Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast
Join Penny Sansevieri and Amy Cornell for fun and frank discussions packed with clever ideas, easy-to-implement book marketing strategies, and critical publishing industry knowledge and insight! Designed to help self-published authors and traditionally published authors at any level, the Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast will definitely inspire you with new ideas for how to sell books, grow your platform, and make strategic business decisions as an author. Subscribe today and take that next step toward a more successful, long-term book marketing plan!
Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast
Naming Your Book: Avoiding Title Mistakes That Kill Sales
Have you ever judged a book by its title? Most readers do. In this eye-opening episode, Penny and Amy tackle the surprisingly overlooked aspect of book marketing that could be silently sabotaging your sales: your book title.
Drawing from years of marketing experience, the hosts break down the three critical mistakes authors make when naming their books. First, they examine titles that lack clarity or are difficult to pronounce, revealing how authors often "bury the lead" by creating mysteriously worded titles that confuse rather than intrigue potential readers. Fiction writers take note – even complex character names can pull readers out of your carefully crafted world.
The discussion then shifts to the dangers of generic titles, with Amy explaining how Amazon's search algorithm works against new books with common titles. "If you type 'Good Things' into Amazon," Penny demonstrates, "you'll get crackers, children's books, and 25+ pages of other products." This real-time search experiment highlights why specificity matters in a crowded marketplace.
Perhaps most compelling is their analysis of titles that only make sense to the author – a trap particularly common with memoirs and personal stories. Both hosts acknowledge the emotional attachment writers develop to their original titles, with Penny sharing a coaching session where it took nearly an hour to convince a business author to abandon his ineffective title choice.
Whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction, traditionally publishing or self-publishing, this episode offers practical strategies to ensure your title works as hard as you do. After all, as Amy points out, "If readers are consistently confused about what your book delivers based on its title, that's a significant red flag." The good news? Unlike many publishing decisions, titles can be changed – and sometimes, that one adjustment makes all the difference.
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Hello and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast. This is Penny Sansevierie and Amy Cornell, and we are so I don't know that we've done a show on naming your book and some of the errors that we've seen with book titles, and so we're also going to talk about subtitles in today's show. With book titles, and so we're also going to talk about subtitles in today's show. The thing is is that we were going through, so we had a, we had a long debrief in our green room and we were going through some of our older shows, and it's really hard, when it comes to book marketing, not to kind of repeat yourself, because, as Amy said when we were in the green room, there's really only so much stuff that you can talk about, but, interestingly enough, we've done shows on book covers, we've done shows on, obviously, your Amazon book page.
Speaker 1:We've done all of those kinds of shows, but we've never done one on naming your book. We've done all of those kinds of shows, but we've never done one on naming your book. It's time. Yeah, I know Exactly and you know. The thing about it is, though, is that so, yes, you can give your book a title that is going to hurt it, and I think that sometimes this happens because we get so close to our book product. So when I was naming what is now called the Amazon Author Formula, I mean that was a long road, amy, you remember that, because you and I were kind of bouncing ideas back and forth and it was really challenging to come up with that name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely was. And I will say, you know, fiction and nonfiction have their own challenges when it comes to finding the perfect title. But I will say, for nonfiction, we really got, we really drilled down into like okay, if we use this exact word, what does that tell somebody about the book? What does that imply? What is the promise that you're making to that potential buyer and reader by using this word versus this word? And it may sound mind-numbing if y'all are listening like, oh really, it's like yes, absolutely, you know, because the success of a book and especially getting those recommendations and reviews and things like that you know the title and what somebody's first impression and if you followed through with that first impression or not, makes a big difference in their experience with your book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does. And the other thing, though, too, is we always talk about the emotional appeal of your book cover matters to your reader, because we buy from emotion, right, whether we want to learn something or, you know, escapism when it comes to fiction, whatever that is right. Your book title also feeds into that. What the book is about, the book benefits, and the thing is is that over the years, we've seen authors get almost too creative with their book titles, so, in other words, they create titles that sound a little mysterious because they want to convey, maybe, the mysterious nature of the book, right, and there is a rabbit hole when it comes to titling a book that you can go too far down and it becomes a very non-productive title that can really damage your book, and a lot of times this falls into so much like mistake number one your title lacks clarity or it's hard to pronounce.
