Meredith's Monday Musings: Book Titles

Hi All!

Happy Monday and the beginning of December! Omg! Can you all believe that we’re in the last month of 2017? I feel like it was literally yesterday and I was saying I can’t believe that it’s already the end of 2016. Where did this year go??

Today’s Meredith’s Monday Musings post is all about: Book Titles

I’m not sure if readers are aware, but it’s really hard (for me, at least) to come up with book titles for your stories. Not gunna lie, the past couple stories of mine, I’ve had one of my friends name them. She has an easy time coming up with titles for stories that aren’t hers, go figure. 

Here’s why it’s hard to come up with a title. First, you have to pick a catchy one. If you chose something like, “Blake Got Married”, that isn’t catchy at all and no one is going to want to buy it. Plus, the title gives away the whole plot to the story. As an author, we don’t want that. If our plot is already given away, what reason do readers have to buying our book? None. 

Once you have a catchy title in mind, you’ll want to make sure that it fits into the genre that you’re writing in and that it has easy searchable words. For instance, say I wrote a history book on Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun and titled it, “The Dictator and His Wife”. This title would fit into a history genre and dictator is a searchable word, so it could work for a book about Hitler and Braun. However, Dictator is such a generic word, in this case, you might want something more specific in the title. 

Lets take an erotic romance age play book. If we used the title, “Daddy’s Little Spy”, this would be good. For starters, it has the word Daddy and little in it, so readers will know 1) It’s an erotic book and 2) It has age play components in it. Then the word spy is going to let readers know that the heroine is a spy, but what is she spying on? Her Daddy? An enemy? What? It leaves the readers wanting more. Lastly, Daddy and little are searchable words. I could type “Daddy books” or “Daddy romance” or “little romance” into an Amazon search engine and several age play books, possibly including this one would pop up. So, readers who aren’t looking for a specific book could find this one and fall in love with it and you. 

Now do y’all have a better understanding of why it’s hard for authors to come up with titles for their stories? It takes a lot more thinking than one would expect to pick out that perfect title. 

That’s all I have for this week. I hope y’all have a great rest of the week! 

Meredith's Monday Musings: Snow

Hi All!

Happy Monday! Did everyone have a good Thanksgiving? I’m still working on all of the leftovers. They are might delicious though!

Today’s topic for Meredith’s Monday Musings is: Snow!

Who here likes snow? I do and I don’t. I do like snow because it is so pretty right afterwards. The ground and trees are all covered in that beautiful, glistening powder. It makes me feel like I’m in a snow globe or a winter wonderland. It’s just so pretty and really helps make the winter season gorgeous. 

Furthermore, getting to play in snow is pretty awesome! Getting to build snowmen, make snow angels, etc is a blast! My personal favorite is getting to go sledding. Well, as long as it isn’t too steep of a hill and I am facing forward. I had a horrible instance when I was in fifth grade and my sled got turned backwards and I ended up getting a conscious when my head and a big boulder created. Ouch! Besides that, getting to go down a slope is so much fun. Plus, it’s a great work out!

I’m not crazy about snow however when it comes to driving. This white powder stuff slows traffic down a bunch and makes the road slick, which leads to more accidents. I don’t like that one bit! Plus, I park my car outside, so in the mornings when I leave for work, I have to wipe all the snow off, warm up the car, and get the ice off that’s hiding under the snow. It’s a blast…NOT!

When it snows too, that means it’s cold outside. I don’t know about y’all, but I hate it when it’s super cold out. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind having to wear a sweater and pants to stay warm, but when I have to wear a sweater, coat, ear muffs, gloves, boots, and a hat, the cooler temps aren’t fun. 

Possibly the worst of all, (in my opinion), is when it snows, it’s the perfect time to go skiing. I don’t mind sledding, but oh my gosh. Skiing is by far the worst sport ever. I hate it. A few of my friends wanted to go once and never again. I barely can walk with two feet planted firmly on the ground. Me in a pair of skis is a danger zone for all around me. You never know which way I’ll fall. 

That’s it for me! Have a great week, everyone!

Meredith's Monday Musings: Thanksgiving

Hi All!

Happy Monday and (soon) Thanksgiving! I can’t believe that Turkey Day is this Thursday all ready. Is everyone prepared for the holiday and maybe some Black Friday shopping? I’m not! I still have a lot of cleaning to do!

Today’s Meredith’s Monday Musings topic is: Thanksgiving! 

I love this holiday for so many reasons. The main one is probably because it’s a time where my whole family can get together. With all of us being adults now, having full time jobs, and starting families, it’s really hard to get all of us together. Holidays are great days where we get to come together as one, reminisce about memories, and share what’s going on in our lives. So, that’s pretty awesome. 

This might sound bad to say, but another reason why I love this holiday is the food. Let me start off by saying, I love all food. It’s delicious. I probably eat too much on a daily basis, but on Thanksgiving, oh man, I indulge myself! How can I not, though? The food is all SOOO good and there’s so much of it. Mmm. Truth be told though, my favorite part about this meal is the leftovers. I’m a huge fan of Shepard’s Pie. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically where you take a bowl, put whatever left overs you want in it, you can mix it up or not, heat it up, and eat it. It’s really good!

Another reason why I love Thanksgiving is the meaning behind it. As a human who lives in a first world country, I can say that I don’t think about how thankful I am as much as I should. I think it’s pretty safe to say too that most first world country humans don’t. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s my opinion. Anyway, I like that Thanksgiving makes us think about how all of the things that we’re thankful for. It gives us a chance to reflect how lucky we are for the things we have and maybe because of this, ways that we could help out others who aren’t as lucky as we are. I think if more people did that, thought of others and how they could help them out, our world would be a much better place. 

Well, that’s all I have for today. I hope y’all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!