5 Rules for Creating an Amazing Book Title
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Your mother probably told you to never judge a book by its cover. That’s great advice for life, but when it comes to selling your novel, memoir, or self-help guide, your book will definitely be judged — especially by those precious few words imprinted on its cover.
Choosing your book title is the most important marketing decision an author will make. The right title will generate more media buzz. Your book will rank higher in searches with a name that has been thoughtfully selected. Your title will help your book clamour for attention amidst the millions of other published works that are released each and every year. You read that correctly: millions.
Book titles matter more than ever, and this post will detail 5 rules for creating one that’s amazing and uniquely yours:
1. Short Titles Make Big Sales
The working title of my first book was When the Short Road Ends the Long Journey Begins. I submitted the manuscript for my memoir/self-help hybrid (which was about my odyssey across the endless dunes of the Sahara Desert) to my publisher. The first thing they did was rename it Shifting Sands. I got into a big fight with the commissioning editor and the marketing team over the title change. I was ready to walk away from the deal and look for another publisher. But my agent talked me out of it and Shifting Sands went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. Not bad for an unknown first-time author.
One of the very best things about self-publishing is that you will never have someone else changing the title of your book. But with that freedom comes responsibility. It’s now up to you to generate a bestselling book title. And shorter titles have advantages over longer ones.
Of course, there are examples of long-winded titles that sell millions of copies and even change the course of history. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life jumps immediately to mind. But it’s no surprise that we know of it by the much shorter On the Origin of Species.
When I’m coaching authors on choosing their title, I ask them how much they would be willing to pay for the perfect title if such a service actually existed. Every author has a different figure but a thousand dollars is a common answer. Then I tell them to imagine that the cost of the title for their new book is actually one thousand dollars per word. Because the longer their title becomes the more likely it will cost them lost sales. This little coaching trick helps my clients get the message: short titles sell large quantities.
2. Novelty Sells More Than Reality
How many hours do you work in a week? At least five? Probably closer to forty or fifty. And yet, Tim Ferris wrote The 4-Hour Workweek and it sold over two million copies. I don’t know Tim Ferris, but I think it's a safe bet that he spends more than four hours a week making a living. He probably puts in at least that much time everyday. But if Tim has already made it to easy street, it’s in large part due to the steady stream of royalties created from a book title that avoided reality.
Our human brains respond to novelty with a dopamine rush. When we encounter something new and different there is a ping of positivity driven by neurochemistry in our brains. It stops us in our tracks and makes us pay attention. Wouldn’t it be a great thing if your book’s title had this kind of effect on potential readers? You bet it would! And the best argument for avoiding super obvious title options is that you’re working with—not against—the human brain. We are hardwired to seek novelty because it’s good for us. Novel experiences literally slow down the ageing process. So put that human drive to seek novelty to use when you create your book title.
When Stephen Hawking set out to write A Brief History of Time, his goal was to create “the sort of book that would sell in airport bookstores.” No small task for a work on theoretical physics and the origins of the universe. But once that writing effort had been achieved, he still needed a title that would grab the eyeballs of harried travellers as they rushed toward their departure gate in Terminal Three.
Novelty can often be accomplished by adding, deleting, or moving a single word in your book title. In Hawking’s masterpiece of marketing, this goal is achieved by including the word “Brief.” It makes the title different enough to release that dopamine dose that gives us pause to wonder exactly what the book might be about. Tim Ferris and Stephen Hawking both knew that reality in a book title wasn’t going to sell as many copies as novelty. Novelty can help your finished work stand out — whether it’s in a tiny airport bookstore or on a behemoth online retailer’s website.
3. Your Title Must Have a Target
During the pandemic, I’ve often walked the steep streets of my suburban neighbourhood. It’s great exercise, but I’ve also learned a lot about book titles on my mountainous marches. That’s because, scattered throughout my community, are little libraries installed in front yards and on street corners by avid readers who are also public-minded residents. There is only one rule to follow: if you take a book you must leave a book.
