Coming up with a title for a novel is always tricky — so many factors to consider, so many people to please. If only there were a simple and quantitative way to gauge the effectiveness of a proposed title. Well, now there is!

Check out the “Lulu Titlescorer,” which makes this bold claim: “Now, for the first time in literary history, you can put your title to the scientific test and find out whether it has what it takes for bestseller success.” And how did the good folks at Lulu discover this Holy Grail? “We commissioned a research team to analyse the title of every novel to have topped the hardback fiction section of the New York Times Bestseller List during the half-century from 1955 to 2004 and then compare them with the titles of a control group of less successful novels by the same authors.”

Now, here at In Other Media we pride ourselves on our sense of humour, but it’s unclear how seriously we’re meant to take this (even if we can all agree on how seriously we should take it). But in any case, Lulu itself appears to be an ambitious and for-real POD/self-publishing platform; the Titlescorer is merely a value-added adjunct.

Try it yourself: just enter your proposed title, along with a few supporting facts, and the grand machine will tell you how likely the book is to hit #1 on the bestseller lists. Take it with a grain of salt, though; In Other Media entered “The Da Vinci Code” and learned that it “has a 35.9% chance of being a bestselling title.”

Related links:
Click here for the Lulu Titlescorer