Title? Title? I don't need no stinking title!

How do you choose what title to use on your finished manuscript?  Does it suggest itself to you during the course of your writing/rewriting/editing?  Or do you sit and look at it, trying to think of a pithy selection of just a few words that will encapsulate your book neatly and entice readers to try it?

For most of my published books, the 6 Reyes Romances, and my 2 stand-alone contemporary romances, I chose the titles myself.  But for my 2 romantic suspense novels, I had to turn to my family.  Keep in mind that none of my in-their-early-twenties kids read romance novels except for occasionally checking out one of mine.  So they don't have any idea what the popular titles are any more than my husband, who also reads lots of other books, but only romances written by me.  So when I ask them, they listen to my short explanation of who the main characters are and the story arc, then they fire suggestions at me. 

Since they refer to what I write as "Mom's porn", though I prefer "smut", they often suggest titles that sound much more erotic than what I write!  I write romance novels with a bit of naughtiness.  I've read enough erotic romance and erotica to know that's not what I write! So I reject the titles that sound like a porn movie, lest I disappoint a randy reader.  Then I consider their other choices. 

This worked wonderfully, I thought, when I wrote Secret Love, about a female spy who breaks the rules by falling in love while on active duty.  Then I went onto Amazon, excited to see my new book there, and when I typed in the title in the search line, I found 4 other books by different authors, with the same title!  Surely this was an anomaly, I thought. 

Then I needed a title for my second spy novel, about a retired female spy who is drawn back into the world she thought she had left for good.   2 male spies are assigned to guard her 24/7 from the psycho-killer she thought she had put away forever when her testimony put him in jail. She falls in love with one of them, but they both pursue her.  I kept thinking of titles with the word "spy" in them, but my oldest son suggested Undercover Lovers.   I thought it was an excellent title!  But apparently so did 9 other authors, 8 of whom used the singular lover...but all of their titles pop up when you search Amazon for Undercover Lovers.  Heavy sigh.

That same oldest son just tried to explain to me about how savvy techies are able to game the search engines, and tag their items with zillions of words to ensure that no matter what you are looking for, their products will appear.  I just got off of work and that sounded too complicated for me to grasp!  Oh well...

My next book will be published November 1, and it's about the Mayan prophesy involving the end of the calendar in 2012.  It also has vampires and a 5,000 year old Mayan vampire mummy.  And a conspiracy to dull the intelligence of the human population for nefarious purposes.  I agonized over this title also, and even called it unnamed Mayan romance in my files.  But when I was offered a contract, they needed to have a title to put on it.  My quandary had to end quickly!  I chose  Prophesy of the Undead.  Ah, great!  Nothing pops up with that title on Amazon!  I guess I'm going to have to check there from now on before I choose my titles for my next books. 

How much do you feel a title grabs your attention or causes you to want to read a book?  Or are you more interested in the cover?  I think I've been extremely lucky with the cover artists I've been assigned.  I just wish there was such a thing as a title artist!  Don't you? 

Please visit www.fionamcgier.com and feel free to comment on the creativity (or lack thereof) involving my titles.  Hey, I truly enjoy writing the best books I can...everything else is much harder!