Guides / Titles
Naming
Book titles that sell (and why clever dies)
A title is a package, not a poem. It has to work at postage-stamp size, in a search box, and in a stranger’s mouth.
Three tests
- Thumbnail. Shrink the cover to a phone row. Can you still read the title? If the cleverness requires a subtitle to explain it, the title is a private joke.
- Mouthfeel. Say it out loud twice. If a podcast host would glance down, shorten it.
- Category. Romance readers should smell romance. Thriller should smell threat plus intimacy. Nonfiction should name an outcome or a mechanism. Do not title a business book like a novel unless you are already famous.
Concrete beats abstract
Houses, rivers, wives, deals, courts, kitchens — nouns you can photograph — outperform “journey,” “essence,” and “becoming.” You can still be beautiful. Beauty that doesn’t specify a world is wallpaper.
Subtitles
Fiction rarely needs one. Nonfiction often does: Title = memorable object; subtitle = search query and promise. “The Quiet Offer: How to price work so it doesn’t need a personality.” That’s a book. “Unleash Your Greatness” is a mug.
Don’t steal
Search Amazon for the exact title before you fall in love. Search the domain. A collision with a living celebrity is a marketing tax you will pay forever.
Generate options with the title generator, then murder the ones that need a paragraph of defense.
About 1 minute.
Keep going
The next job is almost always smaller than the mood. Open a tool, or sit at the desk.