Filed Under: book title

Remember how my weight loss memoir to be published next year was going to be called Breaking Up with Lane Bryant? You don’t? Oh good, I don’t have to come zap you with the memory eraser. We are no longer using that title. Why? Because of The Law, that’s why. As in “I fought the law and the law won,” only it was more like we saw we might have to fight the law and decided to cross to the other side of the street instead.

So, my book needs a title. My publisher and I have been going back and forth on this and I thought I’d ask your opinion. The title is a big selling tool. It needs to make people want to pick my book off the shelf at the bookstore. This is hard to do since most people only spend literally 2-4 seconds reading titles as they are browsing. The title needs to meet the following requirements:

1) It needs to be funny.

My book is funny and we want people to realize that as soon as they read the title. I think the book, like the blog, will appeal not only to people who need to lose a lot of weight but to people who might be fascinated by the process or just like a funny read. They need to know that it’s humorous, kind of edgy, but quarky all at the same time.

2) It needs to express the theme of the book

Basically, people need to know that this is a weight loss memoir.

3) It needs to be brief.

Something like 3-4 words would be preferable, but longer than 7-8 is really pushing it. It can’t be like the title of that Fiona Apple album that went on for 90 words.

4) It needs to pop

The easiest way to make the book pop would be to bind it in bubble wrap. But what I’m referring to here is that the title needs to be punchy. It needs to stick out. It needs to be different than all the hundred other book titles surrounding it.

Taking all that into consideration, I’m asking you two things. First, what do you think of the following title?

Dear Donuts, We’re Through: A Weight-Loss Memoir

Would you buy that book? Please tell me “Yes” or “No” and why.

Secondly, can you think of a better title? If so, please post it in the comments below. If my publisher and I both like it and agree to use it, I will thank you in the acknowledgments of my book. Please keep in mind though that ultimately my publisher and I get the final say. And it’s quite possible you might come up with a brilliant title, but it might not be the title for my book. If I don’t choose your title, it’s nothing personal. The book will have a subtitle, so phrase all your suggestions in the title:subtitle format. Right now we’ve been using “A Weight-Loss Memoir” as the subtitle, but you don’t have to use that if you have something better.

Time is of the essence here since this needs to be decided in the next week. I literally have 4 pages of a notebook filled with horrible, awful, no-good, titles. If you saw them you’d never read another book again in protest. So let me know what you think and thanks in advance!