How to Capitalize Book Titles Correctly | TitleCasePro

Quick answer: Book titles use title case. Capitalize the first word, the last word, and all major words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns). Lowercase articles, coordinating conjunctions, and short prepositions. Most publishers expect Chicago style specifically.

Capitalizing a book title correctly matters more than capitalizing a casual blog headline — your title appears on the cover, the spine, retailer listings, and every citation of your work. Getting it wrong looks unprofessional to agents, editors, and readers.

Which Style Do Book Titles Use?

Publishing standard: The book publishing industry overwhelmingly uses the Chicago Manual of Style for title capitalization. If you’re writing a book, formatting a manuscript, or submitting to a publisher, Chicago is the safe default.

Chicago title case capitalizes prepositions of five or more letters (About, Between, Through) while lowercasing shorter ones (of, to, in, with).

The Rules for Book Titles

1. Capitalize the first and last word — always, no exceptions.
2. Capitalize all major words: nouns, verbs (including is, are, be), adjectives, adverbs, pronouns.
3. Lowercase articles (a, an, the) mid-title.
4. Lowercase coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) mid-title.
5. Lowercase short prepositions (four letters or fewer in Chicago) mid-title.
6. Capitalize the first word after a colon (the subtitle).

Real Book Title Examples

Book title	Why
The Great Gatsby	The capitalized (first word); Great, Gatsby are major words
Pride and Prejudice	and lowercase (conjunction)
Gone with the Wind	with, the lowercase (Chicago)
The Lord of the Rings	first The capitalized; second the and of lowercase
To Kill a Mockingbird	To capitalized (first word); a lowercase
A Brief History of Time	of lowercase; Brief, History, Time capitalized

⚠️ The classic trap: In The Lord of the Rings, the first The is capitalized but the second the is lowercase. The first word of a title is always capitalized; mid-title articles are not.

Handling Subtitles

Many books have a subtitle after a colon. The first word of the subtitle is always capitalized, even if it’s an article or preposition:

• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
• Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits
• Educated: A Memoir

Italics vs. Capitalization

Two separate rules apply to book titles in your writing:

• Capitalization: Use title case (covered above).
• Italics: Book titles are italicized in running text (in MLA, APA, and Chicago). In Bluebook and some contexts, they may be underlined.

So when you mention a book in an essay, you both capitalize it in title case and italicize it: The Great Gatsby.

Book Series and Volume Titles

For a series, capitalize both the series name and the individual book title in title case:

• The Hunger Games (series) → Catching Fire (book)
• A Song of Ice and Fire (series) → A Game of Thrones (book)

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Capitalizing every word: The Lord Of The Rings is wrong — of and the second the should be lowercase.
• Lowercasing the verb: The Sun Also Rises — Rises is a verb and must be capitalized.
• Forgetting the subtitle rule: Sapiens: a brief history — the A after the colon must be capitalized.

Get It Right Automatically

Paste your book title into the title capitalizer, select Chicago (the publishing standard), and get the correctly capitalized title instantly — with a word-by-word explanation of every decision. To see how your title looks across all nine style guides, use the compare tool.

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• Do You Capitalize After a Colon?
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• Title Capitalization Rules: The Complete Guide