THE MOON ROSE

Titles are important. They should inform and invite and incite with intrigue and insight and ingenuity. In other words, you should be the little ingine that could.

Use words that everyone likes. People like moon and rose, so they should be included in titles. In fact, you can just use Moon Rose every time. It works for every genre. Thriller? The Moon Rose Conspiracy. Mystery? The Moon Rose Murders. Religious? The Moon Rose Revelation. Romance? The Moon Rose Lover. Works every time, and you don’t have to spend time thinking up a new title but can concentrate on more important things, like checking the sales rank of your book on Amazon. [The answer is 2,183,762.]

But if Moon Rose doesn’t work for you, you can practice book and article and story titles with the subject lines of emails. They should both inform and intrigue. I’m surprised by the number of writers and other mortals who either don’t title their emails at all or just keep hitting reply so that the subject line eventually reads re:re:re:re:…ad infinitum. [Actually, Ad Infinitum might be a good title.]

I spend a lot of time on email titles, because I want to be sure they are read. If I want to tell Howard that my turtle died, I can simply inform, “my turtle died,” [in order to save time in typing, since I have used so much of it in thinking, I rarely use capitals in email titles] which is okay, but if my turtle died because it stuck its tongue into an electrical outlet while trying for an ant, I could use the title, “mourning becomes electric.” Howard is bound to read that.

Authors should practice creative titling in all that we do. Get in the habit of thinking intrigue in every title. “The one who is faithful in email titles will be successful in book titles.”

If you get an email from me with “the moon rose turtle” on the subject line, be sure to read it.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ In Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

TODAY’S FEATURE FROM AMONG MY TITLES:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”