So… our Challenges anthology is nearing completion, but still needs a title. You’ve seen the suggestions. You’ve sent in your votes. You’ve help me prune the tree of possible keywords. So now…
- Top votes went to the title, Journey Through Chaos.
- Top keyword choices went to Apart and Together, with Quirky and Challenges a close second.
- Any my personal favorites (’cause if I’m spending all this time, I might as well research my own choices too) were Waiting for Tomorrow and Waiting for Locusts.
Read on to learn what comes next…
So yes, then comes the research. That’s when I start typing keywords into Google to see what “completions” it offers and what appears on the page. I look for possibly appropriate completions and type them in. Then I repeat the process with Amazon. And then… Here’s what I found.
In each case, the top line shows what returns I was getting from Google, while the bulleted list shows what appeared on Amazon, from the top of the page (first thing seen by the searcher) down. The ideal is for Google to bring up appropriate topics and completions and Amazon to bring up moderately similar books.
Journey Through Chaos – Google brings up lots of books (which is good), many of which are out of print. Amazon brings up a famous author, a famous person, and books that are not related to our anthology:
- Agnes Elizabeth Ernst Meyer
- Charles Manson
- War books
- The emotional chaos of cancer and other trauma books
- And eventually some graphic fantasy novels.
Waiting for Tomorrow – Google brings up music videos, lyrics, and a literary novel. Amazon’s offerings don’t look too helpful:
- Nathacha Appanah
- Self-help
- Ecological picture book
- Religious self-help
- Psychology
- And eventually some daily planners!
Waiting for Locusts – I called it quirky, but Google brings up serious stuff about real locusts and plagues. Amazon brings up plenty of interesting books, which makes it, perhaps, a better option than the above:
- Scifi
- Selfhelp
- Cat mysteries!
- Faith
- Novels including I am Pilgrim
- The Library House: Thomas O’Brien
Together apart – I thought I’d just type in the winning pair of keywords and see what came up. Google offered music, podcasts, a web series of letters from lockdown… so yes; this sounds plausible. And Amazon?
- Contemporary lockdown love stories (an anthology – sounds promising!)
- Children’s picture book about lockdown
- Worlds Together Worlds Apart (BUT, it’s a long list of lots of books which quickly dominate the search: it’s a series on global history, and it might easily knock us off the first page if we were in this search)
- Self-help
Coming Together – Google offers lots of quotes, synonyms, making it a good search term with lots of possible “endings,” but mostly (on both Google and Amazon) the search brings up…
- Sexual fulfilment
- Self-help
Coming Together while apart – I tried typing more words into the search bar, trying out other titles from our Together/Apart section. This one brought up some scholastic plans for shutdown schools (once I got through the above…) so it’s still not ideal.
Coming Together while Falling Apart – Adding “falling” finally made Google change direction, offering music and lyrics (I didn’t read the lyrics). Amazon offered:
- Programming books!
- Preschool books!
- Some novels further down the page (so not ideally placed).
- Teamwork books
Coming Together in a Time of Falling Apart – adding more words led to more videos and self-help titles on Google, while Amazon’s page offered…
- Relationships
- Lego!
- Work teams
- Rag rugs!
- Then various fiction books including Thomas the tank Engine and Spellgiver in the Claws of the Indigen
Falling Apart – Since “Coming together” didn’t seem too promising, I tried the other half of the winning theme. Google offered videos and lyrics. Amazon’s auto-complete, when I typed in “Falling,” offered “Falling Apart” and also “Falling Together.” It’s not a title we’d suggested, but I decided to try it next. Meanwhile, on the Amazon page for “Falling Apart” I found…
- Buddhist perspectives, and
- Self-help
Falling Together – Now I know why Amazon suggested Falling Together. Google quickly tells me it’s a novel by Marisa de los Santos. Google also offers various videos, and a selection of literary BOOKS! Are we finally on to something? I tried Amazon and found:
- Marisa de los Santos’ Novel
- Self-help
- More novels – novels seem a good theme for this page
- History (Erik Larson’s Splendid and Vile)
Since Challenge was the second place winner, I wondered what Challenged together would bring up on Google – Covid, schools, athletes, books, education… Not too promising. And on Amazon:
- Prayer (lots of prayer)
- Campfire songs
- True crime
- Self-hep
- Poetry
Bringing us Together – On Google, this brings up videos, definitions, and a facebook page. On Amazon I found:
- Computer stuff
- Travel stories
- Politics
- Birds
- Memoir
- History
- Anti-racism…
So what about Separate Together? – Google offers songs, lyrics, and divorce advice. In fact, that word Separate seems as loaded with divorce and Coming was loaded with innuendo. Amazon offers:
- Marriage
- East West politics
- Splitting up
Still trying Separate, since Google offered a completion to “separately” I tried Separately United –
- American History, geography and science
Then I followed further down the rabbit-hole with United Apart – which brings up movies, gender issues and political science…
And… Anyone want to play the game, or make any new suggestions? That’s what the comments are for.
