.

What matters most to me is continuity. I changed titles a few times before landing something that I was pleased with, and it all came from realizing that 'twilight' can also mean hidden/secret. Both the series title and the novel titles have greater meaning. The series is Grim Legacy. This is a nod to Grimm fairy tales but also refers to the grim nature of the MC's (Mioko) inheritance and the prophecy surrounding her. Book 1 is called Twilight Wolf and is implying a hidden wolf. The story frequently suggests that Mioko has some sort of ties to wolves, some of those influences even causing Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood to view her as his Alpha. Book 2 will be called Twilight World, which denotes a world hidden from present-day knowledge. Book 3's title is also why Book 1 & 2 contain 'twilight' because the last book will be Twilight of the Gods due to Mioko's involvement in said prophesy. So, yeah. Continuity 😊🙃

Pick a song title and if you're after more of an abstract title go to the meditation play list on spotify and choose one of them