How Should You Pick a Title for Your Book?

[batman]

Truthfully, the book title is usually the last thing that I come up with it. I usually have a working title, but it almost never stays the name. Very often, I’ll get my title from a piece of description or dialogue in the book itself. For example, one of my books is titled Empty Sounds of the Wind, a phrase that was conceived during one of the climatic scenes in the book.

[aaronlayne]

Got whiplash from the lack of "Hey guys, David Stewart here"

[CaptTerrific]

So THAT'S why my guitar technique book "The Case of the Spooky Sexy Werewolf" didn't sell :/

[frankiesomeone]

"Harry Potter and the Mitten of Wool"
"Harry Potter and the Stick of Wood"
"Harry Potter and the Forest of Embarrassment"

-Stewart Lee

[Jared_Wignall]

I titled my western The Wandering Sheriff as it sounds pretty good as a western as well as fits the the story about a bounty hunter that’s traveled to different places wearing a sheriff badge looking for a gang of criminals and the book does tell why he has a sheriff badge. Though I never intended that to be the actual title and just had it there as a place holder until I thought of something better, but I never did. The title isn’t bad, but I just didn’t think that would be the title I’d decide to release it under. It’s very important to make sure the book title fits the genre it’s in.

[LumosX]

He-he. I know some people start with the title, but I figured out what mine should be only after completing 2/3 of the writing (and it ended up being a phrase that occurs in a character's thoughts). My working title was "New Microsoft Word Document". The working title for the sequel was, surprise-surprise, "New Microsoft Word Document 2". Fortunately I have now mostly decided what the titles of all the books in this four-novel series will be: №1 is "X's Y", №2 is "X of Y", №3 is "New Microsoft Word Document 3" (at least for now), and №4 is "The X Y". Though X and Y are different every time, they certainly won't be keywords. I don't think I've got it in me.
Personally, I find series that have the same word (or phrase) in the title to be cringe. I associate it with stuff I've seen on goodreads by romance writers, and it feels to me that the authors of these series, which often seem to go into the double-digit numbers (a phenomenon bonkers in itself) try too hard to keep it going. Perhaps my viewpoint is wrong, I freely admit that might be the case. I've just got an instinctive suspicion towards anything like that, for whatever reason.
As an aside, thanks for mentioning that "Galaxy's Edge" series. Never heard of it, but some prick on goodreads is complaining about how "bigotеd" the first novel is and how the authors' facebook group is full of people talking against the ВLM "protests"; and I've also not read a military sci-fi book since Lois Bujold's last... er... attempt, let's say, though that last instalment of the Vorkosigan saga was hardly... er... what one could expect. Might take the first Galaxy's Edge novel for a spin and see what comes out of it. Cheers.

[Noxaurea]

Faerie knitting... maybe it's about how to knit for cosplay-specific

[adamwestlund]

My main takeaway from this video is a reminder to check on the Josh fight.

[xel]

lol "Into the Fae" sounds like a joke-y erotic fantasy novel title to me.

[CommanderZx]

What do you think of Japanese light novel titles now a days where the the more successful ones tend to be extremely long to the point of being basically short summaries of the story.

[rgerber]

So don't name your childrens songs book in the genre of horror and vice versa