Readers go through a series of micro-decisions as they decide whether to buy and read your book. This is called the Book Consideration Funnel and your book’s title is normally the first stage of it. Getting it right is key for getting your book into the hands of those who need it most.
In this episode of The Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, your host Scott MacMillan introduces the Book Consideration Funnel, or BCF, and then shares his Three Ds of a Great Nonfiction Book Title and a Four-Step Process for coming up with and choosing yours.
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Episode Transcript
Scott A. MacMillan:
You're listening to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast, Episode number 13
Mike Manz:
Welcome to the Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, the podcast that brings you practical strategies for building authority and growing your business. And now here's your host, Scott MacMillan.
Scott A. MacMillan:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Those immortal words, spoken by Shakespeare's Romeo ring so true. But Romeo's made an important assumption there. He assumes you have the flower in your hand, that you've not just been given its name from which to develop your impression. Imagine you've never seen, heard of, nor smelled a rose before. Next, assume you don't have one but rather you're reading a 16th century blog article about this new flower, and in the first paragraph, the doctor reveals that it's not called a rose, it's instead called a “Rancid Skunkel”. In this case, a rose by the name of “rancid skunkel” may smell just as sweet, but we're never going to know because we've already clicked on to the next article. So what is in a name? Well, a whole lot. A title is crucial, but not just the title. There's a whole slew of elements, outside of the text itself, that are vitally important to the success of your book. It's what we call packaging.
Scott A. MacMillan:
If content is king, perhaps packaging is the castle, the crown, the throne, the pageantry. All the symbols that transform a flesh and blood human into what we recognize as a monarch. That packaging tells the people that there is, in fact, a king to lead them or in our case, there is in fact a book to be bought, to be read. Remember what they say about first impressions, you only get one chance. Your book's packaging is that one chance. In this episode, I'll introduce a concept that I call the book consideration funnel. If you're a first-time author, the book consideration funnel is a journey you'll not only want to take, but also take in, and then we'll dive into the first element of it, the book title and how to choose one. So let's drill down on the necessary nuggets that will set the stage for your book, pull in the right readers, and leave them wanting more. I'm Scott MacMillan and welcome to this edition of Entrepreneur to Author.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Here's a man who understood the value of a name, of a title. Haldeman-Julius was a 20th century writer turned publisher from Philadelphia. The son of Jewish emigrants who fled to America to escape religious persecution, he's best known as the publisher of The Little Blue Books, a series of pocket-sized paperbacks intended to put literature and knowledge into the hands of the working class. Haldeman-Julius bought a Kansas-based publishing house in 1919 which included not only printing presses but as importantly, a subscriber list of 175,000 people. Now immediately, he pre-sold 5,000 subscriptions at $5.00 a piece. In return, subscribers were promised 50 pocket-sized paperback books, which he'd release one by one at regular intervals. Now while these paperbacks were received well, over the next four years, Haldeman-Julius honed the series title from The People's Pocket Series to The Appeal Pocket Series, then to The Ten Cent Pocket Series and then The Five Cent Pocket Series and finally to The Little Blue Books in 1923, and that is the title that stuck.
Scott A. MacMillan:
But he didn't only experiment with the series title. When he introduced a book, if it didn't perform well, before pulling it from his catalog, Haldeman-Julius would first test a different title, usually to impressive results. For example, when Oscar Wilde's Pen, Pencil and Poison sold only 5,000 copies, he changed the title to The Story of a Notorious Criminal. Much more gripping, wouldn't you agree? Sales went up more than threefold to 15,800 copies. He also retitled Fleece of Gold by Theophile Gautier when sales peaked at only 6,000 copies. The new title, The Quest for a Blonde Mistress, was a hit, selling a whopping 50,000 copies. That's an increase of more than 700%. And Guy de Maupassant's The Tallow Ball, well let's try instead, A French Prostitute Sacrifice. Sales roared from 15,000 to 54,700 copies.
