It's the first thing a reader sees, in the largest font, so of course it's important. Vitally important, I would say.
Especially in this pen name, my titles tend to be puns, wordplay, or tongue-in-cheek. The title goal has to be to catch everyone's eye and convince them to investigate further, and that seems to do the trick.
Beyond that, unless the title idea tickles me too much to give up, I usually do a Google site-specific search to see if that title already appears on the site. If it does, there's a good chance I'm going to change it. There's an even better chance if it's in the same category where I plan for my story to end up. In my experience, at least some degree of uniqueness helps draw in readers.
The next one I've got in editing double-fails that test, as there's a story with that title in the same category, but falls into the "won't give it up" niche.
Testing The Waters.
Good Will ---|--- Three Alarm <= Both almost famous, give them a read and get them one step closer!
