Tips On Books and Book Titles
by Molly Noble Bull
Have you ever gone into a bookstore or on the Internet and had trouble finding the book you wanted? If so, you are not alone. Sometime I simply give up and walk out of the store without buying anything.
Well, I have tips for people who have a hard time finding books they want at bookstores.
To find the book you want at a walk-in bookstore like Barnes and Noble or Waldenbooks, ask for the book using the name of the author instead of the name of the book.
After Sanctuary was published, I went to Amazon.com and discovered that there were dozens of books with the word Sanctuary in the title. So to find one of my books at a walk-in bookstore, requests books by Molly Noble Bull.
To find one of my books at an Internet bookstore like Amazon, write Molly Noble Bull in the search slot and click.
Another thing to know about books is its ISBN. Know what that means?
I am not computer savvy. But I will explain it as best I can.
ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number, and every book must have one in order to be sold in stores. An ISBN is part of a book’s bar code. If you know a book’s ISBN or bar code number, you can find that book anywhere even if you don’t know the title or the name of the author.
As an example, here are the bar code numbers for Sanctuary.
ISBN-10: 1933853506
ISBN-13: 978-1933853505
And these are the numbers for The Winter Pearl.
ISBN-10: 373786115
ISBN-13: 978-0373786114
I know. That is a lot of numbers to remember. That’s why I suggested using the author’s name as it appears on the cover of books or write that name in search slots when looking for books on the Internet. It saves a lot of time and effort.
I have found that publishers seldom use the title I selected and for a lot of reasons. I won’t go into them here.
However, if your publishers do allow you to choose your book title or titles, do a little research first. Go to Amazon to see how many books, if any, will be sharing your title. Then decide whether or not you really want such a popular title for your book.
4 comments:
I think this is also important to remember when you're trying to come up with a title for your own book. If I have something that I think is perfect for the story I have in mind, I'll google it and check Amazon. If I find the title is already being used or something too similar is out there, I toss it. I've been really lucky so far in that all the titles I've come up with seem to be pretty original. Now wouldn't it be great to actually have an ISBN number to go with those titles....
One day....
:0)
Thanks for writing, Cathy. Titles are not easy to come up with.
Love,
Molly
Good advice Molly. On that note, I've also checked my name to see if its original or not! LOL! The jury is still out if I should use Carla Gade or Carla Olson Gade. There is a singer named Carla Olson, but I'm the only Carla Gade in the US. If someone is looking for Carla Olson they may bump into me accidently and it could be a good thing. Another thing to consier is what fits on a book cover better.
I've found this works when searching on the library system, too. Many times searching by title won't pull it up, but a search with the author's name and I find it. :) Great tip. :)
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