Speaker 1:Now I realize again those of you with fiction books and be like well, but my title doesn't always like. Fiction is a different animal, fiction is different animal, fiction is actually not a different animal. I mean, when it comes to nonfiction, obviously, you know your book benefits are in the title, but when it comes to fiction, your reader has to be able to interpret in the microsecond that they're on Amazon. They have to be able to interpret the title and intuitively say oh yes, this book is for me or the title is too difficult to pronounce and I don't really know what this book is about. And we've seen that too, amy right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We've definitely seen, we've worked with, I will say, titles that almost looked like they were accidentally misspelled. Yes, that's the.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, and again, we you know I don't want to keep giving like we understand, we understand, but truly we understand that once somebody gets into your book and your story and your content, it may make sense to them. But if it doesn't make sense out of context, it's potentially very problematic. I think and I love that you mentioned the mispronunciation or hard to pronounce, penny, because that's something that I am always acutely aware of when I'm reading a book, even a character name. Sometimes I can get hung up on character names that are not super clear how you pronounce it, and the whole time, every time I read the name, I'm like am I saying it wrong? Am I saying? And it's like it really pulls you out of the immersiveness of the story, and so that's something you have to think about too. With titles and things like that, you don't want a reader to kick it off questioning whether they're reading it properly or if they're saying it right, because it's a great way to pull them out of the story very quickly, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I think you know, made up words. We surprisingly we see this a lot where authors will make up a word for a book title or or use an uncommon word or uncommon spelling or word, and this is something that you also have to be really careful of a word that actually means something else. And I'm not talking about something that's necessarily derogatory, but you could. I had an author one time in a class who was really having trouble, I guess, advertising his book because he had accidentally named his book after like a massively big movie, like the book wasn't called Star Wars or anything like that, but it was along those. You know what I mean? It was along those lines because he had not done his due diligence and he thought, oh, this sounds, this really conveys what the book is about, and then didn't realize that it was a major hit movie at one time. Oh God, so well.
Speaker 1:And and you know, I mean, look, I get that happens because book titles it's kind of like, you know, like I get it. It's kind of like naming your children, right, but unlike naming your children, you can actually change your book title. You can change your book title if you take down the road that you made a mistake For nonfiction books. Obviously you're solving a problem, you're teaching the reader something, but just make sure that that's super clear in your title.
Speaker 1:I cannot emphasize to you enough and again, if you go back and listen to our book cover discussion how many times authors want to bury the lead in absolutely everything. They want to make their title so mysterious, their book cover mysterious, to really capture the audience and in their minds, like I get it. Because in their minds they're like oh, this is going to seem really mysterious and people are going to be really interested. And then the reverse is true, because they have trouble with a book title that is maybe misspelled, they have trouble getting traction on Amazon because Amazon can't figure it out. Oh gosh, your autocorrect always fixes your title for you.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that's the worst I know. And I think another thing with nonfiction too, Penny, like we started the discussion talking about author formula. But I think it's also really important to get very real with yourself about what your book actually delivers on. And I think a good example and we've seen this happen with nonfiction books where a topic kind of straddles the line with, like a memoir or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:And so if your book is more if you've written a business book but it's really more about your experience and it doesn't mean people can't learn from your experience but if everything in it is really anchored to your specific experience and it doesn't mean people can't learn from your experience, but if everything in it is really anchored to your specific experience what you went through, things like that, using the term guide or how to you know what I mean it gets really murky.
Speaker 2:You have to be really careful with word choices and what you actually deliver on, because some words, when people are shopping, they have expectations of how that content should be presented and what they're going to walk away with. So you really want to be careful to make sure that you're not implying one thing when your content actually delivers on another, and neither is good nor bad, right nor wrong. You just want to be realistic. So, again, keep one. The right people will find your book and resonate with your book. But also so you deliver on the experience you promised them, based on the title, the cover, the description, things like that. You really don't want to have them think it's one thing and deliver something else.
Speaker 1:Right, right. And then, you know, do so a couple things. First off, I know a lot of authors I love, I love chat GPT. We use it for imagery, we use it for brainstorming. I mean, we've really AI has really found a home with some of the work that we do.
