How I Pitch My Book Titles
Today I’m going to share the PowerPoint deck I prepared for my book 2 title pitch. With my debut, Darling Rose Gold, that title was found by consensus—and, frankly, was more in my editors’ hands than mine. With my third book, The Hitchcock Hotel, it only ever had one title from inception, which my editors loved immediately. With my second book, which would eventually be published as This Might Hurt, the title was squarely mine, but I wasn’t emphatic about it. I brainstormed a number of options. Rather than share them in a list like I had with my first book, I decided to present them as PowerPoint slides.
Why? Because no single title, in a list of 5-10, is going to wow anyone. Bulletpointed lists don’t impress us; size 72 font with only a few words on a page do. Presenting the titles this way to my editors was a good call IMO. It took only one round of pitching, whereas my debut took at least 4-6 rounds of group brainstorming. In the future, if and when I find myself in the position of pitching multiple titles for a book, I will definitely go the PowerPoint route, as corporate as it may feel.
Here are the slides with some commentary from me in between:
Genres go through trends. A popular one in thrillers was the girl/wife/woman phenomenon. For a long time, it seemed like every book had one of these descriptors in its title, thanks to the popularity of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. If you’re one of the first writers to use a title trend, bully for you. If you’re at the tail end: not so much.
No one told me to avoid the words above. I had simply observed, back in 2020, the frequent usage of these words in thriller titles. (Plenty of other words, too, but these were the most relevant to the story I’d written.) It’s part of my job as a writer to pay attention to these trends and to think deeply about where my book should sit among them. My publishers want to ensure that my titles and covers communicate the genre, but I’m more concerned with the title/cover standing out. Both facets are important. My primary readership is, of course, thriller readers. If a book doesn’t look like a thriller, they might be less likely to pick it up. However, as an avid reader myself, I tend to avoid cookie cutter titles and covers because I assume (wrongly, in many cases, I’m sure) that the story will also be cookie cutter. I prefer the books I read—especially in the thriller genre, where I’ve read hundreds—to upend narrative conventions.
The categories above are based on the themes of my book.
Lolz three years later at I AM NOT YOUR SHEEP. Many of these titles had no chance in hell of seeing the light of day, but sometimes you’ve got to take a swing.
When I sent this deck to my editors, their favorites were THE FEARLESS and THIS MIGHT HURT. I was equally excited about both, though I worried the latter would open me up to disparaging reader reviews. (“This did hurt to read!”—Yes, comments like this are online. No, they’re not original.) To be honest, I can’t remember now why we chose THIS MIGHT HURT. Most likely, it sounded more thriller-y than THE FEARLESS. I still like a number of the options above!
A final note on titles: when brainstorming your own, search the potential title on Goodreads. If it already exists, how many ratings does the existing title have? Unknown books with lesser known authors may not be a big deal, but I wouldn’t go naming my book Verity, for example. I would also avoid common phases. A quick search of “Dead on Arrival” brings up 128 books. The frequent usage of that title would give me pause. Again, I want my book to stand out, not blend in.
This post was originally published on my Substack. You can read it here.