The name of your book will cause it to be picked up — or not given a second glance. It includes a title and a subtitle. Here are some suggestions for picking good ones:

• Pick a title that’s a grabber: “1001 Ways to Market Your Books – For Authors and Publishers”
• Don’t let the lack of a title keep you from writing the book; you may need to finish the book before you find the title
• If appropriate, name it, “How to (solve a particular problem) in only x (days, hours, whatever)”
• Make an outrageous claim: “How to Write a Book in 14 Days!”
• Invent a word: “Publishize”
• The subtitle should explain the benefits: “The ABCs of Handwriting Analysis” has “Techniques and Interpretations” as subtitle. “Publishize” has “How to Quickly and Affordably Self-Publish a Book That Promotes Your Expertise”
• Make a promise: “Lose 13 lbs. This Week!”
• Brainstorm with friends or mastermind groups
• Run a naming contest on your blog
• Ask for feedback on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Browse Amazon.com, your local bookstore, your local library
• Keep a notebook with you to write down ideas

What are your ideas about book naming?

Comments

Susan Daffron commented on 29-Jan-2009 08:05 PM

Hi Joel, How cool to see my book title in your list I hope you enjoyed the book too. Happy New Year! – Susan Daffron

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I’ve been trying out the free version of Book Cover Pro, which lets you create book covers of any size. The simple version is $97 and comes with a single template; the fancy version comes with a library of templates for $187 and with software for creating all kinds of collateral materials for marketing your book — and for creating ebook covers, too. Pretty impressive.

The New York Times has this report from the book-publishing industry:

Talk about a business of extremes. In less than a week the book publishing industry has been set abuzz by the news that one publisher is so uncertain about the economic climate that it has temporarily shut its doors to most manuscripts while another is celebrating a banner year by handing out extra bonuses to all its employees.

The bad news came from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a company formed from the union of two venerable publishers of authors like Philip Roth, Jonathan Safran Foer, Günter Grass and J. R. R. Tolkien.

More

An entertaining post on this “big” argument: “Books are dying: Yes or no?”

Ron’s company, selfpublishing.com, sells publishing and printing. But it is one of the best sources of education about printing and publishing on the web. This recent piece of his is typical of the no-baloney style of his articles.

What is the difference between a $149 cover design and one that costs $1500? The easy answer, of course, is $1351.  This is one of the most debated topics in many of the online news groups, although it’s mostly debated between designers who charge the $1500 price or more as justification for their pricing. In reality there is very little visual difference in the final product between the low end and the high end “design”.  It’s a matter of time… the designer’s time… and your money. More

With over a quarter-million Kindles out there (according to TechCrunch) and more than twice that number expected to sell over the coming year, that’s a big market. Especially when you consider that Amazon.com solves many of your marketing and all of your distribution challenges as an author.

Amazon.com gives you all the tools you need to convert your text to the html favored by the device.

As with other books you distribute via Amazon, you set your price, and get to keep 35% of it when Amazon sells a copy.

If you have written a book, I see no reason not to invest the few hours it takes to convert it for the Kindle. It’s almost pure gravy for you.

Not just insider gossip, but all manner of wisdom and good writing show up here. Here’s an example: Why Blogging Your Book Works. Highly recommended.

Michael Crichton, a Harvard-trained medical doctor who applied his love and knowledge of science to write some of the most iconic sci-fi tales of his generation, died Tuesday of cancer. He was 66 and was battling the illness privately, according to his family.

More at WIRED News

A long string, but worth reading for the “in-the-trenches” commentary.

My opinion: Self-publish. Those opposed often want to avoid the responsibility for promotion; unfortunately, that rarely works. Even if you land a publisher, you must promote.

The dollars say: Self-publish. Retain control. Make more money. If the book takes off, you are in a much better negotiating position with major publishers. See Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual, 16th Edition: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book (Self Publishing Manual)