Speaker 1:But be very careful if you are asking chat to suggest book titles, because I had an author mentioned that to me on the phone the other day and the book wasn't done and they're like oh, I have these 10 titles from chat and I'm not sure what I like them and can I send them to you and they were all really awful so well, because you know. The other piece of it, though, too, with AI is that it's kind of like when you're making a cake, right, if you miss one of the ingredients, the cake is going to taste funny. A lot of times when we are inputting things into AI, we give it incomplete information, which I don't know how the author served up this information in chat when they were trying to get book titles, but I suspect that was kind of the case. So you have to be really careful with that, because in the majority of cases you're probably not giving the AI enough information such that it actually bounces back some really good ideas. So be really careful with that.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I think before we go on to mistake number two is check to see other book titles that have the same name right, because sometimes I realize you know there are situations where sometimes that can't be avoided and I don't have no clear examples kind of pop to mind as we're recording this show. But be really careful, Don't. And I actually had an author one time, this is a long time ago, who wanted to write books that all had the same titles as Stephen King's, because they wanted to come up in Amy's like cracking up, they wanted to come up in search with Stephen King and I'm like, and you can't copyright a book title so people can copy your title. You can copy other people's titles. It's just really bad business, right?
Speaker 2:Good way to kiss a bunch of people off. Well, yeah, imagine a reader shopping on their phone or something, so it's smaller, and they just like they pull something up and they're like, yeah, that must be it. And they get it and they find out you're not Stephen King.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know I actually you know it's funny because I actually did this. So I last year. If you listen to our shows last year, you probably heard me go on and on and on about this book called the Housemaid, which I then forced Amy to read. Like Amy, you have to read this. I was bugging her like every single day. There were other books called the Housemaid and maybe they were older. I didn't really check the dates, but I actually picked up one on Audible and then ended up returning it. So there were people who were copying that book title because it was such a runaway, huge bestseller. Just don't do it, it just doesn't. I told Audible. I'm like I want my credit back because this is not the book that I thought that I was getting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't try to trick the system because, as Amy said, you'll just end up pissing off a bunch of readers. So be careful with that. So mistake number two your title is too generic. Amy, do you want to kick this one off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean it kind of to your point too, penny is like do a little research to see. And it To your point too, penny, do a little research to see. It can't always be avoided, but I think this goes along. Generic can be something that's overused too. You really want to be careful.
Speaker 2:We do a lot of shows about Amazon optimization those that you listen, searchability, things like that. It's very easy to get lost on Amazon search as it is. It's so much easier to get lost if you have a very basic generic book title as well. Yeah, it's just, I mean, and this is where subtitles can definitely help. I realize you can't control whether or not somebody enters in your full subtitle when they're searching for your book, but it definitely helps in terms of searchability. It helps your book show up in more searches. We talked about subtitles recently on an Amazon news show and that Amazon is definitely leaning toward pulling from subtitles now to find keywords to make sure that the right books are showing up for the right readers. We're seeing this mostly in really popular genre fiction right now, but it's been there for a while. This has been something that Amazon has been doing for a bit, because we do try to keep track of. Do these things stick with Amazon, or is it something they're just testing? And this one is really stuck. So it's worth, especially if you write fiction, to keep that in mind.
Speaker 2:You don't want a super generic title, because if they just put that one word into the search bar, who knows what's going to show up? And not everybody. Also, penny. I think, if we're being realistic, a lot of people don't necessarily go to the books or the Kindle department before they start searching.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people will initially just put in what they want in the main search bar and hope they get you know. But if they don't find the book that they're looking for, okay, then maybe they'll go through and actually go to the books department or the Kindle department. But every but you know authors should keep that in mind too. If somebody's just searching on straight up Amazon, they could be getting graphic tees, they could be getting you know what. I mean, who knows what Amazon's going to put in front of them just based on a one or two word book title, and that's what you kind of have to be cognizant of. Again, you may not always be able to avoid it, but it's worth thinking about, because, if you're, I am sorry, we've got sound department.
Speaker 1:Oh, is the sound department there to say hi?
