The Perfect Book Title

A framework to position and sell your big idea.

Dear Writer,

What Is A Book Title?

It’s such a simple question, and yet most writers never ask it.

Instead, they rush into brainstorming title ideas, finding “comp covers,” or trying to create the perfect pun.

But in its simplest form, the title of your book isn’t actually a title—or a “bow” you tie on top of your work before you present it to the world. It’s also not just a sales pitch for the pages of content inside.

A book title is more like a sliver of real estate in your target reader’s mind.

When a book already exists on a topic, and you decide to write a book that is going to be “better” than that book, you’re competing for existing real estate. And the more books that already exist on a given topic, the more competitive the market. Think of yourself like a little real estate developer who just moved to New York City with dreams of building an empire. Can it happen? Sure—others have. But are the odds in your favor? Eh, probably not.

When a book hasn’t yet been written on a topic, and you decide to be the first, you’re no longer competing for existing real estate in the target customer’s mind. In fact, depending on how “early” you are, there might not even be a market. You have to create it—which is both the opportunity and the burden. It’s a burden because there aren’t readers actively searching for that topic (yet). But it’s an opportunity because if you can create the market, you can own it—or own a meaningful piece of it. To stick with the metaphor: instead of competing for real estate in New York, you’re building a new city (and new housing within that city) in the middle-of-nowhere Montana.

Unfortunately, most writers don’t think about their writing this way

It’s much easier to just wake up in the morning, pull the shades apart, stretch your arms big and wide, and say, “I’m going to write a book!” And then as long as your work appears somewhere in the world, well, you did it.

(Just know most, if not almost-all of these writers are broke.)

Which is why I’m going to help you not-think this way!

And give you a framework for The Perfect Book Title.

Title-First vs Title-Last

Conventional wisdom says, “Just start writing and the title will reveal itself at the end.”

This is what most big publishers say to their writers.

The problem with this Title-Last approach is it severely misunderstands the impact a title & subtitle can have on the content.

For example, look at the following (made up) main titles & subtitles:

• Flow State: How To Get In The Creative Zone

• Flow State: How To Get In The Competitive Zone

• Destroying Flow State: 8 Bad Habits That Crush Your Productivity

• Destroying Flow State: The 7 Ways People Self-Sabotage Their Creativity—And How To Overcome Them

To the untrained eye, the above 4 titles are just “different variations of the same idea.” But that couldn’t be further from the truth. These are not 4 different title options. These are actually 4 different books, that make 4 different promises, that will attract 4 different types of readers, that will produce 4 completely different types of content:

• Title #1 is a “How To” book (so it would most likely be structured in “Steps”), and those “Steps” will be tailored specifically to “creativity.”

• Title #2 is also a “How To” book, and would also be structured in steps, but will be tailored to a completely different audience & outcome.

• Title #3 is not a “How To” book, and it’s also not an aspirational book. It’s a cautionary tale, and anchored to a specific number of bad habits that lead to negative outcomes for the reader.

• And Title #4 is also not a “How To” book. It’s not promising “steps” or anything actionable. It’s promising “ways,” which means its promise is to help the reader understand, not “do.”

The title is what decides the entire direction of the book.

Whereas the book isn’t what decides the direction of the title.

My recommendation:

If you are serious about being a serial author (as in you want to write many books), I would strongly encourage you to build the skill of taking a Title-First approach. And if you have to “start writing” to figure out what your book is about, that’s fine—but commit to a direction as quickly as you can.

Because…

• The longer you postpone committing to a title, the longer you're going to struggle to know what your book is truly about…

• The less clarity you’re going to have on the promise you’re making to the reader (and whether you’re delivering on that promise in the content)…

• The less likely readers are to understand what your book is about, and whether what you’re promising to them is worth their time…

• The fewer people will buy your book.

It’s all connected.

For example, there’s a reason why MrBeast requires his team to come up with the perfect thumbnail and title before investing millions of dollars into producing their next YouTube video. Because the positioning of the idea and the title is what dictates the content.

I firmly believe every writer should spend a disproportionate amount of effort stress-testing their book title and the positioning of their idea before they even begin writing.

Here’s how:

The 7 Categories Of Non-Fiction Best-Selling Books

Before you begin writing your book, wouldn’t it be helpful to know which categories of non-fiction books tend to produce the best results?

