Titles Sell Books

Titles Sell Books
Judy Cullins © 2003 All Rights Reserved

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 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 Fú!,
puts her special twist on defusing verbal conflict.

6. Include benefits in your subtitle if your title doesn't have
any. Specific benefits invite sales. For instance, Marilyn and
Tom Ross' Jump Start Your Book Sales: A Money-Making
Guide for Authors, Independent Publishers and Small Presses.

7. Choose others' book covers in your field as models. Go to
your local bookstore with five-colored felt tips pens and paper.
Browse the section your book would be shelved on. Choose
five book titles and covers that attract you. Photo copy or
sketch those, noting the colors, design, fonts, and sizes of fonts.
Add other colors you like.

Place the book cover you love near your workstation to inspire
you. For the final copy, use professional cover designers if possible.

8. Be outrageous with your book title. People do judge a book
by its title. Your reader will spend only four seconds on the
front cover and eight seconds on the back cover. It must be so
outstanding and catchy that it compels the reader to either buy on
the spot or look further to the back cover. Take a risk. Be a
bit crazy, even outlandish.

9. Be your strongest salesperson self. Choose the strongest
words, benefits, and metaphors to move your audience to buy.
Titles do sell books.

10. Include your audience in your title. This gives your book
a slant. When your title isn't targeted other famous authors' titles
win out. Always make your title clear and make it easy for your
audience to recognize they need your book.

Your title and front cover is your book's number one sales tool.
Short titles are best, say three to six words. John Gray didn't
get much attention with his book "What Your Mother Couldn't
Tell You and What Your Father Didn't Know." He shortened it
to the now famous, "Men are From Mars, Women are From
Venus."

An outstanding title sells books. Make sure to give this part
of your book, the number one essential "Hot-Selling Point,"
some time and effort.