Best Selling Book Titles - 7 Characteristics You Can Use

Very interesting

Author: Rober. J.Bannon

Best selling nonfiction book titles have 7 characteristics that can be used to help make a book more appealing to its potential readers. Your own book may benefit from knowing and using some of these ideas.

1. Juxtaposition - this is more important if your book is going to be found on a traditional bookstore shelf. The books that stand out have titles that do not seem to fit on the shelf the buyer is looking at. The potential buyer walks into a store looking for something on Italian cooking and on the shelf with the other cookbooks, they cannot help but notice one with a title that just does not seem to fit. "You put WHAT in the Sauce?" is probably more attention getting than "Cooking Italian." The point is to get noticed enough to have the potential reader pick up your book instead of the one next to it.

2. Address the issue, problem or need that you are writing about. Give the reader the opportunity to know what you are writing about - nothing cutesy, but at least one word in the title should mention your topic. This might be in the sub title rather than the main one.

3. Keywords - once again we talk about search engine optimization but if you can possibly get a few searchable words connected to your main topic, it will go a long way toward being found in the various search engines and databases. There is much more to this science than we are going to cover here and it takes much more than just a word or two in the title, but that will at least support your further efforts to create and locate your audience. Do not get carried away in this need for SEO but simply be aware, especially if you intend to self publish.

4. Promise - your title should inform potential readers of something they will stop doing, start doing or start doing differently as a result of reading your book. This is why your audience will buy your book, because they want something as a payoff for their hard-earned dollars. They will pay for your book in exchange for receiving a benefit for themselves. There are personal benefits to reading an altruistic book that offers world change because it makes the reader feel better, even though they might not personally benefit.

5. Tease the reader with something provocative, eye catching, controversial, shocking, humorous, unexpected, challenging or over the top in the title. You are seeking attention in the face of thousands of other titles that are competing with you. Some authors have had great success with NERDS. This is the art of creating a word that does not exist but mashes other words into a new one - sometimes it will even enter the language if the book is very successful. e.g... Freakonomics or a word that is totally unfamiliar like,Outliers.

6. Alliteration or rhyme will help the title roll off the reader's tongue; helps make it repeatable and memorable. Be careful here because, depending on your topic, a cutesy title could easily work against you. You will want to test this idea with an objective advisor or two before you commit to it.

7. No superfluous words. Keep the title as tight as you can; try using a verb or action word in the title - some recent releases use just one verb as the main title and rely on the sub title or the author's name to carry the day. This is not a hard and fast rule since there are many exceptions that have long titles, but the first couple of words are the key to remembering the book.

The point is that you cannot possibly work all of these ideas into one title but knowing the 7 characteristics of bestseller titles will help you craft a better one for yourself.


Best Selling Books