In my book, Snow Leopard, we conducted a study of the best-selling business books over the past 20 years, organizing them by category. And we found that almost all of the Top 444 best-selling business books of the past 20 years can be organized into these 7 buckets:

• Personal Development

• Personal Finance

• Insights/Thinking

• Leadership

• Case Study/Allegory

• Functional Excellence

• Relationships

And even within these 7 buckets, the top 2 (Personal Development and Personal Finance) are the largest.

This is not an accident.

Something I learned very early writing on Quora was: the size of the question dictates the size of the audience. Which means in order to reach millions of readers, or write a book that unlocks millions of dollars in revenue, you need to answer big, universal questions that speak to the widest number of people. And what are the 2 largest questions?

• “How do I improve myself?” (Personal Development)

• “How do I make more money?” (Personal Finance)

If you don’t speak to one (or both) of these mega-categories of interest, it doesn’t matter how “good” your book is—the question your book is answering doesn’t have enough scale. There literally aren’t enough readers who would be willing to consume your product.

So, congratulations… you want to write a non-fiction book!

Well, unless you’re just writing for yourself and don’t care what the outcome is or how many people buy it (which a lot of people say but is never the truth—they always come back around a month later going, “How can I make my book sales go rocketship?!”), you should work in reverse:

• What are your external expectations? How many copies are you aiming to sell? How “big” would you like your book to try to be?

• And does your idea sit within in a mega-category where those expectations are not only possible, but realistic?

If not, you either need to a) write the book you want to write but reframe your expectations, or b) change the book you want to write to have a better chance at meeting or exceeding your expectations.

Personal Credibility or Borrowed Credibility

The next big thing you need to decide is whether your book is going to lean on Personal Credibility (you have achieved something noteworthy yourself) or Borrowed Credibility (curating insights from other relavent, noteworthy people).

For example:

• Ray Dalio’s Principles: Life and Work (horrible subtitle) leans heavily on Personal Credibility. Why would you want to know Ray Dalio’s principles for life and work? Well, because he’s a billionaire. That’s why.

• Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is The Way: The Timeless Art Of Turning Trials Into Triumph (nearly perfect book title) leans heavily on Borrowed Credibility. Ryan isn’t telling you “his” framework for turning trials into triumph. He’s telling you Marcus Aurelias’s philosophy on stoicism, and then borrowing other successful people’s credibility and stories to reinforce it: John D. Rockefeller, Amelia Earhart, Ulysses S. Grant, Steve Jobs, etc.

To be clear: this isn’t a decision as to whether your face should be on the cover, or the font of your name should be even bigger than the title. In fact, from our best-selling non-fiction book study in Snow Leopard, we actually found that Idea-Forward ideas, titles, and covers almost always outperformed Author-Forward ideas, titles, and covers (giant celebrities being the exception to the rule). 99% of the time, you are better off positioning your idea first and your credibility second.

Still, the decision of Personal Credibility or Borrowed Credibility is important because it impacts how you are going to deliver on the promise of your title. If it’s Personal Credibility, you should lean on personal stories & insights. Whereas if it’s Borrowed Credibility, you should lean on curated stories & insights.

The mistake writers make here is when they don’t have clarity over which type of credibility their book is using (or needs for the idea they’ve chosen), and then fail to deliver on that promise to the reader. For example, imagine if you bought Ray Dalio’s Principles because you were excited to learn “his” principles for life & work… only for him to share almost nothing of his own, and instead tell you stories about George Washington and Bill Gates’ principles for life & work.

You would be very disappointed!

Timely or Timeless

The last big strategic decision you need to make is which type of book you’re writing:

• A Timely Book… to take advantage of an opportunity-now.

• A Timeless Book… to take advantage of an opportunity-later.

Generally speaking, “timely” books tend to make more money in the short term. This is because timely books speak to pre-existing problems or desires (aka markets). For example, if you wrote a book about how to get started with Kindle publishing back in 2008, you crushed it (and probably make millions of dollars) for a short period of time. But chances are today, almost two-decades later, that original book probably isn’t relevant anymore (the information is outdated) and doesn’t make any money. Very timely, not very timeless.

“Timeless” books, on the other hand, tend to make less money in the short term but can make way, way more money over the long term. The book, Thinking, Fast and Slow is a good example. This book came out in 2013 and it’s still selling well over a decade later.

