Your title is the first thing anyone will notice about your novel. A good title can encourage someone to read your story, while a truly bad, generic, or cliched title can make it harder for your novel to gain exposure.

When I sat down to choose a title for Loyalty Fallen, I had quite a few bumps along the way. My first title was too long and generic, and my second title (which I shall never reveal), made people laugh. Still, there are a few best practices that fantasy authors usually discuss, and a few considerations that might be helpful when it’s time for you to choose how people will see your novel for the first time.

1. Keep it short

I discussed this briefly in a previous blog post, but it’s generally best to keep your fantasy novel title short. There are certain subgenres that tend to have longer titles, like Isekai stories, for example. Still, a cursory look at modern fantasy novels on the Amazon store will tell you that the current fashion is to keep titles short, usually 2-3 words, and sometimes just one word. For example, Brandon Sanderson wrote both The Final Empire (in the Mistborn series) and Elantris (a standalone novella.) Some other examples are Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews, Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, and The Ranger’s Apprentice. I haven’t read all of these books, but I certainly like the titles!

2. Make sure it’s easy to pronounce

If you want to share your book with your friends and have them talk about your book with other people, it’s best if your title is easy to pronounce. That way if someone wants to look it up they know basically how to spell it and shouldn’t have too much difficulty finding it.

3. Do an internet search

There have been instances in which more than one book was published with the same title from different authors. However, doing this with your book simply ensures that if people search for your title, it will show up lower in their search results than the original book by that title. Ideally, you also want a title that isn’t shared by any other media. For example, if you name your book Fire and Gold (there’s already a novel called this, but let’s use it anyway), anyone who searches the title without the word “novel” after it will find Bea Miller’s song Fire n’ Gold first.

Understanding how your title will appear in search results is part of something called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. You want a title that is easy to search and will show up high in results in various search engines.

4. Use made-up words with caution

Made-up words fulfill the criteria of likely showing up high in search results, but the problem with made-up words is that they’re often in the category of being hard to pronounce, hard to spell, or simply hard to remember. For example, while I like the title Elantris, I’d have to have someone spell it out for me and write it down before I would remember it.

By contrast, Mistborn is much more memorable because I already know the word “mist” and the word “born;” it also piques my interest more because I have no idea what Elantris refers to, but I start to have a picture in my mind as soon as I hear the word Mistborn. Whether that picture is accurate or not doesn’t matter; it will help me remember the title and likely have more interest in picking up the book.

5. Hint at fantasy elements

I certainly didn’t follow this advice with Loyalty Fallen; however, one of my other stories is titled Obsidian Blood. Anyone who sees the name Obsidian Blood will likely guess what genre the book is immediately (though they might also think of vampires, which the book does not include in the slightest capacity). Similarly with Mistborn – The Final Empire, a fantasy setting is evident. However, a book title like The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss or One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig could be set in any century or any genre. While it’s not absolutely necessary to have a title with the fantasy clearly shown, the majority of fantasy novels certainly do.

Final thoughts

A bit of final advice for you: maybe run your title by a few of your friends before you post it online, or better yet post it to a less friendly audience on Reddit or to a beta reader. Let the critics have their say and then choose the title that you like best and that best suits your story. You’re the one with the final choice; just remember that whatever you choose may live on for quite some time online, and it will be the first impression anyone has of your story. First impressions matter.

What are the book titles that have struck you as the most compelling or that you’ve created for your novels? Let me know in the comments, and while you’re at it, please like the post and subscribe to the blog.

You can read what I’ve published so far of Loyalty Fallen here.