Speaker 2:Sorry y'all, that was the sound department. If you've been on our website and seen how we've credited all the different people that make the show happen, some of them bark and it's not always at the right time, so I apologize. It may not always be something you can control, but what I was in the middle of saying is that, as you're brainstorming potential titles, these are all just things we want y'all to keep in mind because it's worth. It may make the difference between your number one and number two title that you're considering when you start getting on Amazon and searching for similar titles and things like that. Based on what comes up, you might go. You know what this looks like a more lucrative option for me. That's why I'm going to go with this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly, and you know it's interesting. So when you were, um, when you were saying that, I was focusing on everything on what you were saying, but I was also searching on Amazon. So there was a new book, that there's a there's a new release book. It's actually not out yet I think it's not until september and the title of the book is good things, right. So now this could be anything, right, this could be absolutely anything. So I did what you just said.
Speaker 1:I went into amazon and I typed in good things into the search bar and it also comes up with, um, a children's book. Uh, some good thins crackers, right. There are like 10 other books with the same title, more than 10, actually I think the pages go 25, more than 25 search pages. So y'all gotta be careful. This and, like I, this was a traditionally published book. I mean no disrespect, just using it as an example. But do some searches on Amazon, because we we always recommend that to the degree that you can. I realize you know with fiction sometimes that gets a little bit, that's a little bit more tricky. But get on Amazon and do some searches and see what else is out there. Yep, because it's really going to be hard for just to go back to that title, good Things. It's going to be hard to have that title stand out like that. The subtitle, which I didn't share, what also was a little bit iffy it wasn't really specific. So now you have a non-specific title and a very non-specific subtitle and good luck showing up right search right.
Speaker 2:And then for non-fiction. I think it's also we see this a lot too penny and we talk about it. It's great that we talked about it with the top of the show, like there's only so many different topics within a specific industry or area of interest, right, right. And so you want to be really careful with non-fiction, that you're not essentially making the same promise that everybody else is. It's like, what's unique about your voice, what's unique about your approach, what's unique about your point of view? You know what I mean. It's so great when you can emphasize what sets you apart from the competition in your title or subtitle, versus giving them yet another book on the same topic that they may already have on their shelf, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, right, exactly it is. You know, I realized that it's titling a book is not an easy thing to do. Sometimes an author will, you know, say like I'll talk to them, and they're in the middle of finishing up their book. Like, oh my gosh, I knew the title of the book before I even put pen to paper and I think that's great. I think that's wonderful. That title came to you that easily Because, trust me, when I was you know the Amazon author formula Amy and I went I don't want to say that we necessarily came to blows, because it never really comes to that, but at some point, like, I had this title in my mind I don't remember what it was now and I was like, amy, I really love this title. And she pushed me back and she's like, well, here's what comes to my mind when you tell me that title. I'm like, well, you're just different. So we have this.
Speaker 2:Not wrong.
Speaker 1:Not wrong. I mean, I understand like we get very, very married to our titles. If you have something that's already in mind or if you're you know down our list of if your book isn't selling, take maybe it's the title. Do some research and, if you have, if you've had like negative reviews on your book, like oh, I thought this book was about this and this book was really about that. It could be, could be your cover, could be your description, but it could also be your title or subtitle too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a very good point, Penny. If you're getting the kind of feedback in your reviews that things just aren't clicking for readers, that's a that's a very good point to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. And then I think the final mistake is that the title only makes sense to you, right? And I see this a lot with memoir, right, and I understand that memoir. You know the first two letters in memoir is me. I understand that memoir is a very personal endeavor, but if you want this memoir to sell, your title is going to have to make sense to everyone, not just you, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we've talked about and you know it's a lot of. It's amazing how much these different, I think, mistakes, tips, recommendations, whatever you want to call them there's a lot of gray area in between them too. There's a lot of things that overlap, but I think that's a very good point, and we talked about this earlier too. If it's not going to make sense to somebody until they get to Chapter 5, that's challenging. You know what I mean? Yeah, and like you said, penny, what was it? Good things. I mean, honestly, my mind, just based on what I read a lot, I'm like, ooh, that could be a really twisted title for a thriller you know, it could be and that's the kind of stuff like to you it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:But you really have to think like, challenge yourself, like does this make sense out of context? For who my readers are? The kind of books they're looking for? The word choice Again, we talked about that. It's amazing the difference in changing up one or two words. You know even in your subtitle or in your title, like it's wild. But if the book title doesn't make sense out of context, I think that is a big red flag. You know?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, exactly, and you know, again, it should be easy to remember, it should be easy to spell, Because what Amy pointed out, which I don't think we've actually ever talked about on any of these shows, is that a lot of times Amazon. So we focus when we do optimization, we always focus, obviously, on the Kindle side of Amazon, because that tends to be heavier, because a lot of authors go straight to Kindle, but the majority of consumers are just going onto Amazon and starting to do a search, just like I did when I referenced the book Good Things, the book Good Things. So you have to really make sure that it. You know, like the misspellings and Amazon's going to serve you up all kinds of things that are not related to your book, especially again, if you have a book title that only really makes sense to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and especially if your book's new too, penny, if we're being realistic, if your book title overlaps with other products on Amazon that are highly rated, that have been around for a while, that sell really well. Amazon wants to make money. So you know, I hate to say it, but they're going to default to showing them that stuff too, because they thought, well, a lot of people buy this, they might buy this too. They're going to default to showing them that stuff too, because they thought, well, a lot of people buy this, they might buy this too.
