Hello Again!

Okay, so we've made the fantastical world your story takes place in, outlined your story's plot, worked on your story's magic system, made sure your book doesn't have a useless MacGuffin, & picked out what magical creatures call your world home....what's left?

You gotta name the damn thing!

You're probably like "Uhhhhh Melody....DUH, of course, I've given my book a name! Why are you writing this part?"

Thank you for asking, Dear Reader!

You see, naming your book isn't as simple as you might think it is. I cannot tell you how many books I've read here on Wattpad, and even traditionally published books, where I question the writer's sanity when it comes to their book-titling skills.

This part is going to help you pick the best possible name for your book as well as helping you pick out the right tags to help your story get noticed!

So, first up: Titling Your Book!

You want a title that captures the feel, plot, and central message of your book (obviously lol. You wouldn't name your medieval fantasy story "The Cyborg Queen" would you?). You should list all of the important characters, themes, locations, and even objects (i.e. what your characters might be journeying to obtain) that appear in your story and then create makeshift titles out of it.

If you want your book to stand out, you need a different (yet accurate and catchy) title than everyone else.

Now, I'm gonna be honest, most writers on Wattpad aren't that creative when it comes to naming their books. Don't believe me? Take a quick lil peek at the Teen Fiction or Comedy hot lists...

I'd suggest after coming up with a list of possible book titles (like you hopefully did a second ago) on a piece of paper and then one-by-one search those exact titles here on Wattpad. Are there already 20+ stories with that exact name or something so close that it could be easily mistaken for your book title? Cross that off your list, you aren't using it. My only exception to this rule is if you come up with a good enough subtitle (but keep in mind to keep it as sort as possible).

"But Melody, what if there's only two or three books that have the same or incredibly similar title?"

See, that one is a little tough because it varies case-by-case. Are these books in a different genre than your's? Okay, sure, I think that'd be okay. Are any of those hugely popular (100k reads or more)? Then no, don't use it. Are any or all of them abandoned stories that haven't been updated in a few years? Then yes, I'd say you'll be fine.

Now that you have given your book a bomb ass title, it's time to move onto the second topic of this post: Correctly Tagging Your Book.

"Are tags even important?"

HOLY

FREAKING

YES!!!!!

Trust me when I say, especially now with Wattpad's weird-ass algorithm, tags are more important than ever. They used to work very similar to a YouTube or Instagram tag in which it would make it more likely for your post to be discovered by someone searching that specific tag while you would rank solely in your genre's hot, new, and rising (remember THAT?) lists. Now, they're ranks in and of themselves. They still kinda work like YouTube and Insta tags, but not as much.

Now what I want you to do is to, again, come up with a list of at least 15 tags that would fit your story. Here are a few categories where you should focus:

- Genre: PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU CORRECTLY GENRE YOUR BOOK. If your book is fantasy, put a #fantasy tag. Furthermore, if you know the specific sub-genre that your book falls into, add that tag too. If your book also has bits of romance or adventure, you can put those genres in too.

- Themes/Symbols/nonphysical things: Goodvsevil? Magic or Witchcraft? Love or Hate? War? Greed? Light? Darkness? Seasons (don't put all four, obvi...unless you have a character that controls all four, then maybe).

- Characters: i.e. Got a bunch of royalty? Use the tags (if accliable) #royalty, #queen, #king, #princess, #prince. Magic users? #wizard, #witch, or #warlock (although that might put your book into a pool of Harry Potter fanfiction, so beware). You can also use these if they appear in your story  (but ONLY if they are prominent) #warrior, #lord, #god, #goddess, #pirate, #thief, #assassian.

- Creatures that might be present in your world that your characters interact with: i.e. fairies, mermaids, unicorns, elves, trolls, dragons (THAT's a BIG one), goblins, etc.

And then any other tags you think fit your book. (However, try and avoid tags like graphics, picture, image, basics, help, or anything that might be associated with cover/graphic shops or book clubs/review books.)

Basically, you want the exact opposite outcome of what we were striving towards with your book title. With tags, you want to find those that are the most popular and used to allow your book to have the greatest reach. However, don't lie in your tags. If your story doesn't have magic, don't you f#cking dare put the magic tag. It'll hurt you more than it'll help, trust me.

That's all I got for you this time around! I hope this helped any of you who might be having trouble picking out a good title or relevant tags.

If you have any further questions, don't be afraid to ask them below!

Thanks for reading and I'll see you in the next part!

🤍 Melody