Scott A. MacMillan:
So all of that to say, titles matter. It's not the only thing that matters. In fact, it's only one part of the book consideration funnel. However, in many instances, the title is the reader's first exposure to your book. Especially when the reader learns about your book through a recommendation or an editorial review. So that is why we're starting here. But before I get into sharing about how to come up with a great title, let's first discuss that book consideration funnel or the BCF for short. Readers go through a predictable, though rarely conscious thought process when they decide whether or not to buy and/or read your book. The BCF represents the elements the reader will usually consider and the order in which they typically consider them. Now there are a couple of things to note. The specific order may change, depending on the reader and how they learn about your book. Second thing is the weighting of each element will differ based on what's most important to given reader, and third, each stage of the funnel can be thought of as a gate. By that I mean that at each stage, the reader makes a decision about whether to proceed to the next stage. If you miss the mark at any stage, then you've lost your chance.
Scott A. MacMillan:
So with all of that said, here are the key stages of the book consideration funnel. One is the title. This includes your main title and especially for non-fiction, the subtitle. Two is the cover. The front cover is what's presented in online listings or shown in book reviews and it's also what's most likely to catch someone's eye on a shelf, a desk, or when somebody else is reading your book on the subway for example. Third is the description. If the reader likes the title and the cover, they'll want to learn more by reading the description and author bio, to understand exactly what your book's about and why you are credible on the topic. Four, reviews and ratings. Though not packaging per se, readers pay attention to reviews, especially with online retailers like Amazon.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Five is the contents page. Next, readers are likely to flip open your book and skim that contents page to see what topics your book covers. Six is the text. So it's only at this point that the reader is likely to consider reading any of the actual text at all, and even then they're only likely going to skim it. In fact, if the other elements have done their job well, many readers will just buy it without even reading any of it. Finally, seven is price. Now while price can be a consideration entirely, it's entirely irrelevant if the reader isn't sold on the value of your book itself. So while price may be a barrier, it is never the most important factor. Each step of the BCF involves your book's packaging and regardless of the quality of the contents of your book, it's vital that you get your reader through each stage so they'll actually buy and read that great content.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Now I'll cover other elements of the BCF in future episodes, but in this episode, we're going to focus on that first one, titling. Because it's usually the reader's first impression, and so it plays a critical role. A good title is ear-catching. It's clever, it's clear, it's impactful, and it can also offer a snapshot of the book. Sometimes in as little as one word. Again, content counts, but if your title misses the mark, even your ideal readers may just move on. So let's start with this question. What makes for a great non-fiction book title? A title should perform three important jobs that I've packaged together in what I call the 3 D's of a great non-fiction title, and they're as follows. Discovery, that's essentially helping your book get served up to your ideal reader. Differentiation, or grabbing the attention of your reader so that your book stands out from the crowd. And description, setting the expectation for your reader of what your book's about.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Now there are some often shared and predictable pieces of advice when it comes to selecting a title. Things like make it short and punchy. Don't try to be too cute or too clever. Make sure it's easy to say. Okay, none of that is bad advice. But it's not really actionable either, is it? So instead, I want to give you something you can actually use when titling your book. A four-step process for coming up with and choosing your book title. Time-tested, workable, repeatable. The first step is brainstorming keyword phrases. Searchable words. They matter. If one or two of those searchable words are in your title, well that's a big advantage. So think about this. What words is your ideal reader likely to enter when searching on Amazon for a book to help them solve the problem that your book addresses? Once you've developed a list of keyword phrases, there are some creative tools you can use to do some analysis. One such tool is Publisher Rocket. It's going to help you find synonymous terms, alternative combinations of terms, and related terms. Now I'm going to put a link in the show notes to Publisher Rocket in case you'd like to check that out. Next, I want you to narrow your list of keyword phrases down to about 10.