Data pulled from PublisherRocket (Print Books / eBooks / audio books):

If we look back at the 7 non-fiction mega-categories, some are inherently better suited for “Timely” books—and others, “Timeless” books:

• Personal Development: Could be either, so better to lean Timeless.

• Personal Finance: Could be either, so better to lean Timeless.

• Insights/Thinking: Typically Timely (most data/insights get outdated within a decade).

• Leadership: Could be either, so better to lean Timeless.

• Case Study/Allegory: Typically Timely (most case studies/allergies get outdated within a decade. The book Good To Great comes to mind here. Extremely relevant and a huge best-seller in the 2000s. Today, almost completely irrelevant.)

• Functional Excellence: Typically Timely. Functional Excellence is a fancy name for “How To,” and most “How To” books (especially involving technology) get outdated within 5 years or less.

• Relationships: Could be either, so better to lean Timeless.

So again, depending on which type of book you want to write, it’s crucial to know whether your book even has Timeless potential—or if it’s more of a Timely “cash-grab” (which is fine, just don’t confuse the two).

Some good rules of thumb…

If you are writing a Timely book:

• Use Timely (even trendy) stories, case studies, data, etc. There’s a reason so many non-fiction books lean on “ground-breaking research.” Readers like to feel like this data, or these insights, “just came out.”

• Use Timely credibility (Personal or borrowed) that is highly relevant to the topic. Using “timeless” credibility from 20+ years ago doesn’t work as well for Timely topics. Readers want to know you, or someone else, was JUST successful using this information recently.

• Make the content as actionable as possible. Because what people are really buying is immediate “How To” information.

If you are writing a Timeless book:

• Use Timeless stories/insights/allegories, and deliberately avoid Timely case studies, data, or stories tied to Timely events. For example, in Good To Great, Circuit City was hailed as a success story. Less a decade later, it filed for bankruptcy and was no longer relevant. So even if insights from the company’s success are “Timeless,” they’re hard to read today because they were anchored to a Timely case study.

• Over-rotate on “thinking/principles” and avoid prescriptive “How To” information. The more you lean into “How To” do something, the more Timely your book becomes. Whereas the more you lean into “Timeless principles” that could be applied across generations, the more Timeless your book becomes.

• Avoid generation-specific language. If your book (especially the title) leans on “trendy” language, that is going to work really well in the short term and then age very poorly over the long term. The book #GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso is a great example. Including a hashtag in the title when it was published in 2014 was hyper-relevant—and the book became a New York Times best-seller. Today? That hashtag feels outdated and irrelevant, and the book with it.

Some data to support: #GIRLBOSS as a print book is averaging ~$173 in sales per month on Amazon today.

To recap:

These are the strategic decisions you need to make before you even start thinking about how to “position” your idea:

1. Are you taking a Title-First approach? (The answer should be “Yes.”)

2. What are your expectations for external outcomes? And are you writing a book in one of the big 7 non-fiction mega-categories?

3. Are you leaning on Personal Credibility or Borrowed Credibility?

4. Are you trying to write a Timely book or a Timeless book?

You need to answer these questions, first.

Then, you can begin the game of properly positioning your chosen idea in the mind of your target reader.

Tactically, here’s how to do that:

Obvious & Non-Obvious

Remember, a book title is a sliver of real estate in your target reader’s mind. Which means The Perfect Book Title is a game of positioning.

If you simplify the idea of “positioning” down to its most basic components, positioning just means:

• Solving the same problem with a different solution.

• Or solving a different problem.

It doesn’t matter what the industry is, what the topic is, who the audience is, etc. Fundamentally, you either want to write a book that solves the same problem in a new and different way, or you want to solve a different problem.

• Obvious = Problem or Solution already exists (and is well known).

• Non-Obvious = Problem or Solution (aka: market) doesn’t exist yet (or is still relatively unknown).

What you don’t want to do is solve a problem that already exists the same way it has already been solved. For example: how do you lose weight? Each healthy! And yet, you would shocked how many writers do this. They write the same book that has already been written a hundred times, thinking they will “win” that real estate in readers’ mind because their book will just be better. (Which almost never works.)

So, how do you “position” yourself in the reader’s mind—and communicate your unique positioning in the book title?

