The Book Title: Choose a Short One

Award-winning writer Kathy Widenhouse has helped hundreds of nonprofits and writers produce successful content and has gained 600K+ views for her writing tutorials. She is the author of 9 books. See more of Kathy’s content here.

An online devotional for writers

A Word From The Word

I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth. (Daniel 10:21, NLT)

A Word For Writers

The longer a book title is, the harder it is to remember. So says best-selling author and book marketing expert, Penny Sansevieri. 

If a reader cannot remember a title, then it will be harder for her to remember the book. That’s not a place where you want your book to be.  You want your book to be memorable.

As a rule of thumb, the best book titles are 1-5 words long. A book title summarizes what the book is about so that it’s easy to recall, just as the heavenly messenger summarized the Book of Truth to Daniel.

Each of the 66 books in the Bible adhere to this guideline. Look at a few examples:

• Genesis (1 word)
• The Psalms (2 words)
• The Acts of the Apostles (5 words)
• The Letter of James (4 words)
• The Revelation to John (4 words)

The 5-word guideline applies to books of the Bible regardless if they were named by theme (Numbers – the counting of God’s people), author (The Gospel According to Matthew – the story of Jesus as told by one of His disciples), or recipient (The Letter to the Hebrews – written to the Jewish people.) Even those who don’t read scripture readily call to mind the Bible’s short titles like Exodus and The Proverbs.

You can use additional words in your book’s subtitle to explain in detail what the book is about. But when it comes to writing a book title, make it short and easy to remember.

A Wise Word

Write a book title that is short and easy to remember.

A Word To Pray

Heavenly Father,

It is easy for me to remember book titles in the Bible. Thank you for your brevity and clarity. Let me use the same approach as a title my book. 

In Jesus’s name, Amen.

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