Choosing a title is not as easy as it seems. There are titles that present themselves immediately, and others that require a lot of mental exertion before we arrive at them. Perhaps, even after we arrive at them, we reconsider them once more.

For me, the title of my first novel, "Editor-in-Chief," was ready before I started writing the novel. The problem was with the subtitle or explainer "Whims of Autobiography." I didn't choose it initially, but only after a number of friends read the work. Some of them suggested adding the term or word "autobiography" to the main title, so that the work would be clear in the reader's mind. Since that novel contained part of my actual autobiography and part of an imagined one, I concluded that I should add the phrase "Whims of Autobiography" to the main title. However, after the novel was published and critically reviewed, some critics objected to the addition of "Whims of Autobiography" to the main title. I am now thinking of confining this phrase to the inner cover in a future edition, so that the external title remains "Editor-in-Chief" only.

Thus, titles can cause a kind of bewilderment and confusion, especially when critics deal with the title as the first threshold of the work, which must be a strong indicator of the content.

As for my second novel "The Lover Water," I didn't choose it until I had completely finished the work. During the writing, it didn't have a clear name. Strangely enough, I chose the name from one of the sentences of the first chapter, which mentioned "The Lover Water," and I found it a name that expresses the entire work. The publisher welcomed this title before I sent him the work.

As for the general titles of my books, which are more than 65 books so far, I am satisfied with most of these titles, from my first book, which was a small volume of poetry titled "Traveler to God," to the title of my latest work - so far - a novel "Fox Fox". I may not be comfortable now with the name of one of my collections, the "Migrating Alexandria," and the title could have been more expressive and surprising than that, as our late professor Dr. Mohammed Zaki El-Ashmawy did not like it.

As for the rest of the books, which combine literary studies, children's books, and travel literature, I believe their titles are expressive. I am one of the writers who appreciate their friends' opinions, sometimes I even choose the titles of some of my writer friends' books. Being a journalist, the issue of 'catching' a title is a hobby for me, whether it's the title of the journalistic topic I edit, or the title of the books.

During my journey in publishing books, whether through private publishing houses or governmental ones, no publisher has ever objected to the title I present, and no publisher has suggested an alternative title to the one I proposed.