What's in a Name? by Lori Roberts Herbst

Coming up with book titles is always a challenging prospect for me. It’s kind of like choosing an outfit for a gathering with people I don’t know — I want to make a good first impression, but how do you meet the expectations of strangers? Everyone is looking for something different, right?

At one point, I tried to convince myself I was overthinking the task. Maybe book titles don’t really matter that much. After all, the title is rarely what draws me to a new read. Usually, I choose books based on friends’ recommendations, or if they are written by an author I already love. Covers make a difference, but titles…?

Still, my rationalizations, which I admit I was using to make the job seem less cumbersome, didn’t end up holding water. Titles are important, and they deserve an author’s due diligence.

A good title sets the tone for the book. I think we can all agree that, even with no prior knowledge of the books, we’d have different expectations of Pet Sematary (Stephen King) than we would Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Joanne Fluke).

Piquing a potential reader’s curiosity is another useful tool for a book’s title. What’s up with The Woman in Cabin 10 (Ruth Ware)? I need to know more. Do Not Open (Kiersten Modglin) compels me to, well, open.

When it comes to a series, titles can—and, in my opinion, should—link the individual books. John Sandford’s Prey series is a good example, as is Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series.

In my Callie Cassidy cozy mystery series, the main character is a photographer, so the titles reference both photography and something that gives off a murder vibe, such as Suitable for Framing and Double Exposure. In my upcoming Seahorse Bay cozy mystery series, the setting is a cruise port town in South Texas. The titles will all relate to a crime at a beachy location. I’m also making them all alliterative, adding to the cozy mood. Book one is Larceny at the Lighthouse, and book two will be Arson at the Aquarium. It seems unlikely readers would mistake these books for thrillers or horrors—at least I hope that’s the case.

Here are a few books I’ve read in the past few months. See if you can guess the genre and tone from the titles:

Buried in Shamrocks, by Lisa Q. Mathews

The Book Club for Troublesome Women, by Marie Bostwick

The Golden Son, by Shilipi Somaya Gowda

Assaulted Caramel, by Amanda Flower

May Contain Murder, by Orlando Murrin

Masked Intentions, by Kara Lacey

The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans

Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

Perestroika in Paris, by Jane Smiley

Readers, what do you look for in book titles? Authors, how do you create your titles?

The Callie Cassidy Mystery series is available on Amazon Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.

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Lori Roberts Herbst writes the Callie Cassidy Mysteries, a cozy mystery series set in Rock Creek Village, Colorado, and the soon-to-be-released Seahorse Bay Mysteries, set in a Texas cruise port town. To find out more and to sign up for her newsletter, go to www.lorirobertsherbst.com