Title Fights: Who Gets to Name an Author’s Book?

So what kinds of titles do publishers prefer? For starters, according to Garnett, they naturally favor “titles that are memorable and striking and, of course, that manage to communicate the flavor or feel of the book’s content and writing and sensibility,” though these are subjective criteria—both she and my own editor, Margaux Weisman at William Morrow, concede that the titling process amounts mainly to a gut feeling, informed by trial and error. (And it’s hard to imagine that they aren’t influenced by the desire for Google-friendliness or e-retail “discoverability”—think of the Twitter-friendly #GIRLBOSS—though nobody I spoke to claimed these were heavy considerations.) Titles are hashed out in biweekly meetings with the publisher, editor-in-chief, deputy publisher, digital and paperbacks publisher, and managing editor, and later in the process, marketing, design, and publicity departments, as well as the author and their agent.

From Title Fights: Who Gets to Name an Author’s Book?

So what kinds of titles do publishers prefer? For starters, according to Garnett, they naturally favor “titles that are memorable and striking and, of course, that manage to communicate the flavor or feel of the book’s content and writing and sensibility,” though these are subjective criteria—both she and my own editor, Margaux Weisman at William Morrow, concede that the titling process amounts mainly to a gut feeling, informed by trial and error. (And it’s hard to imagine that they aren’t influenced by the desire for Google-friendliness or e-retail “discoverability”—think of the Twitter-friendly #GIRLBOSS—though nobody I spoke to claimed these were heavy considerations.) Titles are hashed out in biweekly meetings with the publisher, editor-in-chief, deputy publisher, digital and paperbacks publisher, and managing editor, and later in the process, marketing, design, and publicity departments, as well as the author and their agent.

From Title Fights: Who Gets to Name an Author’s Book?