How to Title Your Book - 8 NEW tips to improve your titles!

If you'd like to learn how to title your book, this is the video for you!

TIMESTAMPS:
0:12 - practice
1:04 - comparing titles I came up with 5 years ago VS ones I came up with recently
1:37 - avoid typical "title buzzwords"*
2:14 - why not these words?
4:01 - pay attention to everything!
5:22 - examples of the "notice" titles
5:40 - look out for interesting words/phrases/sounds
6:25 - examples of words/phrases/sounds titles
6:55 - analyze the contents of your work & the three types of titles you can mine from analytical work
7:14 - content phrase titles
7:44 - examples of content phrase titles
8:25 - theme titles
8:45 - examples of theme titles
9:00 - thematic punch titles
9:34 - examples of thematic punch titles
9:49 - literal fact titles
10:10 - examples of literal fact titles
10:48 - turn to music or other art (sorry about the caption error in the vid on this one lol we will get to wikipedia titles in a sec!)
11:19 - wikipedia/general research
11:38 - examples of research titles
12:47 - subvert the normal/expected
13:16 - examples of subvert the expected titles
13:36 - get hyper-specific
14:32 - examples of hyper-specific titles
15:23 - my title challenge for YOU!

List of title buzzwords (again this is not set in stone - there are certainly fantastic titles that include these words): Love, star, moon, heart, glass, shatter, night, shine, star, death, fire, rain, shadow, dark, life, break, world, summer, dream, truth, soul, light, rose, dark, midnight, time, eyes, sky, blood, snow

LINKS

Want to read excerpts from my books?

MY WORK
→ "My Wolf Lives on the Windowsill" in Grain Magazine (poetry): [print only]

ABOUT ME
Hi y'all! I'm Rachel, a nineteen-year-old writer from Toronto. I've been writing for six years and will be entering my third year as a writing undergrad in the fall. On my channel, I document my writing journey and try to post once a week (usually on Fridays). You can read my work in Minola Review, Grain Magazine, The Malahat Review, Augur Magazine, filling Station, on my blog, and elsewhere!

Outro: This is not a joke by Monplaisir

My equipment:
→ Camera: Sony ZV1
→ Vlog mic: Rode Video Micro
→ Sit-down mic: Blue Snowball iCE
→ Editor: Premiere Pro

#authortube

[rachelwritesbooks]

TIMESTAMPS:
0:12 - practice
1:04 - comparing titles I came up with 5 years ago VS ones I came up with recently
1:37 - avoid typical "title buzzwords"*
2:14 - why not these words?
4:01 - pay attention to everything!
5:22 - examples of the "notice" titles
5:40 - look out for interesting words/phrases/sounds
6:25 - examples of words/phrases/sounds titles
6:55 - analyze the contents of your work & the three types of titles you can mine from analytical work
7:14 - content phrase titles
7:44 - examples of content phrase titles
8:25 - theme titles
8:45 - examples of theme titles
9:00 - thematic punch titles
9:34 - examples of thematic punch titles
9:49 - literal fact titles
10:10 - examples of literal fact titles
10:48 - turn to music or other art (sorry about the caption error in the vid on this one lol we will get to wikipedia titles in a sec!)
11:19 - wikipedia/general research
11:38 - examples of research titles
12:47 - subvert the normal/expected
13:16 - examples of subvert the expected titles
13:36 - get hyper-specific
14:32 - examples of hyper-specific titles
15:23 - my title challenge for YOU!

[ShaelinWrites]

We are blessed with sacred knowledge on this day!!

[basicallydeadbooks]

I randomly found this video after I needed a title for my book. What a coincidence lol. Thanks for the great tips!

[Skinniest_Kween]

Personally, I can't write anything without having titled it first. It was a SHOCK to me some years back when I found out that other people don't do it this way lol.

[piathekitty]

"and a bit of luck" this is so true lmao. it's also nice to know the mouthful that is my novel titled From The Mouths With No Tongue has its place along with other obnoxiously titled pieces. a bit of validation ✨

[trilingual]

I suck at titles so I appreciate this! I’ll definitely use the naming all my chapter titles advice. I think it’d also help me realize the purpose of each chapter.

[billyalarie]

i am LITERALLY titling my different, short-chunks-of-documents for my connected short stories/novels, not only as a way of OUTLINING my story (usually the title of a document has to do with a thing i want to explore within the story, and a lot of times that thing is theme-related, but i can extract a potential scene or cluster of scenes from that title and/or theme), but also so i can get better at titling. so, practicing.

so you have, YET AGAIN, spoken to my soul directly. <3

[jacknixon]

titles are a strong suit of mine(i think, lol), and yeah, I use a lot of these points to find one I like

[lukasingel]

Lmao at the “You Are Eating An Orange. You Are Naked.” The way you delivered it dead serious along with some beautiful titles took me out lol

[DesperationLasts]

Holy crap this was helpful. Thank you so much. Subscribed.

[noinparticular]

this is just personal oppinion, but i feel like one of the most commen titles are ones like 'the boy who...' 'the girl that...' i still think they can be good titles but its hard to make them unique

[CDLatin]

My poetry micro-chapbook is called Even Heaven Is A Lack and 2 years in I am still in love with it.

[KitttyNinja]

I misread 'Symbols in the Fog' as 'Symbols in the Frog' and I have no idea what that story would be about but I bet it's wild!

[gryranfelt]

I always know my series titles, but never the titles of the individual books XD

[annlillyjose]

Omg this video is so helpful! I completely agree that practice is the key to nailing titles. It's not an easy task, but so rewarding. I've never titled any of my chapters before, but for my camp nano project this year, I decided to give it a go, and it's working wonders for me. Also the exercise you suggested sounds so cool. Hope I can add some cool titles to my list. One of my all time favourite titles is I'LL GIVE YOU THE SUN by Jandy Nelson. The title captivated me the very moment I came across it, but once I read the book fully, it made sense to title it that way. It is a revised version of an actual phrase in the book, but it also sums up basically what the whole novel is based on the relationship between the two characters.

[Ash-pylu]

This was something I really needed! I can never come up with titles, so this was really helpful!

[neuroticnovelist]

Titling is the bane of my existence lol I love it, I hate it. The worst is when you’re trying to title a series with the same “titling convention” but the first book has like 7 words in the title and the second book has 2 😭 all of these tips are extremely helpful! I looked through my title options document and noticed how many of them have buzzwords in them…sometimes multiple words 😫 do I get double points for that? Hahah

[chaisoul]

Yes ma'am! (Bootleg Clap emoji) I've been eyeing this video because you guessed it, I need help with titles! But I'll be back with my notepad because something has to give between creating these and book covers. One day I'll stop trying to DIY everything but it won't be today lol.

[nocturnus]

That monthly exercise is probably the EXACT thought experiment we all need. It is a fascinating application of the divergent thinking suggestion Danny Gregory makes in episode 09 of the Art For All Podcast: Let’s get rid of Art education - A Modest Proposal.
It also occurred to me that there is a Left Right Brain connection: you need to scatter plot as many ideas as possible to find that best fit resolution. Divergently spreading title ideas in this case to converge on the best fit. Like a one point perspective exercise.

[nyahj]

My poetry book is coming out in three days would you like to buy Rachel.