"Who Brought Botany"
"What Made My Million"
"When Were We Winners"
"Where Are the Fun People"
"Why Do We Rush"
The main aspect in marketing is visual. Once you've caught someone's eye, there are a number of reasons you've succeeded. Either you've caught their interest, or you were simply OUT THERE with size, color or text. When I think of personality and content, I like to set the mood from instinct.
Many different examples of mood come to mind, first of all. Your target audience may appreciate classical images, graffiti, cartoons, photography, surrealism, abstract images, interesting text such as calligraphy, oil paintings or representations of any fine art.
Visuals are emphasized by a background that attracts the mood of your interested party. You may be selling a novel with a story-line set at the ocean-side and would succeed with shades of aqua and blue on your book-cover, because the feeling of water and breeze is right there at the onset. You may have written a nature study and will, of course, draw an interested audience with all sorts of beautiful green trees or plants and something fascinating seen upon closer inspection.
Colors to go with for most readers are warm browns, black emphasized by important variations (such as gold) and green. These are, in fact, the colors from which paper derives, and where trees have participated in lending knowledge.
"I Would Pay Per Chairman of the Board"
A title is thought of most effectively after one has imagined the entire plot or context of a book. Perhaps after writing a few chapters, one may ad-lib into success from a perfect name that occurs to one part-way through the imagined adventure. You're writing along and one word really hits you. It's powerful.
Let's think of a few really famous movie titles that everyone remembers:
"Gone With the Wind"
"West Side Story"
"The Sound of Music"
"It's a Wonderful Life"
Three to four syllables there seems quite memorable. Then again, you may be writing a very clever narrative that would succeed with a long, clever phrase:
"I Didn't Know You Liked Pistachio Praline Every Sunday"
A cook-book cover would want to remind the reader right away of their favorite recipes therein. A How-To on Building or Gardening would need to stand out as unique amongst all the rest. Yours is special. Yours in more interesting or easier to follow. You know best. (If that's not true, write something else?)
Let's say you've written a romance novel and have noticed that ALL the other romance novels show a beautifully crafted picture of a couple embracing. How will yours fit in and stand out at the same time? TITLE.
"SHE WANTED ME" (red aurora script on black with a rose)
"WE EMBRACED 'TIL DAWN" (satin sheets background)
When you have a title and book-cover that sells what you have in it, you've accomplished something akin to a person "dressed for success" who's working on a business deal in person. You've worn the right gown at the Beauty Pageant and it's expected as well.
As you may have seen in some of my previous blogposts, this is what I chose as amy memoir title:
Delays and Detours on the Road to Prozac: A Memoir of Depression and Anxiety
Some days ago, I came across this site that tells you what the chances your title has of becoming a best seller and this was my result:
The title Delays and Detours on the Road to Prozac: A Memoir of Depression and Anxiety has a 22.9% chance of being a bestselling title!
Sounds a bit discouraging, but titles aren't everything, just the beginning as stated in the article above. I now wonder if I'm going to have to change it. I like what I came up with and many of those I told this to have thought it's good title as well. How do you view this title?
And today, while Googling "title generators" I came across this post (the comments are closed, unfortunately):
Here are mine:
Chick-Lit: If Hearts Would Sail
Crime Thriller: The Shadow Path
Literary Fiction: The Petrified Deviling in Hollister
Autobiography: My Fearless Battle
Christmas Book: If Snowflakes Would Whisper
How do these sound to you? What did you get for your titles?
I've been working more on my diary novel, but has not come up with book title yet. But each chapter (or are they called entries?) has a title so far. One is this:
Preparing for Life Behind Bars
Click here to see what this refers to (I mentioned this in another post).
How does this sound to you?
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