I’ve been thinking a lot about book titles this week. I decided a while ago on ‘The Madness of the Faithful’ for my debut book (out July 28th). I wanted a title that was original and effectively teased the content of the book. I did searches to make sure there were no books with the same or a similar title. Also, I researched and tried to avoid trends like the various ‘Girl Who…” book titles.
While digging into the subject, I discovered a study where researchers investigated what features of a book title would make it likeable and memorable. The researchers came up with book titles that aligned with four main theories of why people read fiction:
- Minds/mental states: We are drawn to fiction because it’s like a gateway into the minds of other people.
- Gossip: We like fiction because it appeals to our love of gossip.
- Morality: We find fiction attractive because it allows us to feel and explore the power of morality.
- Pleasure: We enjoy fiction because it gives us pleasure.
The study showed that book titles referring to any of these four theories or categories were rated higher (i.e., preferred) over control titles that did not relate to these categories. Among the four categories, titles relating to minds and mental states and titles relating to morality were rated higher than gossip and pleasure.
In terms of memorability, titles referring to minds and mental states were recalled less frequently than all the other categories. In general, short titles were found to be more memorable than long titles.
Overall, might these findings suggest that a title relating to morality (virtue, innocence, guilt, taboo, good/evil) has the optimal characteristics in terms of memorability and likeability? My debut book title links into both minds and mental states (‘Madness’) and morality (‘Faithful’) – although the second category is maybe a little more tenuous.
Try it out yourself – it’s a useful way of thinking about how book titles may be attractive to readers. More than that, it may be a handy lens to consider how your fiction work as a whole appeals to your audience.
