“The Title Tailor” Speaks Out on Titling9 July 2010, 9:04 amThe Title Tailor’s Top Ten Titling Tips (say that 10 times fast!)
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Enokson via Flickr
1.) Make It a Promise – Writing a non-fiction “how-to”? Make your title a promise. Tell the reader why they should buy the book – what they’ll get out of reading it. Examples?
The One-Minute Manager.
Chicken Soup for the Soul.
The Well-Fed Writer. Any doubt about what you, the reader, will get out of reading those books? Put another way:
2.) Make It About THEM – Many titles make the mistake of being all about the book. But readers don’t care about you and your book. Being normal human beings, they care about one thing: themselves. I didn’t call my first book, “A Guide to Freelance Writing (i.e., exquisitely dull AND all about the book), but rather,
The Well-Fed Writer – all about my target reader and what they wanted.
3.) Seek Professional Help – No, that’s not a suggestion to hire a shrink. Nor a hint to hire someone like me to do your title (though I DO offer that). Rather, it’s a “process” suggestion for when you’re ready to start the title-creation process. Resources like
www.namingnewsletter.com,
www.rhymezone.com, and most importantly, a killer thesaurus like
Rodale’s Synonym Finder (THE most often-used reference on my bookshelf, bar none) can be a titler’s best friends.
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Darwin Bell via Flickr
4.) Build Your Word Pool – Begin the actual process by making a list of all words related to the book’s subject (plus synonyms). Just having them all in front of you can start you percolating, noodling, combining, etc. Also, think “30,000-foot view” and think “nuggetizing” – taking many ideas and boiling them down to an essence.
5.) Think in Word Pictures – Some books lend themselves to “word-picture” titles:
The Fix-It-and-Forget-It Cookbook.
What Color Is Your Parachute? Or some of my clients’ titles (
www.titletailor.com to follow along):
Art Sparks. Mind-Wiping. Blog Blazers. Try to graphically picture the big idea behind your book. What do you see? What’s happening? How could you describe the process in a few words?
6.) Subtitles Are Crucial – (non-fiction and non-fiction how-to). Many people don’t realize they should have a subtitle, but to add descriptive detail, have one. Remember: YOU know your book and what it’s about; your audience doesn’t. Make sure prospective buyers can quickly scan your front cover and learn enough to pique their curiosity. If they’re confused by a mysterious title with no subtitle, they’ll lose interest. Fast.
7.) Punchy Title, Explanatory Subtitle – Your title should be 4-5 words, max (less is even better). If it’s more than that, and has an explanatory tone, chances are, it’d be better as a subtitle. Sure, I could have used
The Well-Fed Writer’s subtitle (
Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Commercial Freelancer in Six Months or Less) as my title. While it would’ve been a decent promise, it’s way too long to have any punch and pizzazz.
8.) Intriguing Title, Clear Subtitle – Not all non-fiction titles have to be “promises.” Straight non-fiction can have an intriguing but unclear title, as long as the subtitle delivers more clarity and detail. Good examples are books like
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, and
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Prospective buyers may still not be 100% sure what the books are about, but they’ll know enough to go “Hmmmm.” And that’s a good thing.
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Wikipedia 9.) Beware the “Friend”-ly Focus Group – Be careful about running all your title ideas past an informal focus group of friends and letting their yay or nay decide your title. Big difference between judging a title of a book your friend’s told you all about, for which you might not even be in the market, on a subject with which you may be unfamiliar vs. a real prospect with real interest and “fresh eyes.” Listen to all input, but be discerning.
10.) Stop Thinking About Your Book – While similar to some earlier tips, this is the umbrella version. Throughout the whole titling/subtitling and back cover copywriting process (not to mention as you execute your book marketing and publicity campaigns), always put yourself in your reader’s shoes. What’s important to them? What’s their goal? What language or “word pictures” will speak most effectively to them and get them nodding? And most importantly, what will get them reaching for their wallet?
Tip submitted by Peter Bowerman, a successful commercial freelance writer and self-published author of the award-winning books, The Well-Fed Writer (www.wellfedwriter.com) and The Well-Fed Self-Publisher (i.e., how his first two books yielded 52,000 copies in print and full-time living for five-plus years; www.wellfedsp.com). He loves book titling, AND happens to be pretty good at it. After about five years of doing it as an offshoot of his self-publishing coaching, he decided to break it out as a specialty. The Title Tailor was born (www.titletailor.com). Source: Author Marketing Experts, Inc.Click the title in the post for the full article
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