Thursday, February 5, 2009

Book Titles and Covers

What attracts you to a book?

Before you even read what a book is about, there’s something that makes you pick it up, whether it’s the color, the title or the cover.

When I go to a book store I have to admit that what makes me first notice a book is the cover and title. It's what gets me to pick the book up and read the back to see what it's about. That’s why I think covers and titles are so important, which is a problem for me because I’m horrible at deciding what to call a book. I’ve even gone so far as to enlist the scientific process of lulu.com/titlescorer to figure out what percentage my book has of becoming a best seller.

Here are some titles and the percentage I got:
The Hidden People –41.4%
Becoming the Hidden – 55.4%
Becoming Hidden – 55.4%
The Land of the Hidden – 41.4%
The Hidden –35.9%
Hidden – 8.6%

Do you have any other ideas? I’m up for suggestions.

To give you an idea of what the book is about here's a rough draft of my hook:

At fourteen, Dagny Olson lives on a tiny island with her mother, a known seer who has visions of the future. When her mom foresees a death in their own family, Dagny discovers there’s more to her mom than she first believed. Now they are forced to return to a hidden world where old allegiances are faltering and Dagny finds herself drawn towards an unknown danger that only she can see.

That's it for now.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the hook. That's a rough draft? It already has me hooked, I await the publishing of your book with bated breath! I like the name "The Hidden" not sure why, just sounds intriguing.

Jessie Oliveros said...

Lulu seems to give you a higher score for less literal titles. Maybe you could try that, or some theme that appears throughout the book. Like Twilight almost has nothing to do with Twilight except Edward mentions a couple of times he likes that time of day. Also, it seems titles with two unrelated words to well-like Wicked Lovely or Hunger Games.

Jessie Oliveros said...

Oh yeah, I was going to tell you that of all of them I like The Hidden People best.

JKB said...

Hi Patti!

Thanks for visiting mah blog and giving me your opinion! I really like YA too, and am glad to have found you online! :)

Unknown said...

The title "The Land of the Hidden" appeals to me the most. "The Hidden People" is my second choice. I thought your brief synopsys was intriguing. I was just a little confused right at the end where it says Dagny is drawn toward an unknown danger that she can see, but that's just me. Looks really good though!