“Title Talks” or How to Beg Your Writing Partners for Title Assistance!

I can’t thank my incredibly awesome fellow Scriblerians enough for their amazing assistance in helping me choose both a series and individual titles for my realistic contemporary YA series that, if plans continue to fall into place, will launch this summer.

the “storyboard” for my YA series

I’m terrible at titles and had resorted to referring to the stories by the dreadfully generic “Book 1” and “Book 2” labels. At one point, I had a decently respectable title for book 1, but as the story evolved, the title no longer really fit. At least not in my mind.

And then the series title? That really stumped me. I wanted this all-important title to “fit” the series, to have the right sound to the ear as well as to sound YA enough to appeal to, you know, young adults.

Several of the Scriblerians know my story line and characters almost as well as I do. That’s why I knew I could count on them to pull me through this crisis. A lot of good ideas were tossed out and mulled over via an in-depth conversation on our private Facebook page and then further hashed over during a monthly video chat.

Now it’s on to book cover decisions. Oh, my…

“Cover talks” with my Scribs took place briefly last year. Again, there ideas were great. Now that the title has changed, some of the ideas aren’t as fitting as they once were, still they fuel my thought process.

Apparently, a good “fit” for both title(s) and cover are my goals as that word keeps popping up. I have to admit reading a number of books over the years that I did not find “fitting” to the title. Does that happen to any of you? You finish a book, flip it closed, peer at the front cover and think or mutter, “I still don’t know where that title came from…”

The same thing has happened concerning covers. I shake my head and murmur,  “What does that have to do with this story?”

I’ve never lost sleep over either a mis-fit title or book cover. But when it’s MY book title and MY book cover, I want it to fit and appeal to readers and create interest in the story and fit and encourage sales and be memorable and … fit.

So what advice can you, our faithful readers, give me on book titles and covers?

• What do you look for in a title or cover?

• What do you stay away from in a title or cover?

• What was your all-time favorite title and cover package deal and why?

• Can a title OR cover give away too much about the story? Why or why not?