How to Avoid Book Publishing Blunders

Are You Boring, Politically Correct or Are You Cheeky in Your Headlines?

All headlines are designed to get attention. Blah doesn’t work. Ever. Savvy authors learn early on that when they move from using “safe” headlines, the faster they get attention. Using words that tap into the emotions or the outrageousness of readers become the grabbers that lead to openers. Which would you open first? … Learn about Blogging versus Five Essential Tips Busy Authors Must Use When Blogging. They both really mean the same, but I bet the open rate will be 90 percent ahead with the second headline. After all, essential busy and must use are all attention grabbing.

TIP: Would you like to create one with some snap, crackle and pop? I’m always on the lookout for tools that will stir up my creative juices. During my annual three-day summer event, Judith Briles Book Publishing Unplugged, one of the days is spent on Gizmos and Gadgets—identifying, demonstrating and then implementing a variety of Tools, Tips and Tricks for Busy Authors.

Three of my favorite tools that always generate responses from “cool” to “this is awesome” for boosting the power of headlines and titles include:

1. TweakYourBiz.com – Title Generator

Get ready to have your eyes opened. Inserting your key words or topic into the submission box will increase your open-up rate for a variety of usages, including social media posts. For “book publishing,” Tweak Your Biz came up with Lists, Questions, Best, How to, even Snarky. More than a dozen categories and 100 plus suggestions were displayed in seconds. Most likely, many will be tossed … but Book Publishing on a Budget: 5 Tips from the Great Depression might create some pull.

2. Portent.com – Idea Generator

Get ready to have a little fun with Portent. It creates a variety of twists and turns, even goofy … but hey, sometimes goofy may be the perfect hook. Portent’s process is simple: don’t use upper case unless it’s a proper name; use the singular version of your keyword; and keep revising to create a grammatically correct headline that is often a laugh-out-loud one.

My keyword phrases often have “book” or “publishing” in them. When I inserted “book publishing,” one of the options was Why Book Publishing Is More Tempting than a Cinnabon—sounds delicious. I don’t know about you, but comparing book publishing to munching on a Cinnabon wouldn’t normally be something that I would think about for a title hook. But, millions enjoy Cinnabons weekly and the odds are many of them are authors or authors in the making— my market.

3. AMInstitute.com – Headline Analyzer

Created by the Advanced Marketing Institute, the Headline Analyzer is an excellent way to “goose” up your emotional pull with the reader. Step 1 is to enter your “working title”; Step 2, click on a category; and Step 3, submit for analysis. As you tweak your words, you will note the percentage of emotional marketing value change, or in some cases, disappears because there’s no emotional pull for what you entered.

The higher your score using the Headline Analyzer, the probability of an open rate accelerates. Ideally, you would like to pull a score of 40 percent or higher. Most copywriters and headline pros will do a happy dance when they hit that magic percentage.

Note: any punctuation will be removed by its software when the results of the analysis are revealed. Just add it back in for your copy.