FAQ Friday #8: How do you come up with the titles of your books?
And the worst thing that can happen on FINALLY finding a good one...
Happy Friday, everyone.
I’m going to begin this post with a little PSA: from now on, I’ll be publishing FAQ Fridays once a month, rather than once a week.
That’s at least once a month: I may occasionally publish more frequently than that.
But, truthfully, I’m struggling to find the time to write a new one every week, on top of everything else I want to publish here, and picture-book-wise. I’ve already failed to meet my self-imposed schedule several times, and that bothers me.
I also need to get back to prioritising writing manuscripts to send to publishers, from which I’ve recently taken a short break in order to get this Substack properly underway (with publishers winding down for Christmas, it seemed a good opportunity to do so, especially given I’ve plenty of texts already out on submission).
The good news for you is that I’ll be clogging up your inbox slightly less than I currently do (hooray!). And there’ll still be plenty of content, including monthly posts in the following series :
Poetic Posts
Submissions on Show
Money Matters
Approaching Agents
Nosy Newsletters
Some of the posts in those series – those that offer the most personal insights, including into my author earnings – are available only to paying subscribers, so if you’d like access to the full archive, become a paid subscriber today for just 68p per week with an annual membership.
Now, on to today’s question…
How do you come up with the titles of your books?
Honestly?
With difficulty!
Titles, like covers, are important: perhaps it’s this knowledge that makes devising and deciding upon a title such as challenge.
A great title creates intrigue: it captivates and entices readers to pick up the book, and hints at what they can expect from the story. A title is often indicative of a story’s genre and tone, and the narrator’s voice and perspective.
The best titles are powerful marketing tools: often the title alone is enough to persuade readers to purchase the book, and a strong title helps make a book more memorable, in addition to aiding the spread of word-of-mouth praise and marketing.
But coming up with a great title for a book is hard. And when you’ve written a great book, but a great title eludes you – well, there’s nothing more frustrating than that*.
So how do I come up with the titles of my books? Well…
Sometimes, I don’t…
…because someone else comes up with them instead.
When my publisher asked me to write a story about the bunnies from my debut picture book You Must Bring a Hat, illustrated by the brilliant Kate Hindley…
…what I settled upon eventually became our book Be More Bernard.
But the working title for Be More Bernard was, for a long time, You Must Have a Dream – far inferior, I’m sure you’ll agree.
I failed to think of anything better, so I was very grateful (and continue to be) that my editor at the time, Helen Mackenzie Smith, suggested Be More Bernard instead – especially as it continues to be one of my most successful books (with at least 13 co-editions, the last time I checked). So, thanks Helen!
A couple of my other books have titles that were changed at the publisher’s request.
I Really Want to Shout was originally I Really Want to Scream, but ‘scream’ was deemed too aggressive a word. At the time, I thought this was a bit pedantic, and I pushed to keep ‘scream’ because I thought it better reflected the strength of a child’s emotions when they’re angry and upset; with the distance of hindsight, I can see that changing the title was definitely the right decision.
And the title of the first book in my only chapter book series (so far) was changed after publication, along with the cover. It was originally published with this cover and title (my original one):
But after retailer feedback (I think), it was relaunched as Fred: Wizard in Training, with a new cover:
Usually, however, it’s me who comes up with the titles of my books, so…
Sometimes, I think of the title before the story
Occasionally, the starting point of a story is the title itself.
I wrote I Really Want the Cake when the sentence ‘I really want some cake’ popped into my head, probably because, in that moment, I really wanted some cake! I decided that was a pretty good title, and developed the story from there.
That proved the case for the rest of the books in that series (the titles of which handily serve as the books’ themes): each title was my springboard for writing the rest of the story.
That’s true of many of my other books too, including my most recent, The Circular Square.
Sometimes, a word, sentence or repeated phrase from the story becomes the title
This is how most of my titles come into being, I’d say.
I’ll either comb through the finished manuscript for a word, sentence or phrase that might lend itself to a title, or one will immediately jump out at me whilst I write the story.
Achoo!, Let ME Do It!, Wanna See a Penguin/Llama? all got their titles this way.
Sometimes, I’ll make the problem of the story the title
Problems are crucial to stories: a story without conflict isn’t a story (or, at the very least, it’s a hideously boring one).
I think problems – and statements – also make great titles, for example…
There’s a Lion in My Cornflakes
…which is why many of my books have problem/statement titles:
I Don’t Know What to Call My Cat
You Must Bring a Hat
It All Began When I Said Yes
I Have to Start at School Today
And sometimes, I use the theme of the book as the title
Amazing Animals with Astonishing Jobs is about amazing animals with astonishing jobs.
Mums are Magnificent is about how mums are magnificent.
Dads are Incredible is about how dads are incredible.
Esme’s Rock is about Esme’s ro – yeah, you get the idea.
*Actually, there is something more frustrating than failing to come up with a good title.
And that’s finding that the great title you’ve finally come up with is already taken.
For that, there are no words!
Thanks for sharing Simon. This is very interesting to know. Because as an illustrator, when the manuscript comes to me, it already comes with a Title (atleast so far).
Great post Simon, book titles are a tricky thing for sure!