By balancing Obvious & Non-Obvious components:

And all book titles fall into 1 of these 4 combinations:

• Obvious Main Title x Obvious Subtitle

• Obvious Main Title x Non-Obvious Subtitle

• Non-Obvious Main Title x Obvious Subtitle

• Non-Obvious Main Title x Non-Obvious Subtitle

Let’s walk through each one:

Obvious Main Title x Obvious Subtitle

This means your Main Title is speaking to a problem (or aspiration) that already exists, and your Subtitle is also speaking to a problem or solution that already exists. Which is really just a different way of saying you have no position in the reader’s mind. That “real estate” has already been bought and purchased by someone else. You’re noise.

For example…

The Business Playbook: How To Document And Delegate What You Do So Your Company Can Grow Beyond You

• Obvious Main Title. Everybody and their mom wants a business playbook. Market already exists.

• Obvious Subtitle. There’s really no new, unique, or different promise being made here. It’s just straight “here’s how to do the thing you’ve already decided you want to do.”

Obvious Main Title x Obvious Subtitle can work, but it’s the least differentiated combination. Double-Obvious also tends to be most used for Timely books—because Timely books speak to pre-existing markets.

Obvious Main Title x Non-Obvious Subtitle

This means your Main Title is speaking to a problem (or aspiration) that already exists, but your Subtitle is presenting a new, unique, and different way of solving that problem or achieving that outcome.

This combination is used for the vast majority of non-fiction books because…

• It’s the easiest to execute: New solutions to existing problems are always easier to come up with than creatively recognizing new problems in the world.

• It’s less risky: Instead of starting with “no market,” you’re starting with some sort of existing market and providing an incrementally different solution.

For example, books like (quick Amazon search):

• The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, And Change The Way You Lead

• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You

• The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People

You immediately understand what these books are about from the Obvious Main Title alone. And none of these Main Titles speak to any new or different problem in the world. These are problems or aspirations that already exist and are very well-known.

However, a bit of intrigue is added to the topic by making the Subtitle Non-Obvious. You know what the book is about, but you aren’t entirely sure how the promise (in the Main Title) is going to be delivered to you—which, as we continue on, you’ll see can be both a pro and a con.

I wouldn’t say any of these Subtitles are good (they could all be improved by leaning into their Timely or Timeless nature, making the Personal or Borrowed Credibility more explicit, or making more Tangible promises as we’ll talk about later). But they are examples of what the Obvious x Non-Obvious combination looks like out in the world.

Non-Obvious Main Title x Obvious Subtitle

This is the most popular combination for non-fiction books deliberately trying to play the Grand Slam, New York Times Best-Seller, “I’m-Going-To-Write-The-Next-Atomic-Habits” game.

Books like:

• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference

• Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

• Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

And there are a couple reasons why big-name authors use this combination (and why traditional publishers encourage it—even if they don’t really know the underlying framework of what they’re encouraging):

• First, short Non-Obvious Main Titles are easy to remember and talk about—igniting word of mouth. It’s very easy for the average person to remember “Atomic Habits.” And it’s more difficult for the average person to remember “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”

• Second, when a Non-Obvious Main Title catches fire, that phrase tends to burn itself into modern-day vernacular. The Tipping Point is one of the best examples of this in action. When someone uses that phrase in conversation, there’s a very high chance someone else chimes in and says, “Oh! Have you read that book? The Tipping Point?” Or when talking about scaling a business, you might hear someone say some variation of, “…and then once we cross The Tipping Point, growth will take care of itself.” That phrase has become part of our society now.

• Third, Non-Obvious Main Titles just naturally feel bigger. More grand. It’s very rare that a more literal and Obvious title like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People captures the masses imagination the same way a Non-Obvious title can. (And when these types of books do break into the mainstream, they are outliers.)

But the more Non-Obvious the Main Title (as in: it’s not immediately clear what exactly this book is about), the more Obvious the Subtitle needs to be.

This combination is crucial.

Without a clear and Obvious Subtitle, the mystery of the Non-Obvious Main Title actually disappears—leaving the reader confused.

And it’s a fine line before you’re rotated too far, and may have accidentally fallen into a…

Non-Obvious Main Title x Non-Obvious Subtitle

This is the least effect title combination—because it’s confusion, compounded.

• The reader doesn’t understand the Main Title (it’s Non-Obvious).

• And the reader doesn’t understand the Subtitle (it’s also Non-Obvious).

This is why book titles like Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio are so incredibly ineffective. If anyone else had chosen this title for their book, it would have flopped. The only reason it “worked” is because Ray Dalio is a billionaire, has an “unfair advantage” when it comes to credibility on this topic, and spent a giant amount of money marketing the book. (And the problem when these types of titles become best-sellers is the average writer thinks, “It worked for Ray… it’ll work for me!” No, it won’t.)

