Let's Talk Titles & Names

I'm back from the 2010 Muse FREE Online Conference. I'll be digesting all of the information for weeks to come. I taught my first workshop and noticed a common thread. Authors often choose titles that will not set them apart.

CHOOSING A BOOK TITLE

In fact many titles will hurt author's chances of being pulled up on Amazon. You want your title to be on the first page that comes up.

Let's play with book titles on Amazon.
A common word in book titles is guardian. Let's learn how to find a truly unique title. If you search for books titled guardian there are over 10,000 results to that search.

Let's change our title to Guardians of the Fire. That search gives us 62 results. That's better, but not good enough.

Guardian Angel Wanted calls up 0 results. This is it, but what happens if someone can't think of your full title? Even though we found an original title we still have a good chance of not being found.

I titled my books "Klutzy Kantor" and "Marta's Gargantuan Wings," because there were no competing titles.

CHOOSING A PEN NAME

When I received publishing contracts I used my first and last name, Jessica Kennedy. This proposed a couple problems.

An internet search revealed another author with that name. When I checked the availability of the url www.jessicakennedy.com, it was taken. I could have gotten a .net or .org, but I wanted a .com. When someone looks for a url that they are not sure of, they look for a .com. I decided to try my first initial and middle name. I got lucky. It was available. In retrospect, I'd try www.aday.com. If I can I might buy it and tie it to www.jadaykennedy.com. I know it can be done, but not how.


An Amazon search showed 21 results for Jessica Kennedy. When I looked for J . Aday Kennedy, no results were returned.

THE MORAL OF MY STORY IS CHECK YOUR TITLE & PEN NAME'S AVAILABILITY.

GUARDIAN ANGEL PUBLISHING & BEDTIME STORIES COLLABORATE

HOW IT WORKS
FIND A BOOK

Guardian Angel Publishing and BEDTIME STORIES join forces.

Read a picture book to a child. A video of you reading runs as the pages are turned.

rel='nofollow' Do Your Backlinks Work

Did you know Blogger automatically stops your backlinks? I just learned this. I’m going to teach you to disable it. If you are running a virtual blog tour you might want to let all of your hosts know or their links to you and the sites that sell your books might not work.

1. Backup your template just in case.
1. Click on the Design tab.
2. Click Download Full Template
2. Removing the nofollow html
1. Click on the Design tab & Edit html
   
2. Check the box that says Expand Widget Template
3. Press Ctrl f
4. Type rel=’nofollow' in the box next to the word find
5. Press enter on your key board
6. rel=’nofollow’ will be highlighted
7. Delete rel=’nofollow'
8. Return to the Find box where you typed rel=’nofollow' and click Next ▼
9. Delete rel=’nofollow'
10. Repeat this process until the words rel=’nofollow' turn pink in the Find box
11. Preview to make sure your blog looks okay.
12. Save it