Embarrassing book titles

As a bookseller, I'm at the lower end of the publishing foodchain.  However, I'm going to punch above my weight for a moment, and offer a bit of advice to the aspiring author:

If you can possibly avoid it -- if it is in any way achievable -- for the love of squid, don't use offensive language in the title of your book.

"But," you say, "I'm a cutting edge author of hip, in-your-face literature.  My target audience isn't going to be put off by a curse word.  Stop trying to compromise my artistic vision, peon!"

That is all very well, but it's not necessarily the target audience who's buying your books.  Offhand, I'd say about 40% of the books I sell in a day are being purchased as gifts, and that increases hugely around Christmas.  Instead of picturing your pierced hipster readers, take a moment to envision a sweet, sheltered grandmother, coming into a shop, examining the print-out of their precious adult grandchild's email and approaching the counter.

"Excuse me, miss," she'll say, "my granddaughter has asked for a book for Christmas.  It's called The Fuck Up."

Or, more likely, she'll just push the print-out towards the sales assistant, looking faintly ashamed of both herself and her descendants, while the bookseller maintains a perfectly neutral expression and makes a mental note to share this anecdote online one day.

Even if your cover is cunningly designed to disguise a four-letter-word -- The Fuck Up's cover, for example, makes it look like a novel titled Uck Up -- people are still going to ask for your book.  Ideally, they're going to buy it, read it and love it enough to tell all their friends about it.

"Excuse me," said a well-dressed lady a few weeks back, "I'm looking for a book -- I read about it in a magazine -- it's a diet book, it's called, um, I'm so sorry, it's called Skinny Bitch."

"I'd like to order a book, please," said another customer recently, "it's called -- here, I'll just write it down for you."  Bitch Rules by Elizabeth Wurtzel.

"Can you recommend any good books about sailing?" asked a middle-aged lady last year.  "I'm looking for something my husband will like."

"Aquatic sports books are over here," I said, "probably the best one about sailing is this one," I pulled All Piss and Wind off the shelf.  The customer and I looked at it, mutually blanched, and moved on.

And, although it should be obvious, racial and homophobic slurs are best avoided if you want to actually sell your book.  The worst example is on shelves now.  It's an interesting-looking biography by an Chinese-Australian journalist, recounting her experiences growing up as the only Asian kid in her suburb.  I'd love to read it, and I'd love to be able to recommend it for others.  Unfortunately, it's titled Ching-Chong China Girl.  Which is, obviously, the taunt that followed the author through primary school, and she has every right to reclaim it for her own use.  However, the average browsing customer sees it, becomes embarrassed, looks away, and any possibility of selling the book is gone.  (Generally, if a customer has asked for a book in that genre, I recommend Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung instead; it covers similar ground, but is cheaper and has a less problematic title.  Or her anthology, Growing Up Asian in Australia.)

The problem is that if customers are put off by your title, they're not going to buy your book.  And if people don't buy your book, your publishers will stop giving you money to write them, and then your artistic vision will really be compromised.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Braxiatel.

"The Crystal of Cantus", or, The One Where Brax Is Actually Quite Evil, Thanks For Asking.  ( Spoilers! )