The Perfect Title “Sound”

Here’s an easy way of keeping this Obvious/Non-Obvious framework in mind when creating your book title.

The “sound” you’re going for is either:

• Non-Obvious Main Title = “What’s that?”

• Obvious Subtitle = “Oh, that’s what I want!”

Or…

• Obvious Main Title = “That’s what I want!”

• Non-Obvious Subtitle = “Wait, what’s that?”

So, pick which combination you’d like to use for your book title (my recommendation would be Non-Obvious Main Title / Obvious Subtitle as your first pick, or Obvious Main Title / Non-Obvious Subtitle as your second pick), and further down the rabbit hole we go…

Specific & Universal

Once you’ve chosen your Obvious/Non-Obvious combination, the next step is to refine the clarity of your idea.

Said more specifically: this means making the Non-Obvious component of your title a name, word, or phrase that creates a categorical difference in the reader’s mind—instantaneously.

A good example of what this could look like is Ali Abdaal’s Feel-Good Productivity: How To Do More Of What Matters To You.

• Non-Obvious Main Title

• Obvious Subtitle

On the surface, “Feel-Good Productivity” reads like a clever Main Title. But that’s not really what it is, at all. It’s a Productivity book (mega-category), modified by a sub-category (Feel-Good).

So, let’s walk through what’s happening in the reader’s mind as they decide whether or not they want to buy this book.

Imagine you step into a bookstore. You’ve been feeling down & out, and have decided it’s time to invest in yourself and buy a productivity book. So, you make your way over to that aisle—and as you turn the corner, you’re overwhelmed with Productivity titles (most of which lean Obvious x Obvious, or Obvious x Non-Obvious).

But then you see 2 new titles, side by side (Non-Obvious x Obvious):

• Feel-Good Productivity: How To Do More Of What Matters To You.

• Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

Which one do you choose?!

Again, to the untrained eye, these are just different clever titles. But that’s not what’s happening. What’s happening is both these books have created categorical differences. Translation: they have created terms, that create differentiation, which create net-new “real estate” in the reader’s mind.

There’s the mega-category of “Productivity.”

And now, there are two new sub-categories:

• Feel-Good Productivity

• Slow Productivity

Which forces the target reader to make an objective, binary decision: “Which type of Productivity do I want?”

When your Non-Obvious Main Title or idea is given a word, name, or phrase that successfully creates a categorical difference in the reader’s mind, what happens is that you are both Specific & Universal at the same time.

“Feel-Good Productivity” is more specific than “Productivity.” And yet, it’s still Universal. Who wants to be productive and feel good in the process? Everybody!

“Slow Productivity” is also more specific than “Productivity.” And yet, it’s still Universal. Billions of people would like to slow down and be more thoughtful (and productive) in their work.

So the goal isn’t really to come up with some random word, name, or phrase that’s “clever.”

The goal is to give the Non-Obvious part of your title a name or phrase that creates a categorical difference—AND remains Specific & Universal at the same time.

So, how do you do that?

Coining New Languaging

The form of languaging people recognize (and consequently chase) the most is what I like to call Pun Languaging.

For example, there’s a (really great) documentary on Netflix called Quiet On Set. Now, at first glance, you don’t really know what this title means—which, when considering where to direct your precious time and attention, is a problem.

But this problem gets quickly resolved with the Subtitle:

Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

As a viewer, the Subtitle is what gives you clarity of the Main Title (Non-Obvious → Obvious).

But even still, the true meaning of the Title and Subtitle doesn’t get fully revealed until you begin watching the documentary—where you discover that Quiet On Set is a pun on the sexual and mental abuse kids suffered on the set of Nickelodeon, and how it was kept quiet.

This completes the loop. Now the viewer has the proper languaging to tell a friend about the documentary: “It’s called Quiet On Set and it’s about these kids who were child stars on Nickelodeon but were mentally and sexually abused, and it’s all been kept quiet until now.”

This is the ultimate goal—for the Main Title, the Subtitle, and the actual content of “the thing” to not just make someone excited to consume the content, or even tell a friend, but to repeat the same languaging and point of view the same way over and over again.

Because if there’s no clarity in the language, then the point of view can’t scale.

And if the point of view can’t scale, word of mouth can’t take effect.

