A clever title is great if it is clear, but a clear title is always preferable. The best? A clear and clever title. A shorter title is better than a longer one. Your reader will spend only four seconds on the cover. While some long titles have succeeded, usually the shorter, the better.
A title is part of your book’s front cover. Busy buyers including bookstore buyers, wholesalers, distributors and your audiences buy mainly because of the cover. Dan Poynter, author of Writing Nonfiction, says, “The package outside sells the product inside.” Make your cover sizzle.
Start with a working title before you write your chapters. Include your topic, your subject and use the book’s benefits in your sub title if possible. Here’s your ten tips for titles that sell:
1. Create impact for your title-check out magizine print and radio ad headlines.
Check out other authors’ titles on the bookstore shelves. Your title must compel the reader to buy now. Which title grabs you? Elder Rage or Caregiving for Dad?
2. Include your solution in your title.
Does your title sell your solution? Make sure it answers the question rather than asks one. For instance, Got Minerals?, or Minerals: The Essential Link to Health. Use positive language instead of negative. For instance, Without Minerals You’ll Die can be Minerals: The Essential Link to Health.
3. Make it easy for readers to buy.
Readers want a magic pill. They want to follow directions and enjoy the benefits the title promises. For example, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books by John Kremer gives at least 1001 ways for authors and publishers to market their books.
4. Expand your title to other books, products, seminars, and services.
Make sure that your title will work well with the title of your presentations, articles and press releases you’ll need to promote the book. Such seminars and teleclasses titled “How to Write and Sell Your Book- Fast!” and “Seven Sure- Fire Ways to Publicize your Business” come under the umbrella “fast book writing, publishing and promoting.”
5. Use original expressions–a way of expressing one idea for your book–yours alone.
Sam Horn, author of Tongue F