So you just finish writing the first chapter of your amazing story, and you can't wait to publish it, so you do. You wait in anticipation for the comments and followers to increase, but you realized after a while that your story is not getting much attention. No comment and barely any follows.
"That's normal. It's only the first chapter, I just need to publish a few more." You say to yourself.
So you do. You write five more chapters and publish them, but to your distress, the result is the same. The view count is higher, but your followers and ratings aren't increasing much.
"What did I do wrong?" You ask yourself.
Have you considered whether your cover or title wasn't catchy enough?
People say don't judge a book by its cover, everyone does, but I'm sure you already knew that. I'm not going to tell you that following my guide will net you hundreds of views instantly, there are plenty of others who already know how to make titles and covers that pop. Nor am I saying that a good story needs a good title or cover. Hidden gems are everywhere, and will be eventually discovered by the right audience. My guide is to inform you of a method to make potential readers click on your book and read your synopsis/summary. If they find your summary interesting, they will read your book, if not, they will leave.
DO NOTE THAT THIS GUIDE IS BASED ON MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION AND OTHERS MIGHT DISAGREE WITH ME
With that out of the way, let's begin.
Title
As the first words your potential followers read about your story, your title is half of the equation. There are a few guidelines that everyone should follow which are common sense:
Vulgarity - It just makes your story look low-class
Spelling - If your title is already misspelled, it says a lot about what to expect
Capitalization - Like the above, if you can't even properly capitalize your title or are too lazy, your readers won't expect much from your story either
Punctuation - Most titles don't use any, and if you muse use them, keep it to one or two.
Focus - Your title should be about your story
Note, as I've said before, these are guidelines, not rules. A clever author can use this to their advantage, but I would suggest not unless you are experienced and have full confidence.
I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them right now.
Now, to the meat of the issue. What do I mean by when a title is not catchy enough?
Here are a few examples that I just took off the front page.
Legend of the Spellthief
Rage: Crisis
Nisteria Chronicles
A Unique Hunter
See at what I'm getting at? They are fine titles, sure, but they are plain, a drop in the ocean. There are thousands of similar titles on RR's 40k stories. Now, I'm not dissing them. Their titles are fine, and I'm sure they've put a lot of effort into their story to make it the best possible. Hell, they might have hundreds or thousands of followers, but we're talking about you. You want your title to pop to your potential reader's eyes.
(On another note, here are my thoughts on colons. Don't use put a colon between two words. Most of the time, it's confusing. I would suggest using a noun, a colon, followed by a description. Example, Eldest: Awakening After the End. See?)
So what can you do to fix your plain title?
First, maybe change it into an ultra-short synopsis. The story that started this trend is "My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute!" You can already see a general gist of what the story is about without reading the official synopsis, can't you? There are plenty of other examples on this site, such as: I DIED AND GOT SUMMONED TO ANOTHER WORLD AS A WHAT?!?!, Trick Into a New Life, God Must be Screwing With Me!, Everybody Loves Large Chests.
I also did this.
My old story title was Emperor of the Cultivation World, but after I changed it to This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder, I got a lot more attention. One seems like a generic title that would fit among the hundreds of Chinese novels, the other has more personality and describes the basic premise.
Second, you can make your title contradictory. It's easier to show you.
The Cruel Tyrant
Seems like a plain title, doesn't it? But what if I did this?
The Benevolent Tyrant
Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Tyrants are already cruel, despotic, and have other negative connotations. But what if you make him a benevolent one? The potential reader will want to ask why a tyrant can be kind or benevolent, hence developing interest in your story.
Third, and I personally don't really like this, but you can add your genre or niche in parenthesis or after a colon. Examples include: Mark of the Crijik [A LitRPG Portal Fantasy Adventure], Dear Spellbook: A D&D Inspired Time Loop, Steamforged Sorcery [A Steampunk LitRPG].
This method allows you to snipe for the readers of your genre or niche, but it only works on sites with a large enough following. In RR's case, the biggest users are progression fantasies such as LitRPG. So if your genre or niche isn't popular in RR, I would suggest not using this as it would turn away potential readers.
Addendum: I don't want to be rude, but Wizard's Tower is the best title of all time. Reason? Blame Allanther and his smexy wizard.
Cover
Now for the other half of the equation, the cover. I'll say this, DON'T EVER use the automatic cover given to you by the site. There's nothing wrong, but it's just boring and might even detract from your story. Personally, I just skim over stories using the auto cover.
"But I don't have the money or skills to make a cover." You say.
Worry not, making a cover is easy. All it takes is some time and maybe a little color theory.
The first method I have is using canva, but I personally don't use it, so let's talk about the other one, pixlr!
There are guidelines, I might even say rules, about this.
Do not use Copyrighted images without explicit consent of the owner
Make sure to give credit to the original owner, and if you can't find it, the site.
Make sure it is related to your story.
On the last point, don't just use the most eye-catching thing you can find. That's a good way to make your reader dislike your story when they discover the cover has nothing to do with your story. You'll fast-track negative ratings and reviews that way.
For my first cover, I simply google image searched a image without a background and then placed it on top of a background I found. Then I added the title, easy as that.
Seems a little short, doesn't it?
Well, I got nothing else. There's always the option of going to the art forums and asking for art, but few are likely to take on your requests. Honestly, this is just a stop-gap measure until you can save or afford a real artist. And if you already do, then you probably aren't reading this.
MAKE SURE NOT TO USE COPYRIGHTED IMAGES AND TO GIVE CREDIT TO THE ARTIST OR SITE YOU FOUND IT
So that's it. Any other authors want to give their two cents?
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