Unfortunately, titles like Quiet On Set are rare.

Most authors, film producers, musicians, and creators of any kind who attempt to use Pun Languaging end up misunderstanding the assignment.

They lean too far in the direction of trying to find a clever play on words, not realizing the whole point of the “pun” is to anchor the POV. And the whole point of the Subtitle is to clearly explain that POV. And then the content of the work itself needs to deliver on that POV, which needs to give them the language to articulate the meaning of the main title/pun so word of mouth marketing can spread.

As a framework, if you want to use Pun Languaging:

• Non-Obvious Main Title: A pun that anchors the POV to a memorable word, phrase, AND play on words central to the work.

• Obvious Subtitle: A CLEAR explanation of what the Non-Obvious Main Title means (otherwise the consumer won’t “get it”).

• Content: The content of the work has to deliver on the promise of the Subtitle, which has to close the loop in the consumer’s mind and bring full clarity to the meaning of the Non-Obvious “pun” Main Title.

But there are other forms of Languaging.

Here are some other ways to create new terminology, and quickly anchor your unique point of view and “position” in the reader’s mind:

• Category Languaging: This is where you take an existing category of idea and add a modifier word/phrase to it. Feel-Good Productivity, Rejection Therapy, Snore Tape, Spatial Computing, etc.

• Trend-Jacking Languaging: This is very similar to Category Languaging, except you’re taking a new term (or category/industry) and using it to modify an existing category/industry to capitalize on a wave. For example, put “AI” in front of any legacy category today and voila… new category! AI Writing, AI Productivity, AI Mental Health, etc.

• Portmanteau Languaging: This is where you combine two words together to create a new word (creating new meaning). Sushirrito (a sushi-burrito), Quackopractor (a chiropractor who isn’t very good at his job), Romantasy (romantic fantasy), etc.

• Acronym Languaging: This is where you create an acronym, or abbreviate/alter a word to change its meaning. For example, YOLO (You Only Live Once) or HODL (crypto-slang for “hold your assets”).

And there are more, but these are the most common ones—and other types of languaging are just different variations of the above but with more nuance.

Naming The Audience: Explicit or Implicit

Another decision to make in your title is whether you are going to make the audience Explicit or Implicit:

• Implicit = “Make More Money”

• Explicit = “Make More Money As A Stay-At-Home Mom”

As a general rule, book titles with Explicit audiences tend to be more niche—whereas book titles with Implicit audiences tend to lean more broad (and have more mainstream potential) because they are for “anyone” interested in that topic. This is why you will very rarely, if ever, see a Non-Obvious x Obvious book title from an author clearly trying to play the New York Times best-seller game name a specific audience in their Subtitle. Because as soon as you name one audience, you immediately exclude all the other potential audiences.

Conversely, it’s very common to see a Obvious x Obvious or Obvious x Non-Obvious book, in a specific niche, name an Explicit audience.

Maybe the best example of these two choices is the Miracle Morning series.

• (Non-Obvious x Obvious Version + Implicit Audience) The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)

• (Obvious x Obvious Version + Explicit Audience) The Miracle Morning for Network Marketers: Grow Yourself FIRST to Grow Your Business FAST

A couple things to say about the above two examples:

First, look at how the first title literally says “The not-so-obvious secret” in the Subtitle. Which, by putting it so plainly… makes it Obvious! The reader knows now this is what you’re going to give them.

Second, notice how when you make the audience Explicit, you niche the idea down further. And this niching-down effect leads to two opposite outcomes. On one hand, it makes the positioning of your book less broad and applicable to “the everyday person” (drastically reducing best-seller/mainstream potential). But on the other hand, it makes the positioning of your book hyper-relevant to the individual in that niche (drastically increasing the likelihood that type of person, in that niche, buys and reads your book).

That said, Implicit and Explicit audiences are not binary. They are extremes on a spectrum.

• “Moms” is an Explicit audience that is still very, very broad. (How many moms are there in the world? Billions.)

• But “Single Moms” is an Explicit audience that is more niche, but still relatively broad. (Millions of Single Moms in the world.)

• But “Latina Single Moms” is an Explicit audience that is even more niche. (Still millions of Latina Single Moms, but you can see the audience is getting smaller.)

• And “Latina Single Moms In Their 30s” is an Explicit audience that is extremely niche. (Still millions of people who fit this demographic, but exclusively reaching this specific target reader becomes more challenging.)