The books are free so I’m not too fussy. I’m after spy thrillers and you can spot them by their titles from ten feet away. I don’t even crack them open to read a page or two since I’m working out and I want to keep moving. My latest score is Foreign & Domestic. I knew immediately it referred to the oath taken to defend America against enemies — a sure sign of a spy thriller. And my hunch was right! The author and his publisher knew exactly how to target their reader with the right title.
It’s like there’s a code that writers and readers of certain genres understand. You need to crack that code and use it for your book’s title. Another analogy could be the mating call from a particular kind of bird. The words of your title have to attract your unique species of reader. If you use the wrong words, your customer will flit away in another direction.
As a book coach I work with a lot of first-time authors. I always ask them the same question: Who is going to read your book and why? They usually tell me that their effort will have universal appeal and just about anyone who reads it will benefit in many different ways. They think this is a good thing, but they’re wrong. The best books have very specific kinds of readers, and the best book titles are aimed exactly at that unique type of person.
If you’re writing a self-help book, your title needs to state the problem or offer the solution. Nonfiction books often use subtitles for this purpose. The title itself can incorporate the first two rules so it’s short and eye-catching. But your subtitle gets right to the point and there’s no mistaking what the book is about.
If your target is someone who wants to get rich in the stock market, consider the search phrases they might use to look for a book on that subject. But maybe your advice is even more specific. Perhaps the biggest gap in financial guidance is for younger single women. Books that are written for niche audiences are much easier to market and the title should reflect your target.
4. Titles, Like Labels, Should Stick
Have you ever gone shopping at the grocery store and as soon as you get home you realize you forgot to buy milk? It was possibly the main reason you actually went to the store in the first place. And yet, that item on your mental shopping list did not stick. Maybe you were distracted. Maybe you were in a hurry.
The problem with things like milk or bread or even ground beef is that they are generic. That’s why we easily forget them. But if I asked you to go buy a bag of Orville Redenbacher Microwave Popcorn, you would definitely remember that. Branded food products are sticky. We see the commercials on TV and something about them is unshakable, like a pop song we can’t get out of our heads. Your book title can benefit from the same marketing mentality that goes into developing popular consumer products.
Stickiness is all about generating sales through word of mouth. You want people to talk about your book and you want the people they tell to remember it. A book title either adheres to your memory cells or it slips away when you try to recall it. While novelty and brevity improve stickiness in book titles there’s more to it than that.
Stickiness is kind of an x-factor. It’s hard to describe how to get it, but you know when you’ve got it. Try this test: tell five of your friends the proposed title of your book. Do this in person or on the phone. Then, one week later, ask them if they can remember the title of your book. If all five can instantly recall it (and a few of them already told someone else the title), you’ve got a label that is glued to their synapses.
5. You Must Absolutely Love Your Book’s Title
When my first book was published, I was a very busy motivational speaker jetting around the globe. While that sounds a bit romantic, it was actually a terrible grind. Business travel is simply not fun if you have to do a lot of it. But one evening as I was hustling between terminals at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, I actually fell in love. As I dashed past a small bookstore a title stopped me in my tracks and I gazed at it with pure adoration in my heart. It said Shifting Sands.
I knew my book was just being released but I never actually considered what it would feel like when I saw it on a shelf. And there it was. 36,000 words that had taken me almost a decade to put into print, with a title that I initially hated so much, I almost tore up my publishing contract. Another business traveller was holding a copy of my book and flipping through a few pages to decide if it was what he wanted to read on this way home. All the time I spent sweating the details of my book was suddenly worth the journey and I loved it — including the title.
Your book will be part of your life for a very long time. In fact, it will actually outlive you. While most of this blog post has been about choosing a title that will help you sell copies, remember that just below or just above that title is your name. If you love the title of your book you will want to tell people about it. In the end, it’s the author who sells the book, not the publisher. Give your book a name you love and that alone might be the biggest secret to its success.
Steve Donahue is a professional speaker, book coach, and the author of two bestselling nonfiction books. His works have sold over 100,000 copies and have been translated into Korean, Turkish, Russian and Greek. Steve helps new and experienced authors turn their book ideas into well-crafted publications that delight readers and inspire change. To learn more, visit his website at MyBookCoach.ca.
