Got a Great Book Title? It’s Not Enough

If you want your book to be a commercial success, it needs a great title – but a great title isn’t enough. It’s barely a start.

If all you’ve got is a title, you’ve got a lot of work to do.

A couple of years ago, I received a call from a prospective client (we never reached an agreement) who wanted to write a book and was looking for a ghostwriter. Within the first few minutes of our conversation, he told me the title he’d come up with and asked what I thought.

I liked it. It was an attention-getting title that a marketing team would love. But when I asked about the content of the book to determine if it was on a subject that I was interested in and qualified to write about, the answers I got were in the range of “maybe this,” “maybe that” and “I haven’t decided.” (As best I can determine, that book is yet to be written.)

I could go on for pages with similar stories from other clients and even people I meet socially who want to write a book. Certainly what’s on your book’s cover is important – but it’s what’s inside that really counts. And even the most talented ghostwriter can’t write your book if you don’t know what you want it to say.

Playing around with the title is fun, but the first step in developing a plan for a book is a clear concept. Many of my clients decide to write books because they want the credibility being able to add “author of …” after their name. For information marketers, consultants and other professional service providers, having a book out there is a great lead generator and a key content marketing strategy.

But to get that credential of having written a book, you need more than a title – you need to have a message. And you need to know what your message is before you or a ghostwriter can write your book.

In my experience as an executive ghostwriter, the best book titles are usually developed either during the writing process or after the manuscript is finished. We start with a working title that describes the book’s message – we don’t worry about making the title jazzy, we focus on creating a well-written book with quality content. A strong title that everybody loves always comes at some point along the way.