This was such a good read! It took us two years to title our comedy craft book before we landed on INSIDE JOKES (out in 2026). We had to try all the techniques you mentioned here, and asked a lot of people. The proposal went out with a totally different (and very long) title that never felt right to us.
Giving a full poetry collection manuscript is such a challenge! Sometimes you can use the title of one of the individual poems, but in my experience this can put too much weight on that one poem and skew perceptions of the overall book. I tried the word cloud method with my second manuscript and the juxtaposition of the two words that appeared most frequently overall really felt right for the working title of the book-to-be. So thank you for that!
Thanks Hurley! I was just thinking about titles, and how difficult it can be to come up with just the right one. This was great. And I love Look About You. Perfection :)
This was such a good read! It took us two years to title our comedy craft book before we landed on INSIDE JOKES (out in 2026). We had to try all the techniques you mentioned here, and asked a lot of people. The proposal went out with a totally different (and very long) title that never felt right to us.
Two years! I think INSIDE JOKES feels just right. I'm so excited to read it.
Giving a full poetry collection manuscript is such a challenge! Sometimes you can use the title of one of the individual poems, but in my experience this can put too much weight on that one poem and skew perceptions of the overall book. I tried the word cloud method with my second manuscript and the juxtaposition of the two words that appeared most frequently overall really felt right for the working title of the book-to-be. So thank you for that!
Yes! I tend to like collections and albums that aren’t named after a prominent “single.” So happy that word clouding worked for you.
Also, yes, word clouding is a verb now.
Anything's a verb if you do it well enough!
Thanks Hurley! I was just thinking about titles, and how difficult it can be to come up with just the right one. This was great. And I love Look About You. Perfection :)
What a fun and cool accomplishment! Love Cody’s work.