This post is part of a LitSoup, a new regular monthly feature on The Book Club compiled of contributions from the newsroom. Send an e-mail or tweet with your suggestions for future LitSoup topics.

---

You might have a great idea for a bestseller, but do you have a great title for it? Enter the Lulu Titlescorer to find out.

The Lulu Titlescorer has been developed exclusively for Lulu by statisticians who studied the titles of 50 years' worth of top bestsellers and identified which title attributes separated the bestsellers from the rest.
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.

Does the title scorer carry any significance or is it just for fun? I tested it with this week's list of hardcover fiction bestsellers from The New York Times.

• "The Inner Circle" by Brad Meltzer, which is at No. 1 in its first week on the list, has a 41.4% chance of being a bestselling title
• "The Sentry" by Robert Crais, at No. 2 in its first week on the list, has a 35.9% chance of being a bestselling title
• "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" by Steig Larsson, at No. 3 in its 34th week on the list, has a 35.9% chance of being a bestselling title
• "Dead or Alive" by Tom Clancy, at No. 4 in its sixth week on the list, has a 10.2% chance of being a bestselling title 
• "What the Night Knows" by Dean Koontz, at No. 5 this week in its third week on the list, has a 59.3% chance of being a bestselling title
• "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, at No. 6 this week in its 94th week on the list, has a 35.9% chance of being a bestselling title
• "The Confession" by John Grisham, at No. 7 in its 12th week on the list, has a 35.9% chance of being a bestselling title
• "Three Seconds" by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, at No. 8 in its second week on the list, has a 41.4% chance of being a bestselling title
• "Cross Fire" by James Patterson, at No. 9 in its ninth week on the list, has a 69% chance of being a bestselling title
• "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen, at No. 10 in its 17th week on the list, has a 31.7% chance of being a bestselling title
• "Room" by Emma Donoghue, at No. 11 in its 10th week on the list, has a 63.7% chance of being a bestselling title
• "The Outlaws" by W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV, at No. 12 in its third week on the list, has a 35.9% chance of being a bestselling title
• "Secrets to the Grave" by Tami Hoag, at No. 13 in its third week on the list, has a 22.9% chance of being a bestselling title
• "Damage" by John Lescroart, at No. 14 in its second week on the list, has a 59.3% chance of being a bestselling title
• "Hell's Corner" by David Baldacci, at No. 15 in its 10th week on the list, has a 72.5% chance of being a bestselling title.
  

Tom Clancy is the outlier of the group, but he's so popular that he could name a book "Poop" and make the bestseller list. I entered several fake titles and got low results, so I would say the rest of the titles on this list have pretty good odds. Maybe there is something to this.

I sampled the newsroom to see how the books by News-Herald employees would fare.

Tricia Ambrose:

My book title One Flight Down has a 26.3 percent chance of becoming a bestseller. The real question is, are those odds better or worse than the chances that I will actually write said novel!

Brandon Baker:

The title The Bakery has a 26.3% chance of being a bestselling title.

John Bertosa:

My title “Rebellion of the Damned” (37.0%) has a better chance of being a bestseller than “The Bible” (35.9%) and “The Cat in the Hat” (26.3%). In fact, the site predicts “The Cat in the Hat” is just as likely to be a best seller as “Hitler is great” (26.3%).

Danielle Capriato:

All the Things I Might Have Done
34.8%
Not too shabby, I suppose!

Jeff Frischkorn

The title My Life as a Birddog (owner) has a 44.2% chance of being a bestselling title.

Mark Meszoros:

The title After the Sky Fell has a 26.3% chance of being a bestselling title.

Robin Palmer:

The title Postcards from Goosetav and Gigi: The World Through the Eyes of Two Canada Geese has a 10.2% chance of being a bestselling title.

Cheryl Sadler:

The title Drowning Slowly has a 79.6% chance of being a bestselling title.
I'll be honest: This was not my first attempt. I hadn't given much thought to the titles of any of the novels I've been working on in my head, and my first few dozen tries at the title scorer netted me with 8.6% chances of becoming a bestseller. I also wanted to use the titles The Graduate or An Education, but figured that regardless of how well those titles scored that the books would not actually do so well because of the shared names with acclaimed films. Maybe I should stick to writing headlines instead of book titles.

Will your novel be a bestseller?

--Cheryl Sadler
CSadler@News-Herald.com
@nhcheryl