28 December, 2005

Winning titles

I always have difficulty coming up with a catchy, attractive title for a story. If, like me, you have the same problem, help may be at hand.

An article in the Books section of the Guardian reports the results of a statistical survey commissioned by Lulu.com on what makes a winning title.

Don't take it too seriously though, as the model doesn't accommodate the success of The Da Vinci Code, or the Harry Potter series. Content may have something to do with success after all.

3 comments:

Alex Bordessa said...

I saw this article too, and put the titles of my wips into the Lulu title cruncher. I was suitably disappointed by the results ... But as you say, it doesn't predict much for the Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter, so perhaps there's hope :-)

I see we have rather similar backgrounds and tastes - right down to loving Radio, and I'm sure all the best people congregate in the 5th-10th century ;-) - so will drop by frequently. I trust you're a member of the Historical Novel Soc?

Carla said...

Good heavens, a comment on my first post! Alex, you've made my day! I expected to be talking to the air indefinitely.

We do seem to have similar tastes and I'm a regular reader of your blog though I could never comment until I got my own. It's nice to feel I might be in a minority of two instead of one :-)

I'm a member of the HNS email group, but not of the society yet as I believe membership runs March to March.

Alex Bordessa said...

Carla, membership of the HNS runs from Jan-Dec, so sign up now and you'll get the next HNS Review (due February). There's 4 of those a year, plus 2 editions of Solander, the HNS journal. If you joined later in the year, though, you'd get that year's back copies anyway, as I seem to remember happened to me. It really is worth joining; I've learnt so much, and met people with similar interests.

Have you also signed up for the HNS Newsletter? It comes out every two weeks and gives links to as many newspaper reviews (and articles) as the editors can manage/stomach.