7 Bestseller Title Mistakes Authors Make & How to Avoid Them (Part 1)

A great title can make your break your book! But, there are 7 common mistakes that I see authors make that keep them from making their books bestsellers. Here they are:

Mistake #1: Your Title Lacks Clarity

There are two reasons titles lack clarity. The first is that you aren’t sure what your book is about. Obviously, you can’t tell readers what your book is about if you aren’t sure yourself. The second is you know what your book is about, but you are having a difficult time translating that into a title.

For instance, an author came to me who had written a book about the afterlife. She already had her title, but it didn’t have anything about the afterlife in it. Instead, it said it was about death. Clearly, this was wrong and her audience would be confused by such a title and would not be pleased if they bought it to find out it was about the afterlife when they thought they were buying a book on the topic of death. There is nothing worse than misleading your audience-even if it is unintentional.

Mistake #2. Your Title is too Generic

Human beings are attracted to titles that interest them, and generic titles are not interesting by their nature. In addition, they tend to be too broad. If you were looking for a book on how to rehab houses and flip them, and you found books on real estate investing, they would either have much less information on rehabbing houses or no information at all.

Plus, you would have to flip through them to find out, which would be time consuming and frustrating. So, chances are you would avoid those books. On the hand, if you found a book called How to Make a Million Dollars a Year Flipping Houses, you would be much more excited, first, by the idea of making a million dollars, and second because you would know the information was on the exact topic you were looking for.

Mistake #3 Your Title Doesn't Make Sense to Anyone But You

When you have an idea in mind, and you write a title, you know what you had in mind. But, your readers don’t know what you’re thinking when you write a title; they are not inside your head. So, you have to write a title that they can understand. They aren’t going to want it if it doesn’t make sense to them, and they don’t get it.

Tip: After you write a title and you ask for feedback. If your readers tell you that they think your book is about something other than what your book is about, you’re probably guilty of mistake #3!

Mistake #4 Nobody Wants a Book by that Title

If it’s not what your audience is looking for, they’ll keep looking.

Too often, authors get excited when they do the research in Amazon and discover that there are very few books in a category that they want to write about. But, the reason there are usually very few books in a category is because nobody is interested in buying books on that topic.

I always tell my authors to write what they are passionate about as well as what their audience is interested in if you want to sell books! Another reason your potential buyers may not want your book is because of the way you’ve decided to frame your title. In other words, you may have a bestselling topic, but the title itself undermines your ability to sell it.

Instead you want readers to think to themselves, “I’ve got to have that book!” And, this usually occurs when they really want the benefit of that book and the title sounds like it’s going to give it to them.

Examples:

Unplug, A Simple Guide to Meditation for Busy Skeptics and Modern Soul Seekers

In this case, they had me at “Unplug”. I don’t love the subtitle, because they are going after an audience that is probably going to be resistant to their message. But, for someone who is a busy entrepreneur, it’s a great title.

Or, I Charge for That! Mastering the Mindset for Sales Success

I often have authors approach me and ask me to read their book for free. And being a nice person, I want to help them out. But, I simply don’t have time to spend hours reading books for free. Yet, I find it difficult to have the conversation around asking to get paid for it. So, this book immediately spoke to me. The author of this book, Wendyy Bailey. And it is clear that she totally gets the dilemma that entrepreneurs like me have around this particular sales conversation.

(Part 2 Coming Soon!)

For a free 25-page report, Secret Title Formula, go to: www.bestsellerbusinessblueprint.com/title-formula-gift