So self-publishing is a thing, which is awesome. The author has total control over content, editing, cover art and titles. Like every great power, though, this is one that has to be used responsibly. When it comes to titles, this power is sometimes *too* mighty. Look, I know titles are hard but there are certain guidelines that exist for a reason.

20eg32

If potential readers make this face at your cover, they are “potential” no more.

With this handy visual in mind I wandered over to the big list of free Book Title Generators over at Kindlepreneur.com (which you should also check out if you are interested in digital marketing, Dave knows it all). I clicked on the generators and did my best to come up with the most Terrible Titles of All Time.

They are wonderful examples of incomprehensible, silly drivel and reading them makes my heart happy. I picked them for the sins of: too many words, so vague they could mean anything, terrible grammar, awkward phrasing, inadvisable innuendos, or, delightfully, all of those things at once.

*To the best of my knowledge no actual books exist with these titles but if one somehow does, I offer my most sincere apologies in advance.*

The results are my gift to you on this Holiday weekend. Happy Christmas.

Faulty Fantasy Titles

  • The Invisible Card’s Blog and a Nothing
  • Fangsborn Twee Twilight
  • Lord Foul’s Marked Thing
  • The Hung Atlantis
  • Susan, the Hare Emperor at Evening

 

Harmful Horror Titles

  • The Bloodstained Womansborn Shadow out of the Mad Cylinder
  • I Guess I’m Not That Mad, You Can Live
  • The Hairy Drapes’s Ghost
  • Into the House Phantom
  • Fiend Above the Chair

 

Shoddy SciFi Titles

  • Comet Ever After
  • Sleeper’s Step a Nowhere Wept
  • The Planets That Invented Ya’rol’s Mysterious Crater
  • Ambushed in the Steaming Monument
  • Stars of the Bee Frog Woman

 

Careless Children’s Book Titles

  • The Golden Book of Anatomically Correct Pop-Ups
  • Forty Whacks and Bedtime Snacks; a Child’s Compendium  of Famous Serial Killers
  • Curious Kitty and the High Voltage Fence
  • Mommy’s Boyfriends Give Her Money
  • Actually, Goldie is Dead

(And here is a terrifically bad list of similar titles from Broke White Boy on Squat the Planet.com, 101 Rejected Titles)

Bad Romance Titles

  • The Lash of the Unabashed Wife
  • Erotic Temptation of Thorns
  • Hot Duke Sex on School Grounds
  • Laird of the Hung
  • Hissy Fits Because You Won’t Love Me
  • My Demon Vampire Master and his Western Russian Dude Ranch

 

That was fun. If you’ve got any ideas for titles to reject, throw them in the comments. And thank you!

 

 

Featured image via stocksnap.io and Negative Space

 

 

 

 

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