BC: Tattling On Titles

Here’s an interesting Web site, brought to you courtesy of Lulu, the large print-on-demand publisher. The site rates book titles, with this provocative lead-in:

The Lulu Titlescorer has been developed exclusively for Lulu by statisticians who studied the titles of 50 years' worth of top bestsellers and identified which title attributes separated the bestsellers from the rest.

You type in your book title, answer their short list of questions, and voila, the results, given in percentage of chance that the title will be a bestseller.

The site is quick to say the data scores aren’t perfect.

However, giving them the benefit of the doubt, I found an intriguing pattern when I logged in each of my suspense novels. After typing the title, you must first choose whether the title is “literal” or “figurative.” Help buttons guide you through your choices. Here is the site’s explanation for which to choose:

Literal--Example: Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger. The novel largely consists of dialogue between the two main characters, Franny and Zooey, making the title completely literal. The Harry Potter titles are good examples of literal titles.

Figurative--Example: Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer. The story's two main characters are named William Kane and Abel Rosnovski — simple, Kane and Abel. What makes the title figurative is the parallel to the Old Testament Biblical story of Cain who kills his brother Abel. To a reader familiar with this story, the plot of Archer's novel takes on an additional layer of meaning due to both the contrasts and parallels with the biblical story.

By this definition, all of my novel titles are figurative because they refer to the underlying spiritual theme as well as a concrete aspect of the story. However, I was curious. If I left all other answers the same, what difference would calling my title “literal” vs. “figurative” make in the score?

Answer: a big difference. Most of my titles scored a 41.4% when I listed them as literal. But when I changed the same title to figurative, the percentage jumped to 69%.

Hm. No difference in the actual title. Which would mean no difference in the book cover. Which would mean no difference in swaying that bookstore browser to buy the novel—unless the back cover copy explicitly states the figurative meaning of the title. Barring that scenario (which I don’t think happens very often), the only difference a figurative title would make is after the person has read the book—then recommends it to friends and family. If these data are true, inferred logic tells me that recommendations for the figurative title book are stronger because the story has more depth of meaning.

Either this, or a book with more depth of meaning somehow does attract more bookstore browsers. Maybe the cover somehow reflects the “figurative” appeal? Maybe the back cover copy alludes to a more substantive book?

Maybe these titles statistics are pure schlock?

Here’s the Web site. Experiment away.

~ Brandilyn Collins,
Seatbelt Suspense™
http://www.brandilyncollins.com/
http://www.forensicsandfaith.blogspot.com/
Don't forget to b r e a t h e . . .™