Which means WHO you decide your book is for—and whether you are making the audience Implicit (aka: “anyone” who would be interested in the topic you’re writing about) or Explicit has a massive impact on the TAM (Total Addressable Market) for the positioning of your book.

To make this decision easy for you, as a general rule of thumb:

• The more mainstream the book, the more Implicit the audience.

• The more niche the book, the more Explicit the audience.

Tangible vs Intangible Language

If you do everything we’ve talked about so far, your book title will be incredibly effective at carving out a sliver of new real estate in your target reader’s mind.

But there are 2 more pieces to this overarching Perfect Book Title framework that I believe are the X-factor between a “good-enough” book title and a legendary one.

The first is what I like to call Tangible vs Intangible language.

• Tangible Language = Something you can touch, feel, or measure.

• Intangible Language = Something you can’t touch, feel, or measure.

A mistake most book titles make (without even realizing it) is they speak almost exclusively in Intangibles. Even some of the best-selling books of all time do this—which is why it’s so important to ask the question, “Were those books successful because of their Intangible language? Or despite their Intangible language?” I would make the argument that if these best-selling books had used more Tangible language, they would have been even more successful.

For example…

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It.

This is a Non-Obvious x Obvious title combination. And you might not realize it, but what makes the Subtitle so incredibly effective is 2 things:

• Pun Languaging: First, it’s using a play on words that is highly relevant to the author’s credibility. Chris Voss (the author) was a hostage negotiator for the FBI. So “negotiating as if your life depends on it” is more than just a promise of what the book is about—it’s a nod to what makes this *type* of negotiation book different.

• Tangible Language: Second, this Subtitle would have been significantly less effective if it had said something like, “The Art Of Negotiation.” This is Intangible language—as in, you can’t hold, feel, or measure “The Art of Negotiation.” But it becomes Tangible by saying, “Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It.” Why? Because you can actually FEEL the feeling of negotiating as if your life is on the line.

As a rule, Tangible language is always more potent and power than Intangible language.

Here are some common mistakes authors make in their book titles rewritten from Intangible to Tangible:

• (Intangible) Find Security In Life → (Tangible) Find A Trust-Fund Partner

• (Intangible) Live Happily Ever After → (Tangible) Get Married & Never Get Divorced

• (Intangible) Make More Money → (Tangible) Make $1,000,000 By Age 35

• (Intangible) Have The Career You Deserve → (Tangible) Transition From VP To CEO

• (Intangible) Buy Your Dream House → (Tangible) Buy A Modern Mansion In The Hills Of Calabasas

On the surface, it seems like all I’m advocating for is “being more specific.”

But it’s more than that. Language can be specific and Intangible. But specific and Tangible is always more powerful—because the reader can hold, feel, or measure what you’re saying.

What are things that can be Tangible?

• Buying your first {object}.

• Traveling to a specific destination.

• Graduating with a specific type of degree.

• Getting promoted and earning a specific title.

• Acquiring (or losing) a certain amount of money.

• Feeling a very specific feeling, tied to a specific type of experience.

• Etc.

Once you “say” these Tangible things, the reader doesn’t just understand what you’re saying—they feel it.

Of course, this is another rule that isn’t binary but rather sits on a spectrum.

For example, let’s look at Ryan Holiday’s book title, The Obstacle Is The Way: The Timeless Art Of Turning Trials Into Triumphs. The Main Title is Non-Obvious and uses Pun Languaging (a well-known quote from Marcus Aurelias), which works well. And the Subtitle is Obvious, completing the combination of Non-Obvious x Obvious. But… the Subtitle leans Intangible.

Does that mean it’s “bad?”

Not necessarily.

If you are trying to write the next Atomic Habits or The Obstacle Is The Way, and are deliberately trying to reach the most people possible with your book, there’s a good chance your Subtitle will end up leaning more Intangible because that’s just the nature of appealing to “everyone.”

The problem is most writers don’t make this choice consciously.

They aren’t aware of this framework. So what happens is they don’t know that with a Non-Obvious Main Title, they need an Obvious Subtitle (and as a result, many will accidentally go Non-Obvious x Non-Obvious). Then, if they accidentally get it right and use the right combination of Non-Obvious Main Title x Obvious Subtitle (or vice versa), they will over-rotate on being clever with the Subtitle. They’ll come up with something like “The Art Of Doing What You Love,” not realizing they’re now compounding the problem with Intangible language.

