How to pick your book title
A book title has to pass three concrete tests: it has to read well on a Kindle thumbnail, stand out on Amazon (where you compete against millions), and signal the genre in under four seconds. The most useful rule editors repeat: if a person glancing at the cover in a store has to flip to the back to figure out what the book is about, the title failed.
- Test it small. Shrink the cover to 100x150 px. Does the title still read?
- Search Amazon. If there are 50 books with the same title from the past five years, you'll be buried.
- Communicate genre. The reader scans shelves and carousels. Your cover should say "thriller" or "productivity essay" before the back-cover blurb.
- Plan the subtitle. In non-fiction it's almost mandatory: that's where SEO lives ("How to Decide Better: The Practical Guide to...").
- Press can repeat it. In interviews and reviews, weird or overlong titles get misquoted and lose traction.
Styles by genre
- Literary: poetic or conceptual phrases (What We Left, Before Summer). Emotional memory.
- Thriller: article + threatening noun (The Last Letter, The Silent Witness).
- Non-fiction: short title + descriptive subtitle (How to Decide Better: The Method Top Experts Use). Subtitle carries SEO.
- Romance: warm, evocative phrases (Summer With You, Letters I Never Sent).
- Single word: high risk, high reward (Silence, Sail, Bone). Has to carry weight.
Common mistakes
Most common: novels that look like self-help and vice versa. If your novel is called "How to Find Your Way", readers expect a different book. Another: leaning on local wordplay that doesn't translate. And a third: worn-out words ("Awakening", "Reborn", "Essence") that show up on every monthly Penguin or HarperCollins list.
After generating
- Search Amazon, Goodreads and Barnes & Noble.
- Test the title on a thumbnail cover.
- Draft two subtitle versions if it's non-fiction.
- Show the title + subtitle to three beta readers: do they guess the genre?
- If the novel could turn into a series, check the title supports a saga.