Help with this title

[Leslie Kunde]

Hi,
I am looking for a little help with the title of this book. I am not sure if all or only part should be in italics. What do you think? Also, should the hyphen stay or go?
The Atheist and The Afterlife—An Autobiography : A true story of inspiration, transformation, and the pursuit of enlightenment, Awakening Series Book 1

[MsH2k]

That is one heck of a title! The guidelines only say the title needs to be in italics every time, but there are also style and grammatical errors that may pop up. In this case, I would go with as short a title as possible, removing “Awakening Series Book 1” since it’s not on the cover of the book. And although Amazon lists the title the way you have it written, there should not be a space before the colon, and in most style guides, the subtitle should follow the same capitalization rules as the title. There is also support for capitalizing the “short” words or not, but consistency is key. Both official reviews do not include the subtitle, and Bookshelves has the subtitle capitalized properly. The dash should stay.

Whew! After all that, if I were writing this review, I would use one of these two options:

The Atheist and the Afterlife—An Autobiography
The Atheist and the Afterlife—An Autobiography: A True Story of Inspiration, Transformation, and the Pursuit of Enlightenment

I sincerely hope this helped.

[Leslie Kunde]

Thank you!!!! Like you stated:"it is one heck of a title"

[Leslie Kunde]

So, I used your first example as follows:
The Atheist and the Afterlife—An Autobiography, is a stunningly honest work by Ray Catania.
this is what I got on my score : The Atheist and the Afterlife—An [Autobiography,] is a stunningly honest work by Ray Catania. Yup, I was dinged for it.
some days I just want to give up!

[MsH2k]

So, I used your first example as follows:
The Atheist and the Afterlife—An Autobiography, is a stunningly honest work by Ray Catania.
this is what I got on my score : The Atheist and the Afterlife—An [Autobiography,] is a stunningly honest work by Ray Catania. Yup, I was dinged for it.
some days I just want to give up!

The ding was for having a comma between the subject and the verb; the title looks great!

Sometimes it’s frustrating being very careful about one thing only to get tripped up on something else. Tomorrow is another day…

[Leslie Kunde]

I know. It also helps if I wear my granny glasses while editing!

[kipper_]

Another thing to consider for the future is that the Amazon link does not always post the book's proper title with correct punctuation or spelling. It's always best to check a couple other sources before using the first one, even if it is the "official" one. I've seen this mistake several times, and it's quite easy to miss. One of the most accurate ways to double-check the punctuation is to look at the actual title page in the book as well as the copyrights page. You may find that the author chose to capitalize certain words that the Amazon page did not or that the cover forwent for aesthetic purposes. It is always better to use what the published version produced. (And yes, the author might have used improper spelling or made grammatical mistakes in the title, but if it's the version that was officially published, you're still better off using it.)

Also, I would shy away from shortening the title when you first mention it in the review. As far as I'm aware, you should be able to shorten the title after subsequent mentions (e.g., MsH2k's suggestion), but it's usually best to provide the full one when you're first introducing it.