How Do You Write A Book Title? Here’re 6 Ultimate Steps

There’s something that I love about books and movies and that’s their titles. You’ll agree with me that a book is not complete without its title. And not only that, you’ll also agree that people buy books because of their titles.

And as authors, we tend to find it challenging to come up with a compelling title for our book. However in this article (how do you write a book title) I’ll be talking about proven methods that will help you write a good title. Along side I’ll also talk about the importance of writing a compelling book title and the characteristics of a title.

Please know that these methods are used by Mike Shreeve a legendary ghostwriter and CEO of peacefulprofit.

Let’s dive in…

#1. Importance Of Writing A Compelling Book Title

While writing this part, I remembered a story that was shared by Subri Sabi in his book ‘’Sell like crazy,’’ according to him an author wrote a book but it only sold few copies.

A certain man came across this book at a trade fair and took interest in it, he wrote to the author requesting to buy the right of the book, and the author agreed to the deal.

Then the man decided to rewrite the book and the only thing he rewrote was the title, he left the content of the book. After that he re-launched the book into the market and ended up with millions of sales.

You see book title is very important, get it right and you have succeeded in cutting 50% work from your book marketing.

However below are the few reasons why I say book title is as important as the entire content of your work.

1. It attract buyers

2. It helps to convey the message of your book to buyers

3. It helps buyers to remember your book easily

4. It creates a memory in the mind of your buyer

5. It helps build confident in the heart of your buyer

6. It helps your book compete favorably in the crowd

7. It makes your book look unique

8. It convinces publishers to invest in your book

9. A good title + content turns you into a best seller overnight

10. It create buzz for your book and this can aid your book promotion

#2. Characteristics Of Book Title

1. Short (less wordy): Have you wondered why many best sellers titles are shorts? This is because the shorter a book title is the sweeter it is. Here is an example of a book with short title – Stiff by Mary Roach.

2. Easy to understand: You don’t want people to find your book title difficult to grab. You want them to quickly understand what the book is about in a glance. Here’s an example of a book with an easy title – How big things get done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner.

3. Pricks curiosity: There’re book buyers who buy books based curiosity, they want to learn what a book that the title meets their fancy is all about. When coming up with your book title make sure you coin it from the angle of curiosity.  Here’s an example of a book with such a title – How far to the promise land by Essua McCaulley.

4. Message: A book tittle must have a message that it passes to the reader. A book title without a message is considered vague.  Here’s an example of a book title with a message – the year of magical thinking, by Joan Didion

5. Genre – The work of a book title is to tell the genre of the book, if your book is a fiction, don’t give it a title that is befitting for non-fiction.

#3. How Do You Write A Book Title

We have seen 10 reasons why book titling is very important and also considered the characteristics of a good book title.

Let’s see how you can write a title that will be able to make your book more appealing to readers. These steps I am about to share with you are the same steps that were shared by Mike in his book –The One Book Millions Method.

These steps are 6 in numbers and interestingly, they are suitable for fiction and non-fiction writers.

1. Start with The End in Mind: This title gives a hint of what reader stands to gain at the end. An example of this sort title is the ‘’the one book millions method,’’ the author explained that is reason for creating this kind of title is to attract serious buyers who are looking for serious change in their business.
2. Go Against The Norm: People love to follow what is already a norm, yeah it’s good but you see, going against the norm is where the sweet spot lies. An example of a book with this title is ‘’the 12 week year,’’ by Moran and Lennington. 

3. Uncommon Benefit: What are the uncommon benefits that your book can make a reader achieve after reading your book? A perfect example for this title is the book “finish what you start” by Peter Hollins, this is a self-help book, that focused on that specific thing we all wish we were better at but nobody really talks about. And it helps us to get things done.

4. Grand Promise: Just as the title sounds, ‘’grand promise’’ this shows the reader that they stand to gain something big, “Million dollar outlines” by David Farland, is a book that comes with this title.

5. The Simple How To: This title is kind of common it spells out to the reader that they are going to learn a new skill. “How to Write a damn good mystery” by James N. Frey is an example of this kind of title. ‘’The simple how to’’ portray the author as an authority in his niche.

6. The Case Study: As the name implies the case study is a kind of title that tells the reader the personal results of the author, “How I Sold 80,000 Books” by Alina Rutkowska. You can see that the title reeks of results that the author had for going through a process.

Yes just as you can write good titles with any of these methods, you can make use of title generators to generate your tittle within a short time.

Though I have not been privileged to generate titles with a book title generator but from what I know a book title generator….

• Speeds up this process

• Helps you to generate more titles within a short time

• Helps you to come up with idea

• Saves time

Certainly your book title is what hooks in reader and make then desire to buy your book. I employ you to give it a good thought before creating a title so that you don’t end up generating… weak title and vague title.

Like the experts would say also come up with at least ten titles for a book to enable make the right choice.

Above all I wish you all the best in your adventure and please share this article and help us grow our community.