I am a third of the way through the edits on a book that thus far has no title. This … is a problem. For one, my cover artist needs a title for spacing, fonts, and the like. Two, it is hard to sell a book that has no title. Leaving a giant blank space on the cover doesn’t work, and if I call it “The Book With No Name,” people will think it is a western. It’s not.
The series, Shikhari, does not have a naming pattern after the first three books. The later titles tend to be subject related, like Women’s Work about the protagonist beginning life as a married woman, Hopling and Pouchling (parenthood and exploration), and Called to the Council (the government of the native people features prominently). The titles need to be short, topical, and not too confusing for readers. None of the ideas I came up with for the current book met those criteria, so I just left it Book Number 7. Which doesn’t help readers when they are browsing shelves, be they electronic or otherwise. In fact, Book Number 7 could be a literary mystery, or fantasy, perhaps sci-fi (nod to Ready Player One).
What came to mind as I slogged through the first edits was part of the setting, and the overall theme of the book. The story starts in the main character’s home town and familiar social milieu, then moved to what might be a ruined city. Or it might not, because on Shikhari? Very few things of the First World are as they seem. Meanwhile, running through the length of the story are hidden characters and plans, some related to the lost-perhaps-city and others more mundane. City and Secrets came to mind. It fits with the other titles, hints at events, and when spoken, has the same rhythm as several earlier titles.
There is nothing that says you can’t have a long title, and some books that are nods to older styles or faux-histories have very long titles. People usually shorten them, but the cover is draped in text. One word short titles can lead to problems with search engines unless you know the author or genre. If it works, though it works. Shogun, for example, or 2001, or Greenwitch.
I have another book, also untitled, from a different series. That series does have a bit of a naming convention, two really, that developed over time. Books that feature one protagonist almost all begin with “Hunter,” or refer to the Lone Hunter in some way. The others are more varied, and sometimes longer. The parent series was in alphabetic order (Gloriously Familiar, Horribly Familiar, and so on.) Yes, I started riffing off a certain mystery series, sort of. This book … is about academic life, changes in life, magic, and the next step in a long plot arc that began with the third book in the subseries. Of Languages and Land is one option, but doesn’t fit the series, exactly.
But first I have to get the edits done, and get a short story set (Alcador) ready to publish. More correctly, I was going to call it “Alcador,” from the song that inspired one of the stories. However, it turns out that word is also the name of a sports car. Oops. Since I do not care to get a Cease and Desist letter over the book title, I will probably do something like Tales of Land and Magic, since all the stories are fantasy, and the landscape plays a role in two of the stories.
Mad Genius Club 
12 responses to “You Gotta Call It Something!”
Sounds like you actually have a handle on it. Since you have a number of books, it makes sense to use titles that are on brand as it were.
The classic go-tos, are Shakespeare and the Bible, to which I add the song that inspired the title. The last is because I frequently draw inspiration from a popular song I’m fascinated with. Hence Darkness, Darkness, the unfinished Darkness at the Edge of Town, and my current book Advance Guards. Some are just spot on like Web, The Man Who Saved Baseball, and A Night on the Mountain. Some are ironic like The Gardener’s Wife, Touch of Genius, The Devil’s Due, and Greetings, and those are kind of fun for the reader after they’ve read the story.
I’ve been known to feed all the titles in a series to an LLM, and only figure out afterwards that I already had a perfectly good title for the project I was asking about 😀
LLM as rubber-ducky debugging works!
This is exactly how I do it. My first book (out to beta readers) took me two years to write. I started brainstorming with Grok, and then Claude and the sequel is about half way through the rough draft in a little over three months.
Titles, for the books and chapters just come to me.
This is exactly how I do it. My first book (out to beta readers) took me two years to write. I started brainstorming with Grok, and then Claude and the sequel is about half way through the rough draft in a little over three months.
Titles, for the books and chapters just come to me.
Titles. [My eyes are rolling] My most recent release “Secret Empire” has been “Another Story” on my hard drive for a few years. Wrote it, had no title, didn’t care. Then I had to hurry up a title when I published. That’s what I get for putting things off.
Current WIP is called “Breakfast of Champions” because in the first scene they’re feeding the horses. I’ve got another one called “Short People Got No Reason…” for a joke, can’t remember where I was going with that one.
“Coffee With Kali the Destroyer” is another crazy one, I think I’m going to keep that because it is fairly descriptive of the book. First scene, Alice and Nike sit down to morning coffee with Kali at the local java joint. Eight arms and all. Hilarity ensues, as they say. ~:D
Having zipped off to check up on the titles in the series… Language, Land and Learning OR Talk, Turf and Tuition… Actually, bad idea. ; )
A Diabolical Bargain got its title weeks before release. Barely in time for the cover.
Jewel of the Tiger was inspired by the title.
Life is like that.
The annoying one is when you were inspired by a title and then have to go dig up another one because it no longer fits. (Crow Curse was titled at the last minute, too.)
I’ve got a working title on an isekai in progress, and I knew it wouldn’t fit very early in the outlining stage. May be looking for a title to the last minute again.
Secrets of Shikhari?
“Doctor Z’s Zombie Apocalypse” is a working title. It still hasn’t grown up to get a real title yet. The zombies, the Invincible (which is rattling its cage to be written again), and plantman do not even have working titles.
I once let one out the door with a title called “Chains.” It had nothing whatsoever to do with prisons, slavery or anything like. I still don’t have a good title for that one.
I’ve got a battle scene to write though, and a miraculous three hopefully uninterrupted hours to do it in a waiting room tomorrow. Let’s see what shenanigans ensue!