OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Book Title Generator
Novel, Thriller, Romance, Fantasy, Literary and Non-Fiction Titles
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If this tool saved you time, a coffee helps keep new ones coming.
How the Book Title Generator works
This book title generator gives a fresh list with every click. Generate book titles in the shapes real books use: The Glass Orchard and The Last Cartographer as The plus a noun, A Winter of Small Lies as a noun of a noun, What the River Kept as a full sentence, Ashes and Honey as two nouns, The Girl in the Lighthouse as a person in a place, and The Quiet Art of Noticing: The Science of Doing Less as a non-fiction title with a subtitle. Pick a genre, choose a shape and generate up to a hundred.
Book title generator: how the names are built
A book title is the shortest piece of writing on the book and the one most people read, and titles fall into a handful of shapes that each genre has settled on, which is why the Genre select changes the words and the Shape select changes the grammar. The The-plus-noun form, The Glass Orchard, The Silent Witness, The Iron Throne, The Last Cartographer, is the oldest and the commonest, a definite article and a concrete noun with one adjective at most, and it works because the article promises that the noun is the book's one important thing. The noun-of-noun form, A Winter of Small Lies, The Weight of Silence, A Court of Thorns, The Science of Rest, is the literary and fantasy shape, the concrete noun joined to an abstract one so the title sounds like it means more than it says. The sentence-title form, What the River Kept, Where the Crawdads Sing, Everything We Never Said, How to Disappear, is the contemporary shape, a clause that reads as the first line of a story and has been the fashion in literary and book-club fiction for twenty years. The two-nouns form, Ashes and Honey, Salt, Bone and Sky, Blood and Silence, is the pairing of things that do not belong together, a fantasy and literary favourite that names the book's two forces. The person-in-a-place form, The Girl in the Lighthouse, The Woman in the Window, The Guest on the Train, is the psychological-thriller title of the last decade, anonymous person, definite place, and its romance cousin, The Baker at the Vineyard, swaps the menace for a setting the reader wants to visit. And the non-fiction form, The Quiet Art of Noticing, The Attention Effect, How to Rest: The Science of Doing Less, is a short main title with a colon and a subtitle that makes the promise, since a non-fiction title is a claim about the reader's life rather than a story.
The nouns and adjectives are ordinary English and the shapes are the ones the genres use, so a result is a new combination rather than an existing book by design; titles are not copyrighted and two books can share one, but a title that matches a well-known book will be confused with it, so search before you publish. A title is also read at thumbnail size on a shop listing and spoken aloud by a reader recommending it, so the shapes here are two to six words, and the subtitles are the length of a single line.
For the author's name, the Pen name page in the People section; for the publisher, the Business section; for the chapters, the Chapter title page; for a short story, the Story title page; for a poem, the Poem title page; and for the film of the book, the Movie title page.
FAQ
What makes a good book title?
One that promises the book's one important thing in a shape the reader recognises. The Glass Orchard promises a place and a mood, The Girl in the Lighthouse promises a mystery, How to Rest promises a change; the shape tells the reader the genre before the cover does. Short titles are stronger than long ones, and a concrete noun beats an abstract one unless the two are joined.
Can two books have the same title?
Yes. Titles are not copyrighted, only trademarked in rare cases for a series, so nothing stops you using a title another book already has, but a title that matches a well-known book will be found instead of yours in every search, and a reader who wants the other book will be annoyed. Search the title on the big retailers before you settle.
Why do so many thrillers have The Girl or The Woman in the title?
Because The Girl on the Train and The Woman in the Window sold in millions, and the anonymous person plus a definite place became the shape readers reach for when they want that book again. The generator produces it because it works; if you want to stand out from it, use the sentence or two-noun shapes instead, which are less crowded in that genre.
How do I write a non-fiction subtitle?
The main title names the idea in two to four words and the subtitle makes the promise in a sentence: what the reader will get and why it matters. The generator's subtitles are the shapes publishers use, a how-to, a why, a short history, a science of; pick the one that matches the book and replace its nouns with yours.
Can I use these titles for fiction or test data?
Yes. The titles are ordinary English words in the shapes books use, and titles are not owned, so they belong to no one; a short one may coincide with a real book by chance, so search before publishing, as above. For a bookshelf in a story, a library app's demo catalogue or a sample bookshop listing, use them freely.
See also: all Places & Things tools, People, Fantasy & RPG, Sci-fi, Culture & Language, Online & Social, Business & Brand.
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