Had a really interesting experience with an image search Monday. I was looking for the cover image of the picture book “Peeking Under the Street.” Me being me, I’m a bit lazy. So I didn’t add the author’s name. I didn’t even add the word cover. I just clicked image search and Enter and . . .
Oh, my heavenly host. What the hell is going on here?
Let’s just say that this pulled up something about a particular area in Las Vegas that seems to be upper garment optional, unless you count paisties as garments. Some of the people may have been “working women,” a polite euphamism my grandmother used. Others were clearly tourists.
I don’t know about you, but I would not want some kid to type up the name of my book and get an eye-full of bossom. If it was sculpture and painting I wouldn’t care but this was VEGAS and although some of the people seemed very friendly it was not child-friendly if you get my drift.
My point? When you come up with a title for your book, do a Google search. Do it on a computer that doesn’t have Net Nanny because you need the worst case scenario. And don’t just to a Google search, do a Google Image Search. I’ve done this before and pulled up something that looked like the gore-filled image from a slasher film. It was something by some Death Metal band but, again, not what I want my readers to find when they’re looking for me. Another search turned up a competing book. I don’t want that either so I tried title #3.
Take the time to search your book titles. You need to find competing titles but you also need to know if a search would pull up things that aren’t appropriate for your audience.
–SueBE
One Writer's Journey 