Speaker 1:Amazon loves to distract you, to get you to spend money on all the things.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure. If your book is brand new and doesn't have a lot of weight with Amazon yet you know what I mean. It's not really clicking in the algorithm. Yet your chances of getting lost in a sea of a lot of other recommendations is even higher.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So I think you know, if you already have a book out there and it's not really doing that well, start to do some research on Amazon and see. You know, and I really recommend, do it from an incognito window, because that way your search is not going to follow your new search. Your research search, right Sorry, that was really a tongue twister, but and kind of see what comes up, right, see what comes up and see if your title is you know, if it references something like the guy who wrote had a book title with a you know big movie that was out years ago and people are looking it up and going like too, is that, if your book is coming up under the wrong search which, if you're interested in learning more about Amazon optimization, we have a whole bunch of Amazon shows that you can go back and listen to but if your book is coming up under the wrong search and it's the book title's fault, that is something I mean. I don't want to say it's an easy fix, because I realize you have to change the book cover and if you have a publisher involved, I mean it just becomes a little bit of a slippery slope. But if you're unsure, go on Amazon and start doing some research and see if your book comes up properly, because it's a problem. And again, naming your book is a very personal, it's a very personal thing.
Speaker 1:I actually did a coaching session last year with an author who had a business book and I, you know, when somebody hires me for coaching I am you don't hire me to blow smoke and I told him I'm like I just don't think, if I were working with you as a marketing person, that I could get business bloggers to pick up the book based on the book title. And it took me probably almost a full hour to wrestle that original title from him, jeez, and he came back to me. Well, because we have an emotional tether to our book titles, you know what I mean. Just like the first title that I can't even remember now that I sent you, where we were back and forth, I'm like, but I read this title and then you know I realized at the end of the day that it was really kind of stupid.
Speaker 1:But I say, you know we have an emotional tether to our book title, so I get it. It's really hard, but it's definitely an important factor in your author's success. To take a look at that make factor in your author's success. To take a look at that. Make sure it's not too hard to pronounce, that it doesn't lack clarity, that it's not too generic and that it's not just some secret word that only you and maybe three other people know Right, came to you in a dream or something.
Speaker 2:Sorry, right.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, well, listen, we make sure to subscribe to this podcast because we do release episodes every week, so you want to make sure that you get, you know, an alert on your phone, um and it when you. You can only review the podcast when you subscribe, which is weird, I did not know that before. So make sure to subscribe. We love reviews wherever you listen to podcasts. We also love show ideas, so our contact details are in the show notes. Be sure to reach out to us, give us some feedback on the show, show ideas. Is there something that you that we haven't covered? Because I let off the show, kind of saying, well, we've talked about all the things. There's only so much you can say. But then I'm surprised and we do a title, a show on book titles, and we've never done a show on book titles before. So who knew, after five years we could still surprise ourselves, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, but send in the ideas. We love them because, as much as we like yammering about all the things that we think are important, it's so important for us to do shows that reflect the challenges that y'all are dealing with. Yeah, exactly Like it doesn't have to be a fully fleshed out idea, even if you just send us an email and say, I'm really struggling with this, like we'll do the heavy lifting to try to make a show about it. Okay, yes, I love that.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Even better than sending us your show ideas, send us your struggles. What do you really challenge with right now? Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for listening For all our listeners who have been with us for the last few seasons. We really so value you and we love that you're listening and we will see you next week. Bye-bye.