Scott A. MacMillan:
The second step in our process of choosing an impactful and smart book title is to brainstorm titles, starting with first the subtitles and then main titles. You might have noticed that non-fiction books normally have both a main title and a subtitle. Counterintuitively, I suggest starting first by landing the subtitle and here's why. The subtitle is the more descriptive of the two. By landing it first, your mind is then free to be more creative with the main title, which is often the attention grabber. So using the top three to five keyword phrases from step one, brainstorm at least 10 subtitles for your book. Now here are some quick tips for coming up with good subtitle options. First, make it descriptive and clear. Think of phrases that start with things like how to or the guide to or learn how to. Next, consider the subject categories your book would fit into and look at other books in those categories for clues to the types of subtitles readers are used to seeing.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Here's tip number three, remember those search terms from step one? Well try to weave the top three to five of those into your subtitle. This is going to make it much more likely to be picked up by recommendation and search algorithms. And finally, note that subtitles are longer than main titles. I suggest aiming for between 10 and 15 words but use that only as a guide. You can go a little bit more or a little bit less and that is perfectly fine.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Now with a solid list of subtitles, next turn your attention to brainstorming a main title. Again, a few tips to keep in mind while you come up with say 10 to 12 main title options for your book. One, the main title should be short. Five words or less is best. Second, your main title should be easy to say and easy to spell. Third, when considering an idea, try combining it with one of your subtitle options. Some main titles can be too ambiguous on their own but when it's paired with a subtitle, it can work much better. Four, don't be too cryptic. It's okay to evoke some curiosity, but your title should also evoke the contents of your book. And lastly, for each option, do a quick Amazon search for it. While titles can't normally be copyrighted, readers can get confused if you use a title that's too similar to an existing book on the same topic.
Scott A. MacMillan:
All right, you now have a list of around 10 title options and 10 subtitle options. Great. Let's move on to step three. We're going to test them out. First qualitatively with a focus group, and then quantitatively. So let's start with that focus group. A great focus group for qualitative testing would be your beta readers. You remember them? Well they're already familiar with your book and can speak to which option best describes its contents. So start by sending them your list of subtitles, and ask them which most clearly and accurately describes the contents of your book. Then take the winning subtitle and append it to the end of each of your main title options, and ask them which one works best. Use this feedback to narrow your list of options down to a short list of three to five subtitles and three to five main titles to bring on to quantitative testing.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Now when it comes to quantitative testing, I've got two approaches that work really well, AB testing and smoke testing. With AB testing, you're going to put your strongest ideas up for a vote. You can use services like PickFu or SurveyMonkey to not only set up surveys, but also to buy responses from a custom audience that you can define to resemble your ideal reader. Now see the show notes? I'm going to put links for both of those right in there. As far as smoke tests are concerned, here what you're doing is you're going to use Google AdWords or Facebook Ads to create actual ads for your book, using the alternative titles, and then see how many people click on each one and this gives you a great indication of which one has the strongest pull. Like with focus groups, test your subtitles first, and then take the winner and use that as a consistent subtitle to pair with each of the main titles.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Now we reach the last step, step four in selecting a book title, and that is making the call. Now you're armed with analysis and feedback and you can now make a smart and well-informed decision. You're not throwing ideas against the wall and just hoping that something sticks. You've done your homework, but remember, in the end, you need to choose a title that you can be proud of. You can and you should use all of this data as input, but make the decision confidently, as an author and as a businessperson. Do that and you'll have nailed the first and one of the most important elements of packaging your book, and of the book consideration funnel.
Scott A. MacMillan:
So remember this. Your manuscript is not a book until it's been packaged. The fact is, you'll struggle to find readers unless the packaging is quality. Why? Because readers go through a series of micro-decisions, as they determine whether to buy and read your book. This is called the book consideration funnel or the BCF, and the title of your book is normally the first stage of the BCF. Getting it right is key for getting your book into the hands of those who need it most. A well-crafted title will pave the way to getting your book discovered by the people looking for answers to your book's central question. Get it right and your book stands a chance of both standing out and then delivering for your reader. Now is the time. It's time to write, time to publish, and time to grow. I'm Scott MacMillan. Until next time.
