Quaking Soul Update #5.5

I have repeatedly been thankful for other authors who post about their mishaps or tips in regards to self-publishing.

So here’s a quick mishap/tip from me:

I’m honestly not sure what I was thinking when I picked The Adventure as my title for my first book. Perhaps I wanted to keep it as simple as possible?

It’s simple all right. It’s also so generic that if you put The Adventure into Amazon to find the book, you can scan through 100 pages and not find it. (Trust me, I’ve done this just to see).

I’d heard about picking a title that pops and that’s easy to find, but again, I have no idea what went through my head with The Adventure.

So, for Quaking Soul I put in a little more effort. If you type this into Amazon, you get seven books, none of which are YA Urban Fantasy. Perfect.

Next came some reader polls. In other words, I asked people what they thought about the title. Some loved it, especially if they’re familiar with high alpine aspens, which are known as quaking aspens. (Yes, this has a part in the book. It’s about dryads ;)).

Others said it made them think of an earthquake or a Quaker romance. Erg! Not so good. I was looking for something that said fantasy like “The Sorcerer’s Stone” is clearly fantasy whereas “Waterfalls” says romance. After much deliberation, I kept the Quaking Soul part because it truly does have a lot to do with the main character. However, I’ve added a small line.

So, the book is now:

Hidden Mythics Quaking Soul

Kind of like “Ranger’s Apprentice The Ruins of Gorlan”

This makes more sense once it’s on the cover.

So there’s my two bits about title. If you’re self-publishing, be particular about your title. It makes a difference.

Blessings,

Jennifer