The title of a book is equivalent to the subject line of an email. Both give us expectations as to what to expect. What the email will address and what the book will cover.

Subject lines and titles are used by the potential customer to cull through what’s available. Emails get deleted and books overlooked when the title falls short on providing great expectation.

We have to be careful that we don’t spend forever writing, editing, and sharpening our words only to toss a title in an after thought. And we don’t want to get accustomed to using AI to find the one we don’t want to take the time to create.

I tend to create a title before writing, to keep me focused on the mission at hand. Then at the end, I review my work and decide if I hit the mark well enough or if I have to retitle the piece. But to start off, it’s an anchor to keep me between the rails.

With all the books in the stores, with all the emails we receive, readers cannot afford to read them all. They don’t want to waste time on lesser quality reading, either. Titles and subject lines are the hook and bait to reel readers in. They are also how to reel in an agent and a publisher, a bookstore manager and a book club organizer.

Think pithy. Think theme. Think what rolls off a tongue between two people having coffee and discussing what they’ve been reading. Look at the best-selling books. Look at the emails that made you open them. Study the words selected, the tense used, the nouns and the verbs. Take serious time with your titles. To be creative right off the bat does wonders in increasing your odds of being picked up or opened up, much less being the catalyst of being read.