What Makes a Title Great?

[Reilith]

I found a system I really like. I spend a good deal of time on goodreads, looking for books, since I can find everything there right from my chair, which fits my lazy bum and the fact that I live in the god forsaken country of Serbia. That's why most of my books come from English sections at a few good bookstores, annual book fair and the internet.
At goodreads I just type what I am generally looking for, or browse groups of a certain genre and then go from there. I look at the name, the writer, the cover and rating, if something, whatever it is attracts me, I'll look at the synopsis and then read a few high and low rated reviews of the book (without spoilers), then finally decide should I invest time into reading it or not. I got to my new favourite from Brandon Sanderson that way. Or I get a recommendation from someone which makes me research about it in the same way. Or something is hugely popular so I wanna check out what it is about.
I rarely just pick up a book at a bookstore.

 

[Stephyn Blackwood]

Something I always enjoy when seeing a series in a book store, is when all the books have similar titles. It helps me link them, and also makes it a lot easier to put them in order. My favourite example would have to be Joe Abercrombie's Shattered Sea novels.
Half a King
Half the World
Half a War
And I always loved this titles, cause the idea of the story was conveyed, but it was great how the titles were often worked into the story as quotes from the protagonists i.e.
'I may be half a king, but I swore a whole oath.'
'What do we do when half the world is turned against us?'
'Only half a war is fought with swords'

You get the idea.... But titles like that, they're what grab me.

 

[Heliotrope]

I read somewhere (having trouble finding the link now) that publishers prefer titles that pose questions, like mentioned earlier.

Some good examples include:

The Silence of the Lambs (Oh, oh, what happened to those poor, innocent lambs?)
Gone With The Wind (Gone where? What is gone?)
Presumed Innocent (What do you mean presumed? They weren't actually innocent? What did they do?)


Or, they prefer titles that incite conflict:

The Hunger Games implies conflict in a few ways, firstly 'hunger/starvation' and 'games/competition'.
The Game of Thrones (again, 'Game' implies competition, 'thrones' implies territory/kingdoms).
The Maze Runner (implies getting lost, having to make choices etc. But also having to do these choices quickly. There will be no sitting around in this novel).

 

[Miskatonic]

Hopefully I figure it out soon enough so I can come up with one!