A rose by any other name may still be a rose, but if you're trying to sell roses (or books) the name is pretty important.
Marketing expert John Eggan gave two examples recently:
Sterling Press published a book on optical illusions using the title "Eye Spy." It didn't sell. They re-titled it "Eye Teasers." That one failed, too. Then they gave the same book the title "The Great Book of Optical
Illusions." It sold more than 200,000 copies.
"The Squash Book" sold 1,500 copies. When the publisher re-named it "The Zucchini Cookbook," it sold 300,000 copies.
Especially with books, it's important to let people know what they're getting. When they scan the shelves in a bookstore, they may see only the title on the spine. Something like "Eye Spy" doesn't tell them what the book is about. "Optical Illusions" does.
Also, people are searching for books online. If I type "squash" into the Amazon or Barnes&Noble search box, odds are I'll get a list of books about squash, the sport. If I type in zucchini, I'll get get only zucchini.
The problem is that titles like this often are kind of boring. They don't tell the potential reader what makes your book different or interesting. Often the best strategy is to put the more conventional descriptive words in the title, and the more zany or curiosity-arousing words in the subtitle. For instance, if you were writing a book about reality TV shows your main title might be "Reality TV" and the subtitle might be "How freak shows, sideshows, and fake shows are transforming television."
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