When you consider the steps to write a book, how much time do you spend on coming up with a compelling title or catchy tags for your electronic or written book?
As part of our 6 Week Information Publishing for Profits Course we share techniques and highlight the importance of finding the right "triggers" within your marketplace to use in your book titles so that your marketplace is both attracted to and want to find out more about your book.
What about your website titles, domain names, article titles and especially blogs?
Using blogs, articles and an online presence are all must do steps to write a book because no matter whether you are self-publishing or going with an established publishers, you will need to take on a major role in marketing your own book or e-book.
Here’s a really nice explanation of how to come to a decision on both a title as well as tags or keywords for your books, articles and blogs – In a blog posting called Tag Along, John Brady tells us to ask 4 questions…
What We Are?
What Principles We Stand For?
Who Should Read Us?
Our Core Topics?
For a full description of how to use these questions to develop your own compelling titles and marketing descriptions – read his post here.
Perhaps the most important takeaway from thinking about your title, description and keywords or tags upfront is that it forces you to consider closely your intended market and the value proposition you bring to your market.
You can’t create a compelling title without knowing who you are targeting and intriguing them with something they truly want to see as informative, valuable or entertaining.
Some examples…
"YOU: Staying Young: The Owner’s Manual For Extending Your Warranty" by Michael Roizen really stood out at me both in a recent bookstore visit and online on a few minute search of top selling books.
Are we clear about the market he is targeting? Definitely – middle age and older people who are thinking passionately about ways to stay young. Notice the way the title talks directly to us using the capitalized word YOU.
Next, he chooses to use a very common analogy "Extending Your Warranty" that immediately creates an image in our mind of value – if you extend a warranty then you are really investing in risk reduction – you are paying now because you believe you are protected in the future. A brilliant extension of a very well known concept that demonstrates he has a close grasp of what is truly important to his marketplace.
The message is simple…YOU are getting older, YOU can extend your current life well into the future and lower the risks associated with older age by protecting yourself now with this book.
A brilliant title will sell you a TON of books, regardless of what you have inside. That statement sounds shallow, and of course bad press and returns can sink your information publishing business, but the truth is that the initial sale is heavily dependent on how well your title speaks to your marketplace.
As creating a title is THE single most important among the steps to write a book, we will be covering more on this subject in the coming days and weeks…for those who are ready to learn more right now, zip over to InfoMarketer’sZone where we have several more tutorials and tips on titles, keywords, market research and much more to do with creating and marketing your own information products.
