#WritersCoffeeClub 3/Jan: How do you come up with the titles for your works?

[cstross@wandering.shop]

#WritersCoffeeClub 3/Jan: How do you come up with the titles for your works?

Sometimes the work emerges organically from the title. And sometimes the title is an afterthought, slapped on a nameless work after it's finished. I've had both.

But in the final analysis, in trad publishing, the author only gets to suggest a title: the publisher can change it at whim, for marketability if nothing else. And I've had a couple of those, as well. ("Singularity Sky" was originally "Ship of Fools".)

[cstross@wandering.shop]

#WritersCoffeeClub

Footnote: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS run a title search for your proposed title through Amazon's database, and maybe Goodreads and one other (non-AMZN) source, to make sure you're not stomping on someone else.

Also, run individual words through web search (NOT AI) to see if they overlap with a famous band/film/play/TV show/trademark.

Unless you're Stephen King you're coming from behind, and a top-level search hit on someone else's IP will swamp readers searching for your book.

[quixoticgeek@social.v.st]

@cstross also Google your main characters names, just to make sure you haven't accidentally written a novel whose main character's name is the same as the Croatian word for vagina... Or similar... Unless of course that was the aim... On which case go for it...

[mrundkvist@archaeo.social]

@quixoticgeek @cstross
I collect fictional characters with mangled Scandy names. It's a truly proud tradition, including Jules Verne's magisterial and ridiculous ARNE SAKNUSSEMM. ❤️

#language #books

[daburudar@mastodon.social]

@mrundkvist @quixoticgeek @cstross "saknussem" has to mean "scrotum" in at least one language somewhere, surely?