What are the rules for capitalizing a book title?

This is the best APA resource I’ve found.

Without looking at @avvooooooo‘s reference (which I’m sure is much better than my memory):
Capitalize the first word of the title, no matter what it is.
Capitalize all “important” words. That is, words that aren’t articles, conjunctions, or prepositions.
Capitalize the subtitle the same way the title is capitalized

…. and now looking at the link, I’m completely wrong:

“When referring to any work that is NOT a journal, such as a book, article, or Web page, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns.”

@MrItty Thanks for looking, that’s what I was thinking, but I didn’t want to say it and didn’t have time to look!

Gramatically, MrItty is absolutely right. However… as a writer, I believe it’s more important to COMMUNICATE than always to be grammatically correct. In the case of a book or story title, for example, arbitrary capialization might undermine what I was trying to communicate in my title.That’s something i learned in my ad writing days. I’ve always felt grammar should be thought of of as a framework rather than shackles.

@Austinlad the question is about APA citations in research work, not titles listed in other stories or novels.

@Austinlad @MrItty is correct. Academic work is different than other forms of writing. Grammar is secondary to the format that is required for academic work.

MrItty and avvooooooo, I sit corrected.