6.4 Title and cover
Let me start with a reminder. When you play with the title and the cover, really play. You’re not trying to nail anything down. Instead…
Open possibilities.
And…
Surprise yourself.
Title
Three times I’ve had book titles come to me in a flash, when I wasn’t even thinking about titles, and before I’d even written very much.
It’s seriously fun when that happens. But what do you do when you don’t have that kind of luck?
I recommend that from the start, as you work on your book, you keep thinking up titles and playing with variations.
You might get ideas from your Amazon description or your proposal. Or from playing with blurbs and comments.
Maybe the title of your signature chapter becomes the title of the whole book.
You can also look through titles on the Amazon site and notice all the different formats authors use for their titles. Then try fitting what you’re writing into a range of those formats to see if one of them is right for your book.
And then play with variations…
Write a version of your title that’s perfectly reasonable, then a version that is perfectly outrageous.
Or a version that’s as serious as it can be, then a version that makes you laugh.
Or a version that’s bold, then one that’s self–effacing.
Or one that’s fierce, then one that’s tender.
Or one that’s throbbing with bravado, then one that’s a whisper of intimacy.
For my sixth book, I went through many iterations of the title, and six times I was absolutely sure I had the answer and bought the domain name to go with the title.
Then a few weeks later, I started going through more iterations because as the book developed it was clear I needed a better, truer title.
Finally one came to me and settled in…
Cursed by Our Blessings.
It hasn’t changed for months. And it does such a good job of giving the book the structure it needed that I can’t imagine moving on from it.
But then I still had the subtitle to deal with, and I took it through a dozen iterations before it settled.
Here’s what it is now…
A wild ride into deep and scary nurturance.
Except it’s not locked in. It’s still nagging at me, and that means it might change.
And it did change. The final subtitle is…
How evolution screwed us, but still we get to fight for ourselves
Sounds like a fun read, doesn’t it? I go deep and it gets dark, but it’s in the darkest places that we find the deepest compassion for ourselves. And the motivation to fight for ourselves. And that’s the fun part.
As you collect possibilities, ask yourself…
What do I want my title to do for me?
If your book is nonfiction, maybe you want a prosaic title that tells a reader exactly how they will benefit from reading the book…
Ten Steps to a Lasting Romance.
Or maybe you want an image that captures the feeling and flavor of your message. I’m thinking of a book I’ve just read. The title is…
Snow Leopard.
But the book is not about actual leopards. It’s about writers standing out as unique in the marketplace. The subtitle makes this clear…
How Legendary Writers Create a Category of One.
Still, the image adds a touch of intrigue to the title. And it captures the sense of an author who is her own person and beyond stereotyping.
And then you can carry this image with you after you finish the book. Instead of thinking of yourself as odd or a misfit, you can see yourself as a snow leopard, a rare and special being.
So this is a hybrid title…
A poetic image married to a prosaic description.
For a fiction book, you’ll likely want something that has has intrigue or triggers a basic emotion.
And if you’re writing genre fiction, you’ll want something that stands out as unique and yet fits into the conventions of your particular genre.
Although if you’re writing a story that’s a combination of two or three genres, which is the trend these days, you’re going to need to get really creative to find just the right title.
A good reason to start playing with titles from the very first moment you start writing the book is…
So the title is integrated into the book.
You don’t want readers to feel like the title’s been pasted on at the last minute…
You want your title to have a deep relationship with your message or your story.
Cover
Book covers are both…
Really challenging to create.
And…
Really important for attracting an audience.
You know that saying…
Don’t judge a book by the cover.
But readers do.
Studies have shown that the cover is one of the most important contributions to marketing success.
Now, here’s a problem. Guess how many new books are published annually. The answer depends on where you get your statistics, but it ranges …
From 500,00 to one million.
And if you add in self–published books, it’s estimated that the answer jumps up to something in the neighborhood of…
Four million.
