What's In A Name? Crafting Book Titles That Sell

The title of a book can become a selling tool to help sell a book. It does this by effectively conveying what the book is about or at least give an inkling of what lies between the pages (I have seen vague titles that intrigue me enough to search inside or download a few chapters. Mind you, I don’t do this all the time!). Get it wrong and authors and publishers alike leave prospective buyers scratching their heads as to what the book is about.

More often than not, people may not bother to read the back cover blurb or the contents page. Plus, matters are further complicated in a bookshop where the spine (and not always the cover) is facing outward. This means that even a beautiful cover design may not help. These days, one only gets a few seconds to convince a book reader to part with their hard earned cash.

Marketing Dilemma: Should Authors Do More To Sell Their Books?

Picture this: In one corner, we have authors with placards saying things like, ‘I'm a writer not a seller’ or ‘Selling is NOT my job’ and on the other corner, we have  Marketing and publicity experts with their placards saying, ‘thou must help us sell your book’ or ‘check your contract!’. And so the battle goes with each camp believing they are right.

 

Marketers will argue that authors need to get involved with the business of selling books. Whilst some (not all) authors just want to be left alone to do the creative thing they do. They don’t want to be dragged away from their passion, kicking and screaming, into our social media driven world.