The takeaway here should be that running your Main Title x Subtitle through the “Am I using Intangible or Tangible language?” exercise can be a great stress-test on the clarity of your language & the strength of your positioning.

Subjective vs Objective Outcomes

An alternative to the Intangible vs Tangible exercise is to also examine whether your book title is promising:

• Subjective Outcomes = The outcome is subject to interpretation—it’s flexible.

• Objective Outcomes = There is no interpretation of the outcome—it’s pass or fail.

Very similar to Intangible Language, a Subjective Outcome is something like “Live the life of your dreams.” This is a Subjective Outcome because if you ask 10 different people to define what it means to “live the life of your dreams,” you will get 10 different answers.

Similar to Tangible Language, an Objective Outcome is something like, “Live to age 80, never get Alzheimers, and write your magnum opus novel in the last decade of your life.” If you ask 10 different people to say back to you their understanding of this outcome, all 10 people will parrot back the exact same thing. “I’m going to live to age 80. I’m never going to get Alzheimers. And I’m going to write my magnum opus novel in the last decade of my life.” That’s because this outcome is Objective. There’s nothing to interpret. You either did it, or you didn’t do it.

Similar to the Intangible mistake writers make in the language they choose, just as many writers make the mistake of promising Subjective Outcomes. They make their Subtitle something like, “The Key To Winning It All.”

OK, go ask 10 different people to give you their definition of what it means to “win it all” and you will get 10 very different answers.

The problem with promising Subjective Outcomes in your book title is that it makes it very hard for word-of-mouth to catch fire.

Let’s work backwards:

• What is word-of-mouth? It’s where lots of people all repeat the same idea.

• How do you get lots of people to all repeat the same idea? You need to equip them with the right language (aka: the “script” you want them to use when talking about your book).

• What happens when you give lots of people a “script” that leaves a lot of room for interpretation? You get lots of different variations of that script, what language to use, its meaning, etc. (Like a bad game of Telephone.)

• What happens when you get lots of different variations of that script? Word of mouth never compounds because no “unified” message is grabbing hold.

Which is why, as much as possible, you want to stress-test your book title over and over again to find Tangible, Objective Outcomes (opposed to Intangible, Subjective Outcomes).

The Perfect Book Title Checklist

Let’s tie it all together!

Assuming you are taking a Title-First approach to your book, and you want to be as thoughtful about your book’s positioning as possible (to either maximize reach or establish dominance in a niche), the way you generate The Perfect Book Title is by going through the following steps & exercises:

1. Are you writing in 1 of the 7 best-selling non-fiction mega-categories?

   1. Personal Development

   2. Personal Finance

   3. Insights/Thinking

   4. Leadership

   5. Case Study/Allegory

   6. Functional Excellence

   7. Relationships

2. Is your book leaning on Personal Credibility or Borrowed Credibility?

3. Is your book aiming to be Timely or Timeless?

4. Which combination of Obvious x Non-Obvious are you going to use?

   1. Obvious x Obvious

   2. Obvious x Non-Obvious

   3. Non-Obvious x Obvious

   4. Non-Obvious x Non-Obvious (not this one, obviously)

5. How can you achieve differentiation while being both Specific & Universal?

6. Can you coin any new Languaging (to help you achieve differentiation and be both Specific & Universal)?

   1. Pun Languaging

   2. Category Languaging

   3. Trend-Jacking Languaging

   4. Portmanteau Languaging

   5. Acronym Languaging

7. Are you using Intangible or Tangible language?

8. Are you promising Subjective or Objective Outcomes?

Phew!

That’s a lot—I know.

But if you’re sitting there thinking, “Cole… this is a lot of work…” welcome to the craft of positioning. If you include self-published authors, nearly 4 million new book titles are published each year. So it’s a little bit ridiculous to think the conventional wisdom of “staring out the window until a clever title lands in your brain” is a reliable strategy for standing out.

Instead, I think a clear thought-process & framework, while maybe difficult to wrap your head around your first time hearing it, is a much easier way of approaching the problem. And like anything in life: the more reps you get using a framework, the more you will improve.

I’ve been assembling this Perfect Book Title framework over the past 2 years, and have probably spent over 300 hours thinking about it, writing about it (in different ways), talking about it, stress-testing it, and using it myself.

Which is why I wanted to pass it along to you.

Cole