Sometimes the right title for a book or short story is easy to think of and it fits perfectly with the storyline through any rewrites. Other times you may struggle to find a title you’re happy with, or the one you chose early on doesn’t bear any relation to the story once you change some aspect of the plot that the title initially referred to.

However you feel about your title, remember that there’s always a possibility that your publisher might want you to change it. Anything from another new book with the same or similar title, to a marketing survey that reveals that books with a word contained in your title sold X percent fewer books than those without it.

As the author you have the final sign off, but if you can live with the title your publisher proposes, you might want to give in and save your veto for other issues that might bother you more, like the cover or changing a character’s name, for example.

Working titles

If you’re not sure of your title, or don’t yet know enough about your story to choose one, you might want to settle for a working title so that you have something you can use to refer to your story, save it as, and file your notes under. Personally, I tend to refer to each of my stories by the name of the main character, even if I have a perfect title. It’s usually shorter and easy to remember.

But think of what defines the story for you. If you write a lot of mysteries with the same protagonist, using his name won’t work for you, but using the murder style or weapon might be a better reference point.

Ideas for choosing a title

If you’ve completed a draft of your book and still can’t come up with a title, try brainstorming on the key themes of your book. Write down what your story is about and pull out the keywords from that blurb. What stands out for you? Can you rearrange the words to make a title? Draw a spider diagram of word associations based on your keywords, and keep rearranging until you find a combination you like.

What titles do you like of other books? Do you prefer short or long titles? Punchy or elegant? If you aim for the same number of syllables, you will probably enjoy the sound of the title more – perhaps you only need to add or remove one word from your keyword combination to get a perfect fit.

Checking your title

Finally, before you send your manuscript to an agent, do a Google and Amazon search for your title, and also ask your local librarian to search for possible matches to your title. Titles aren’t copyrighted, but if there is another recent book in a similar genre by the same title, you may want to change yours, or discuss the implications with your agent. While you might get lucky with readers buying your book thinking it is the other author’s, it could just as easily work against you with a good review of your book sending a reader to mistakenly grab the other author’s book. Or a reader might simply assume he’s already read your book.

Read Karm Holladay's take on what makes a great title. Karm is the Mystery Books editor for BellaOnline.