How to Write an Attention-Grabbing Book Title
Your title is your chance to make a strong first impression that will instantly sell agents, publishers and readers on your book. Yet so many authors spend years on their book only to slap a halfhearted title on it.
Sometimes they fear and avoid titles because they don’t know the elements that go into a strong one. Many authors don’t even try because they assume that their agent or publisher will come up with a title for them. That’s a big mistake.
Yes, you’ll occasionally see a Publisher’s Marketplace deal announced for “Untitled” or “Untitled thriller,” “Untitled Cookbook” etc., and somewhat more often, you’ll see a book that sells under one decent title and then is published under an even better one.
That doesn’t mean your title isn’t important! Your title is going to be an agent or publisher’s first impression, so it pays to make it a good one.
If despite all of your best efforts, you can’t come up with anything good, you have my wholehearted permission to start querying agents, but please don’t do that without giving this the old college try first.
Below is an excerpt of the Title Toolkit I created for one of my Query Like a Pro students when she was struggling to find the right title for her book.
The Elements of a Strong Book Title
What’s in a name?
A good title makes a quick but noteworthy impression. To make it easier to remember, think of making a quick but memorable CAMEO.
Curiosity-provoking: It intrigues the reader or creates a question in their mind, making them want to know more.
Attention-grabbing: It instantly catches the reader's interest, whether they come across it in your publicity efforts, through media exposure, a suggestion from an online store, or on the tables of the bookstore.
Memorable: It’s unique enough that potential readers won’t forget what the heard or read about it.
Evocative: It conjures up an emotion for the reader.
On-brand: It fits the vibe and genre of the book, matching what’s inside to what it promises.
Below, I’ve rounded up some examples across several genres to help you start seeing why certain titles work. Then, I’ll teach you three things to avoid in a book title. (For 300 memorable titles across every genre, along with some formulas and exercises to come up with your own, check out my Title Toolkit.)
Curiosity Provoking
I don’t know about you, but these definitely make me go hmmmm.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarity
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
Attention Grabbing
I’ll tell you why each of these grabbed my attention.
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. The first of Silvera’s YA “Death-Cast” series makes a bold move by giving away the ending!
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. Books aren’t that expensive these days and they aren’t generally sought after by thieves, so I’m definitely remembering this one.
If They Should Come for Us by Fatimah Ashgar. Yikes, who is coming? This poetry collection had me at the title.
Burn After Writing by Sharon Jones. This journal and book of reflections has to have one of the best titles I’ve ever come across, and I’m sure it had a lot to do with its wild success.
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris. We instantly know that both of these black girls stand out in this thriller’s setting, and one of them is being noticed by someone.
The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak. For a children’s picture book, this is definitely surprising enough for a double take.
Memorable
Okay, every title on this list is memorable, but here are some more just for fun.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. The second you realize that’s the number of weeks in the average lifespan, for the rest of your life, you’ll remember this title.
Emotionally Evocative
How do each of these make you feel?
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park. This is my all-time favorite title ever and one of my favorite books too.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
On-Brand
I’m 95% sure you’ll get the genre and the sensibility of the book just by the title, apart from maybe the last one. Literary fiction titles run the gamut.
How to Be Fine: What We Learned from Living by the Rules of 50 Self-Help Books by Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinze
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang for a fun and quirky romance
My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
The Still Point of the Turning World, by Emily Rapp Black
3 Things to Avoid in a Book Title
Don’t choose a title that is likely to mislead or put off your intended audience!
For example, if you want to use the name of a place in your title, beware that many people might think it’s a travel guide to that place. If they weren’t very well positioned and marketed, books like Canada by Richard Ford or Jakarta by Rodrigo Márquez Tizano could be seen as Frommer’s Guides to Canada or Jakarta.
That’s a pretty niche example, but what I see pretty regularly with students is an eye-catching title that unfortunately implies a different book.
For example, if your murder is cozy, a gritty title will obviously be off-putting to your intended audience.
The Killing Floor wouldn’t work for a cozy mystery, and at the same time, The Case of the Accused Soldierwouldn’t work well for Lee Child’s high-octane Jack Reacher novel.
Likewise, a popular science book intended for a general audience wouldn’t want a staid academic tone, and vice versa. These two books are clearly intended for different audiences.
From Neuron to Brain: A Cellular and Molecular Approach to the Function of the Nervous System by John G. Nichols et al.
A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain by Sara Manning Peskin
An added warning for women. If you are a woman writing literary fiction and you use a light-hearted title, your intended audience may write it off as chick lit. (This is a huge thing!)
Unbroken (The Young Adult Adaptation): An Olympian's Journey from Airman to Castaway to Captive
Don’t be vague
Vague is boring and forgettable
Harlan Coben is obviously an incredibly successful author, but if you are a debut author in this day and age, you probably couldn’t get very far with a vague title like Gone for Good or Missing You.
Don’t be confusing
Sometimes a title itself is enticing, but if it’s unclear what the book is about, it can attract the wrong audience or repel the right one.
Here’s a test:
What do you get from this title?
Quest for Eternal Sunshine
Does it feel different with its subtitle?
Quest for Eternal Sunshine: A Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Darkness to Light by Myra Goodman and Mendek Rubin
How about Entangled Life?
You’d be forgiven for thinking it was about philosophy, or about an affair, or maybe a self-help book or social commentary.
As its subtitle—How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape our Futures—makes clear, it’s actually a New York Times bestselling pop science book about fungi.
We’ll talk about subtitles later, but for now, just notice how easily a title can imply a completely different kind of book. That’s not always a problem, but it’s something to consider and may call for a subtitle.
For 300 memorable titles across every genre, along with formulas and exercises to come up with your own, check out my Title Toolkit.
More than 300 attention-grabbing titles to inspire you (+why they work)
16 formulas for writing powerful titles
Simple but effective prompts and exercises to generate ideas you'd never think of
A 3-step process to pull it all together and choose your winning title