I’m thinking I’ll chase up variations on “Falling Together” next. Maybe “Falling Together through a Challenging Year,” but that’s probably too long…
Hope you’ve enjoyed my “Researching Titles” trek.
Oh my gosh!
Well, I looked up : Surviving Together on Google: ›
Surviving Together: Building and Maintaining Community After the Collapse: Read Books Reviews – Amazon.com.
Staying Apart, Surviving Together – Google:
How to Stay Together when You Are Apart
I guess I’m just not fond of the word Chaos.
But chaos has been the operative word this year: chaos over the medically-sound way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19; chaos over the what, when where and why of COVID economic relief; chaos over social justice — who is captain of peaceful protests and who are the bad actors inciting violence and crime; chaos over whether or not to open schools and when to open them; chaos and extreme confusion or whether or not to wear masks; do they help or not; chaos over what’s verifiable news and what is not. Chaos over stimulus checks and unemployment checks. Chaos is what 2020 has been all about. Our Journeys Through Chaos as captured in our anthology will speak to our own 2020 personal experiences as it relates to this year’s cornucopia of chaos. But I still love, love love, “Waiting for the Locusts.” Thanks, Sheila for all your research findings.
Admit it: They had you at Cat Mysteries!
Ha ha, Glennis. Good one!
Today I like “Journey Through Chaos.” My least favorite “Waiting for Locusts” (I know it’s a plague, but pretty obscure for a title. Sorry kitties!) Since none of your researched titles sound much like what our anthology is about, I say we just make our own headline– and pick our own favorite, regardless of the research! But your results are interesting, and thanks for doing such an extensive search, Sheila.
The hope is to find a title such that, when someone else is looking for something similar (a book, anthology, or literary title for example) they might “stumble upon” us. People looking for history will justifiably ignore us. Likewise people looking for political tomes, or health and relationships advice. So really, we should be asking ourselves, who wants to find what came up on Google, or read what came up on Amazon. If the answer is “people who might also want to buy our book,” we’ve found a winning title.
I didn’t see that you found anything similar to what our anthology deals with. That’s why I suggested just striking out on our own with whatever we like best. If we do good enough publicity, people will want to buy our book.
Best options so far, I think, from a title-matching approach, would be (in no particular order):
Waiting for Locusts because people who like sci-fi, cat mysteries, and complex novels might have an interest in our writing
Together Apart because people looking for another anthology might find us there
Coming Together while Falling Apart because people looking for those novels will scroll down the page and might find us
Falling Together because readers of literary writing will be searching this page
Another consideration for the title: How does it work with the cover illustration? Do any of the drawings resemble locusts? Just a thought.
Good point about the cover image. Unfortunately the site won’t display the image, but I’ve managed (I think) to upload the “temporary mock-up” of the cover, which, just by chance, includes one of those titles. So click here (or cut and paste the link), then see how you think the titles would work with the image: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/cover-temp.png
Okay, here is my final answer for a title: First choice is Journey Through Chaos because again it speaks to the classic storytelling of the Hero’s Journey, and we are all heroes to somebody during this pandemic saga. But I would advocate for making Journey plural. It’s more than one journey, it’s each writer in the group telling their journey experiences of challenges, growth and survival.
Second choice: Waiting for Locusts. I enjoy the sly nod to the Bible; the humorous approach to getting through one challenge after another and there is a kind of quiet acceptance to this title. It’s saying, “Well I got through A,B and C; now I’ll wait for X,Y or Z to show up…and I’ll get through that, too.” I realize that’s a lot to infer from this title, but that’s my immediate gut reaction to it.