How do you all come up with titles for your books? I have an awful time. It seems like whenever I finally think of something I like, it's already used for something. A book or a song or something. I do a google search and there it is. You can't use a song title can you?
I'm trying to put my stories together in an anthology like the one my writing group put together only all my own stories about growing up in the 50s and 60s. (some of the stories aren't finished yet, but I'm still trying to put it in some kind of format and give it a name.)

Also, when write an anthology, how do most of you do it? The one my group did, the lady doing the putting together, did it in Publisher as a booklet and we sent it to a printer via the net. (also brought him a hard copy) I don't have Publisher and I'm trying to do it in Word. Can I do it that way? Is there special software that works better? I want to be able to have it already in the right format.

Any ideas?
Thanks.
Louisa

Titles for me is the easy part, I have a million rolling around in my outherwise empty head...If I can be of any help let me know, I think the titles are fun...

Usually when coming up with a title for a story, I think about what I'm trying to tell my audience. Like Friday I wrote one on being in a cubicle and feeling like everyone there could hear and see everything I did. Which they can...so I titled it The Cubicle Conspiracy...see? Think about this

1) What are you trying to sell here? A theme? An era? Memories?
2) Who are you talking to with these stories? Men? Women? Children? Mothers? etc.
3) Are you memories (I'm quoting you here) long? short? Could you use numbers? Do you even want to? i.e., 50 Years Ago You Loved Me...
4) Are there specfic points to be made about these stories..(i.e., like games? toys?) For instance are you trying to say something like "Toys, Tears, and Timelines" ???
5) Is it serious writing? i.e., The Years Endured (negative but you get the drift?)

I think that's enough points to make regarding WHO/WHAT/WHEN/WHERE...answers these questions, then think about titles.

Anyhooo...I'm rambling. Hope this helps a little. I'm with Chatty though, the titles are easy, it's the meat that's harder to thaw...course it helps if you're warped like me!

JJ

Thanks, jawjaw and chatty for your comments. I don't have as hard a time with titles on a single story, it's the whole package of an anthology that stumps me. I think I finally came up with something. I printed out what I have so far that will be in the book, plus some other stuff and put it all together. I added some of my own photos since I want to stay away from clip art. I guess it is the memories of the era I'm trying to sell/convey. The market would be mostly boomers, but some older than us too enjoy what I write. I've been reading my stories to the elderly in the nursing home where I work. They love the reminiscing. It really gets them thinking. They enjoy it.

Now, if I can format it in Word so it comes out 1/2 pages instead of whole, I'll have something to go to a printer with when I'm done. I know it can be done that way in Publisher because we did our group anthology that way. It gave us a hard copy to work with and something to give the printer. The file was about 25 megabytes because of the photos we included so it had to be sent to him via email as a tfp file or something. It sure didn't fit on a disk and the girl whose pc it was in didn't have a cd burner.

Thanks.
Louisa

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Louisa,

Whenever I'm thinking of a good title for a book or article, I brainstorm ideas on what would be appealing to others? I list all of the ideas on paper and then focus on several that stand out.

What works for me sometimes is to put down the idea in the plainest words possible, including things I definitely don't want to use. Then use the thesaurus to look up each word to see other possibilities. Sometimes I find what I want that way and other times not and sometimes it inspires something totally off the wall.
smile

Thanks everyone! I think I've come up with something. I'm playing around now with photo possibilities for the cover.

I figured out the set up part of word, but how the heck does it all come out right? I'm pretty computer literate, but this baffles me for some reason.