Did you know you can’t copyright a title? Yep, that’s right. So, if you write a book and call it Life-changing Steps and another guy chooses the same title, there is nothing you can do.

The disadvantages of duplicate titles on books are readers may order the other author’s book by mistake. (I’ve done that before.) The advantage is someone may buy your book by mistake and love it. Which takes me to the topic of potential readers searching for your book in a pool of hundreds of books with similar titles.

Amazon and Google searches

With Google searches, a similar or duplicate title might get you a lot of traffic if it is a blog post or article. What if I wanted to title my blog Six tips to Writing a Blog Post? That title is already taken, I googled it. Which would make any new post on the same subject more visible on internet searches because it is the same. I could title it Six tips for writing a Blog, leaving off the word post and it still would be easy to find on Google. For articles and blog posts, duplicate titles give you a wider audience. Don’t copy their content that is plagiarism.

My experience with book titles

 However, book titles fair differently. Even if your book title is original, Amazon may find similar ones unrelated to your genre, and make it hard for a reader to find yours. No matter what you do, Amazon is set in its ways. My contemporary romance New Duet has no duplicate book titles on Amazon. Yet if you type the title in the search bar on Amazon, it comes up with New Diet books.

Amazon assumed it was a typo. But if you type in my name or Christian Romance after the title, you have a better chance of finding that book. But if someone recommended it to you and you don’t recall my name, then you will have a rough time finding it.

 When I used Google, New Duet was in first place. The unique title wasn’t confused with diet books. Didn’t even need to use my name. Google will list every seller of the book which is a great thing for readers who don’t like Amazon.

Confusion with novella collections with similar names

My novella, Healing Hearts is in The Cowboy collection. The novella collection has a similar problem. Type in The Cowboys on Amazon’s search bar and a plethora of books with cowboy in the title appear for pages and pages. I gave up trying rather than glean through them all. Which is what a potential reader will do. If you add Smitten Romance Collection, to the title it comes right up. Your readers might not know to add that. And because Amazon only allows three author names to appear on their site when there is a collection, my name appears last on the cover in fourth place.

 Amazon doesn’t recognize me as one of the authors. But if you type in my name, The Cowboys is listed with all my other books. I had to add it to my list myself.

On Google search, you can find it by typing in The Cowboys by Cindy Ervin Huff. The title alone gives you no reference. That’s the disadvantage of a title that is too common.

A distinctive cover helps distinguish duplicate titles

My most recent release Rescuing Her Heart has a duplicate title to another novel that is racier. If you look at my cover, you can tell it is a clean read. The characters have clothes firmly in place. It’s listed as book one in the Healing Heart Series.

I just checked Amazon and there is a contemporary romance with the same title. My cover shows clearly it is historical. The possibility of confusion is less likely when someone wants to purchase it online.

 On Google, Rescuing Her Heart is the first chose. Images in the Google search show three other books with the same title, but the covers are clearly not historical romance.

A unique title and 100 reviews

My debut novel Secrets & Charades is easy to find on Amazon. It has over 100 reviews and that keeps it near the top of a search and there are no books with that title. Reviews can help push you to the top of a search and take away confusion about titles and similar genres. Secrets & Charades comes right up on Google search too.

In conclusion

If you are writing a blog or article, Google your subject and see what title are at the top and create a similar one. You might end up at the top of the search as well.

 But if you are writing a book, do a thorough search of your title choice before you add it to your cover.

Unique makes it easy to find. If you absolutely love your title but find a duplicate online, you might consider a subtitle or reference to your series to set it apart. (Let me remind you to have a cover design that lets the reader know the genre.)

 And lastly, Google seems to find titles faster, so encourage people to search there first, it will link them to Amazon or wherever they wish to purchase it.

Have you had any problems with similar titles? How did you deal with it?