Every book needs a good title, one that’s original, intriguing, concise, and memorable. Your title should appeal to your book’s target audience. Crafting a good title requires at least a basic understanding of reader expectations in the book’s genre. This may call for some research, especially if your book would also benefit from a subtitle and/or series title.
Not every book needs a subtitle, but most would benefit from this keyword-rich, mini description of the book. Subtitles allow book browsers to quickly get a sense of a book’s reading experience.
If your book is part of a series, a series title is always recommended. It will link all of the books in the series and make them more discoverable. However, books with series titles don’t always need subtitles. Study how titles, subtitles, and series titles work together for top fiction and nonfiction books in your genre. Here are some examples of titles, subtitles, and series titles. In the list below, the subtitles come after a colon and series titles are in parentheses.
Fiction:
- Along Came a Spider (An Alex Cross Thriller) by James Patterson
- The Movement (Time Corrector Series Book 2) by Avi Datta
- Too Late: A Novel by Colleen Hoover
- Christmastime 1940: A Love Story (The Christmastime Series) by Linda Mahkovec
- Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel by Bonnie Garmus
- Charleston Green: A Novel (Tipsy Collins Series Book 1) by Stephanie Alexander
- A Match for a Bookish Bride (The Mystery Matchmaker of Ella Pointe Book 2) by Tess Thompson
Nonfiction:
- Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
- Running with Grace: A Wall Street Insider’s Path to True Leadership, a Purposeful Life, and Joy in the Face of Adversity by Lori Van Dusen
- Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
- Ignite Culture: Empowering and Leading a Healthy, High-Performance Organization from the Inside Out by Margarat Graziano
- The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential by John C. Maxwell
- The Proactive Executive: A C-Suite Recruiter's 5-Step System for Achieving Greater Career Success by Chris Nadherny
- The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life. by Robin Sharma