Naming your book

I'm curious - did you mean a catchy title like "Kim Harrison Series/Rachel Morgan series" and "Sookie Stackhouse Novels," which clearly are what tend to be used when speaking about them (like the Anita Blake books) or their proper series titles (The Southern Vampire Mysteries and The Hollows Series)?

In the case of the first, you or your MC need to have a catchy name. That's all.

In the case of the second, The Hollows is Kim Harrison's story's setting. The Southern Vampire Mysteries are a descriptor - hinging on a location. Dresden Files is a variant of the character name (with a descriptor that indicates it's a case file, or one of many). Another with a place name is the Nightside series. Those are both two very common methods of naming a series - after either a notable character or place.

If you're asking how to accomplish that, you need to take a look at your location and character names - that seems to be where the type of names you're looking for come from.

I really need more information to provide any specific help, but generically I'd say you just need to identify what the common themes are that you're wanting to put in your series and then write down what that might add to a name.

ex: Charlaine Harris thought, 'Man, I really want a lot of vampires and people dying in my books. I guess I'll put the word 'Dead' in all my titles.'

Having a hard time with your title makes sense. You need it to say a lot of things. In a glance, prospective readers want to identify your genre (and sub-genre) and what makes your story unique. I think "Dead" is used a ton in mysteries and works double-time for Harris.

Ask yourself what message you want prospective readers to pick up from your title, and then make sure your title delivers.

Tough call. If you are talking series level, pick the center around which the series revolves. Mine was "An Agency novel" until marketing got ahold of it. Now it's "A Grimm Agency novel." All the books thus far have "Agent" in the title (until we get to the fourth, which I don't even have a contract for).

Oooh, I like Grimm; that adds a lot of shine. But then I'm a fairy tale fan.

I'm the kind of person who likes a clever title that appears in the course of the story. Maybe go through your story and find a line of dialogue that jumps out at you.

Sherrilyn Kenyon did this a couple times in her Dark-Hunter series.

Dance with the Devil.

"Sooner or later we all dance with the Devil. Now it's your turn."

Devil May Cry

"Even the Devil may cry when he winds up in hell and finds he's alone."

Jim Butcher usually goes with a pun in the Dresden Files book titles; that seems to work well, and even identifies what the book in question will be about for long-time readers.

Pick a few words that is are associated themes of your book. Plug them into an online thesaurus and pick out the best catchy ones and play with them, see what works together.
For example you might use the word cold and the thesaurus will give you chill, frozen, crisp, frigid, arctic, polar, icy

Short and sweet. That's what I go for. It has to be symbolic in some way, and emphasizing some important part of your story. Divergent by Veronica Roth is important to her book because divergent is the name of a type of person in her book, the hunger games is the name of a blood bath games used to keep the districts in line while torturing them with a small amount of hope (hence The Hunger Games is the title). I wouldn't pick it until your story is near complete (or completely outlined, depends). Pick that one thing you want people to remember, that one word or words your story is about. Maybe a symbol, a name, a place, a color even! it depends on your story

Well, it can be both easier and harder to name a series. Easier because you can develop a naming theme. Harder because...you have to develop a naming theme. What is the overarching theme of your series? Not just the first book, but the whole series?

If it's something like, I don't know, "love", then is there a special word for love that you use even once in the series? For instance, if your protagonist loves someone who will never love them back, you could call it the Redamancy Series. Actually, I think I might use that myself.

Then each title would be related to the series' theme, not clunky, and follow an internal pattern. Like parents naming triplets... Adam, Andy, and Adele. Each name stands alone, but put together, they give a general feeling, in this case: A names with D sounds. You could in turn name your books "Love of Character 1", "Love of Character 2", and "Love of Character 3".

Just very basic examples using the love theme.

It would be helpful to know more about your series.

Lots of good advice. Here’re my series so far: Shapechanger Tales, Confederation Tales, Worldwalkers, Cameron of the FBI, Romantic Millionaires.

It’s nice if book titles can hark back to the overall them of the series, but more important that they be good titles all on their own.

I always find titles difficult. I've been editing my current WIP since the summer, and now, almost ready to start getting some feedback on it, I finally came up with a title last week.
But in a way I think naming a series would be easier - as people have said, you can pick out a theme, see what's common between the books. Eventually I'd like this current WIP to be part of a series or trilogy, and it would probably be something short and simple that tells a bit about the setting or the group of people who feature in the series (a shapeshifter pack).

Ailsa said:

I always find titles difficult.

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As it should be. Crafting the individual and the series book titles is an essential part of gifting readers with your works. It's harder for readers to find your books if the titles don't catch their interest. And harder for them to recommend the books to other readers if they can't remember the titles.

Though you should be aware that if you go the trade publication route the publisher will have the final say.

For us (my writing partner and I) titles emerge from within the themes of the book as it is being developed and written. I usually experience it as a shock of recognition, a sort of, "Oh yes! There you are!" moment. For example, our WIP and the first book of our series revolves around events in Faerie crossing over to the Mortal Realm, so it's titled Faerie Rising. Book 2 will be about an ongoing conflict between two related families, and is titled Ties of Blood and Bone. And so forth. You want your title to reflect not only your themes, but the tone of your work. We write in a dark, adult setting, and so our titles maintain this tone. We're not going to have any stories titled "Mr. Fluffy's Campground Adventures"... that is, unless something very, very bad happens to Mr. Fluffy.