Book Titles vs. Subtitles

The book cover and the title are your first marketing messages to grab potential readers. A great book cover counts as much as the title. In the nonfiction area in particular, a subtitle holds equal weight. You can have a creative title, but your subtitle must spell out what your book is really about. 

So here is a lesson most authors should embrace:

 It's okay to have a unique title for your book as long as your subtitle says what the book is specifically about.

You don't need to make the subtitle "sexy" either. If the book's main title is so eclectic that the reader won't honestly understand it right from the start, then the subtitle should spell out the rest. Our Foreign Rights Agent Nigel emphasized this tip. He said book buyers need to know in less than a second what your book is about or they'll pass it right by and move on to the next.

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Step-by-Step Building Sexual Tension Between Characters

Can I Pick Your Brain?

In Loving Memory -- John Andrew Gamble, 1962-2011