That means a whole hell of a lot of book covers. So how are you supposed to come up with something fresh and innovative and compelling that will stand out in the marketplace?
My recommendation is not to focus on the marketplace. Instead, think about your cover as…
Midwifing the relationship between you and your reader.
How do you make the cover express the heart and soul of your book while touching down into the wishes and longings of your readers?
Okay, another problem. Writers write. Most of us are not artists as well. And cover design is an art.
If you get signed by a traditional publisher, they will likely take care of the cover. They’ll have someone on staff who does their covers or they’ll use independent contractors they like working with.
If you’re going to self–publish, unless you have design talent and smarts, I’d recommend that you hire a professional designer. Even if you’re putting out an e–book, the cover still matters big time.
So does that mean I recommend that you ignore the cover altogether let the professionals handle it?
Not at all. Because you know your book intimately. You know the soul of your book. Some designers are quick studies and can give you an effective cover quickly.
But for the most part designers don’t have time to read through your book and get in deep with it.
You can help them, though, by playing with cover design ideas yourself as you are doing your writing.
Why do I recommend this?
Because to communicate with a visual designer, it’s best if you can speak their language by using visual images.
Here’s what I recommend as a process for developing your ideas for a cover.
Explore on Amazon and make a collection of covers that have a feel or an element that you think is a match for your book.
Then give your designer the URLs to those covers, so they can actually see what you like, and get a feel for it, instead of just hearing you talk about it.
You can also sketch drafts of your design ideas on a pad of paper.
But better is to use a design program like Canva.com. In 30 minutes, you can learn how to set up a cover format, then add text and different backgrounds.
Canva also has tens of thousands of images you can play with. You can try out different sizes and arrangements easily. You can get deep into really playing with design.
And the best thing about using Canva is it’s…
Fun.
Here’s a game plan for you to try if you want.
1. Start with a typographic cover.
Just use fonts. Try out different fonts that match the personality of the book and your voice as the writer of the book.
Vary sizes, try different colors.
2. Add abstract shapes or designs in the background. Use different colors. Make something that’s visually appealing and resonates indirectly with your story or message.
3. Add in images.
But be careful with this. I’m thinking of a book I saw on how to attract an intimate partner. The illustration on the cover was one of those iconic horseshoe magnets.
The problem is that an iron magnet is inorganic and the process of attraction iron filings is mechanical. Which is not a match for the deeply personal and emotional process of attracting love.
Another example. There’s a book about creating intimate, long-term friendships, but the cover shows the author at the microphone in an auditorium filled with 300 people. Nothing intimate about that.
The publisher’s idea was to promote the author’s credibility through a picture of her popularity. But that overrode the intimacy message which was the heart of the book.
Images are so powerful that if you can’t come up with one that’s really, really right, you’re better off without an image at all.
4. Design a cover for each of your chapters.
This might be more than you want to do, but it’s another way to play with design, and a chapter cover might turn out to be perfect for the book as a whole.
If you’re writing genre fiction, you know that genre covers are intensely artistic and not something most writers can create on their own.
But no matter what, you want to think deeply about your cover. And that means playing with lots of possibilities.
If you’re self-publishing, you’re going to be the final judge of your cover, so you want to be thinking deeply about it over time.
If you have a traditional publisher, you want to be able to argue for a cover that matches the feel and mission of your book, so you want to be thinking deeply about the cover all along the way.
If you put a year or two or more into developing and then writing your book, then what I wish for you, and what I think you deserve, is a title and a cover that you love, really love, so when you you pick up your book…
You want to hug it to your heart.
PS:
I hired a professional designer to make a cover for my first book, Love with Fight in its Heart, Finding grace here at the end of the human story. You can tell from the title it’s not a fun romp.
The designer sent me back a cover that was absolutely perfect—for a romance novel.
I admit I was tempted to use it because that cover would have generated lots of sales. But I realized that if I did, women would feel tricked and maybe a crowd of them would show up at the front door of my building with torches and pitchforks demanding their money back.
