You’re close to publishing your new book, but did you check if your book title is unique?
Whether by accident or not, using a title that is the same as one or more already published books can cause confusion. It can also make it harder to promote your book and help readers find it.
Having a distinctive title is always an advantage, but it’s a check that new authors can easily overlook.
It doesn’t take long to check a book title, and it can give you peace of mind before you publish your book.
Always check if your book title is unique
It can come as a nasty surprise after publishing your new book to discover that another book has the same title.
It’s not the end of the world, because books with the same title are not an extremely rare occurrence.
But it would be much better to avoid the problem and be confident that your book title is the one and only.
One issue to understand is that a book is generally protected by copyright when it’s written, but copyright protection rarely extends to book titles.
One instance when it might be an issue is if your title includes a brand name or words covered by a trademark.
Another potential issue could be if you use the name of a celebrity or famous person.
I don’t want to get into the legalities, as I’m not qualified to give advice.
However, the best way to avoid any potential problems, or having to change your title, is to make sure that your new book title is unique before you publish it.
The good news is that it won’t take you long to check your title.
You only need to set aside about half an hour to make sure that your title hasn’t already been taken.
How to check your book title
The first place I would suggest you try is Amazon.
Set your search using either the “Kindle Store” or “Books” category.
Type your title into the search bar and check the results.
It’s also a good idea to enclose your title in quotes like this, “One Last Love,” to narrow down the results.
I got a surprise when I searched for my book title above.
It found my book, but also two other books with the same title that were published a few years after mine. Obviously, they didn’t check!
Google, Bing, or any other search engine can help.
Use your title in quotes again and check the results. My book appeared at #2 after a song titled “One Last Love Song”, which is fine.
Another good place to check is Google Books.
You can also try Goodreads, but I wouldn’t rely solely on the results. It’s worth a check, though.
If you can, also do a quick search on Apple Books.
It’s also worth doing a quick check on the Smashwords Store. You might find books that aren’t published on Amazon.
One last stop might be Wattpad. While it’s not a book publishing site, it might surface a writer using your title for a new book project.
Choosing a few of these resources to check if your book title is unique should give you a good indication of whether your title is already in use.
What to do if you find a book with your title?
The first thing to do is to be relieved that you didn’t jump in without checking.
If you found a book, or books, with exactly the same title, it might be wise to consider a small change to your title.
For example, perhaps you could change “Midnight in Vienna” to “At Midnight in Vienna” or “Vienna at Midnight”. You can also be creative with punctuation.
If that’s not possible, using a subtitle can help differentiate it from other books.
Finding your title used for a very old, obscure book is not a huge problem. But again, you might want to make a change to make your title unique.
One match to take notice of is if you find a famous or very well-known book with your title. In this case, you really should consider a new title.
You might find a book with the same title, but in a completely different genre to your book. While it may not cause any real issues, you might want to reconsider.
One thing you must have noticed if you followed my suggestions to check if your book title is unique is that you came across lots of similar titles.
That’s perfectly normal, and it would be rare not to find at least a few.
Titles with popular nouns and verbs such as “Midnight”, “Space”, “Love”, “Escape,” or “Murder” abound, so it’s natural that many titles are similar.
If your new book title includes a popular word that is often used in book titles, that’s fine.
But you might need to edit it slightly if you want to make it different from other books.
In any of the cases above, it’s up to you to decide what to do.
If you have your heart set on using your proposed title and you find exact match duplicates, there’s no hard and fast rule that says you can’t use it.
But you have to be aware that it might cause problems when you promote your book or confuse potential readers or book buyers.
The main thing is that you checked, and you are aware that your title is not unique.
Summary
Is it a big deal if you don’t check to see if your book title is unique?
No, and if you’ve recently published a book, you can’t do much about it now.
But I would argue that it’s always a good idea to check. Then you can be sure that either your title is unique, or that it won’t be confused with a similar title in your genre.
It’s common for authors to give a title to a new book very early in the drafting process. That can make it feel like a fixture.
While you might agonize over every word when editing your manuscript, it’s easy to forget about the title.
Doing a quick check before you publish is an ideal opportunity to give some extra thought to your book title. Maybe you’ll find a much better one.
Related Reading: How To Find A Great Book Title For Your Book
English teacher, writer, and author. Passionate about grammar, creative writing, and self-publishing. Always exploring new tools and tech to help writers succeed.
