A book’s title is one of the most important elements to get right, and one of the trickiest. A great title should communicate the promise of the book and who it’s for to attract the intended audience — all in a few catchy and memorable words.

Maggie Langrick, a creativity coach and founding publisher at Wonderwell Press, explains what makes a successful title and subtitle and what to avoid if you want to make a great impression and hook a reader.

[00:00:00] Welcome to Published, a podcast by Greenleaf Book Group, where we'll discuss the ins and outs of the publishing industry, from writing a book and finding the right publisher, to gearing up for a book launch. And now, here's your host, Greenleaf Book Group's CEO, Tanya Hall. Welcome to episode 88 of Published. Today, we're joined by Maggie Langrick, a creativity coach and founding publisher at Wonderwall Press to talk about book titling. A book's title is one of the most important elements to get right, and one of the trickiest. A great title should communicate the promise of the book and who it's for to attract the intended audience, all in a few catchy and memorable words. Maggie will explain what makes a successful title and subtitle and what to avoid if you want to make a great impression and hook a reader.

If you enjoy our show, please take a moment to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It means a lot to have your feedback and it helps us to make sure we're answering your publishing questions. Now let's dive into the interview.

Tanya: All right, Maggie, welcome! Welcome to Published.

Maggie: Thank you so much for having me.

Tanya: I'm very excited for this episode today. So why don't we start by having you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do.

Maggie: Thank you, yeah. So I am the founding publisher at Wonderwell Press. I founded the company a little over 10 years ago with a mission to help, heal, and inspire through nonfiction books. But since Wonderwell Press has become an imprint of Greenleaf Book Group, my role at the press has evolved and I'm now really focused on making selections of authors who are really a great fit for our imprint.

The other work that I do is as a creativity coach. I work with individuals, writers and people who want to become authors, to help them to clarify their message, really deepen their creativity practice and develop a publishing strategy.

Tanya: Perfect. And today we're talking about a very important topic that I know you get especially excited about, one of your passion areas. And it's such an important subject that authors very often get hung up on, and that is titles. So at a high level, why don't we start by establishing what's the goal of a title and a subtitle, and what is it trying to accomplish?

Maggie: As you said, this is a total passion area for me. I absolutely love writing titles and subtitles. Back in a former life, a long time ago when I was a copywriter at newspapers and magazines, I used to write headlines as part of my job. And writing a title is very similar to that. It has to perform some of the same functions.

The title has to tell the reader what's in the book, what the book is about. But it's not just a literal description, it's got to grab their attention in a way that connects with them emotionally, piques their interest, and invites curiosity, makes them want to explore further.

[00:03:00]

I like to think of it this way. A really great title and subtitle, first of all, let's think of those things as a package. The title itself is not enough. The title and subtitle must never be considered in a vacuum separately from each other. They really work together as a package. So together, what they need to do is describe the book's content, clearly and accurately, typically leaning into the benefits.

Second job is to indicate who the book is for. So if you can really speak to the reader directly or mention them, sort of "guide for parents" or whatever it is to say, this is for you. That's the second job.

The third job that title package has to do is to set the reader's expectations for what the reading experience itself will be like. So that can include getting your personality and the tone or style of the book across and what I mean by that is, is it funny? Is it urgent? Is it soothing? Easy to digest? Cerebral, complex? What are the various attributes of the book itself? Because that sort of subliminally just slips into the reader's mind as they're reading it and tells them what to expect.

And the fourth thing that it has to do is really be memorable and distinctive. If they can't remember the title, they're not going to remember the book, right? That stickiness has to be there too. And I think so often people take that piece for granted and they forget that very often we talk about books in conversations and water cooler conversations, or we hear someone being interviewed on the radio or whatever. And if we can't hold onto the name of that book, we lose that opportunity then for that person to go look it up and find it and buy it.

Tanya: Absolutely, so important. You've worked with many, many genres in the past. Are there different titling guidelines by genre and how would you describe those?

Maggie: Yeah, so let's set fiction aside for now because that really is outside of my wheelhouse, but even within the sort of nonfiction space, I would say that the biggest fork in the road is between memoir and practical nonfiction. So a memoir can be kind of oblique and poetic. It can kind of, you know, suggest a story similar to a novel in a way.

But a book of practical nonfiction really needs to be extremely clear and usually benefit driven, and I think that that is true across all of the categories within the nonfiction genre, whether you're talking about business, personal growth or health, the distinctions and like how you sort of slice and parse the various titling guidelines are going to have more to do with the type of author that it is and what their personal brand is and also who the reader is and what their pain points are.

[00:06:00]

Tanya: Yes, I 100 percent agree. And I, and as a little bit of backstory, before coming into the publishing world 20 years ago, I was a television producer. And in a case of worlds colliding, one of my beats was books, and the pitch is so fast. So back then I was on the receiving end of the pitch that a publicist would deliver to me to try to get my attention about a book.

And now, of course, as a publisher and distributor, I'm on the pitching end and you see these buyers or producers or whoever you're trying to get the attention of, and they're getting pitched just like massive volumes. And so when you get the title that makes someone sit up a little bit straighter, because you really hit them over the head with the benefit or the value or the problem that you're solving, it's worth its weight in gold. I've seen it happen. And you know you have them when they literally lean in.

Maggie: I love leaning in and sitting up straight, it's actually one of my core pieces of advice and guidance when we're doing titling work with an author and with a creative team is to pay attention to the signals in your body. Even you, the person writing the title. We get so tangled up in our heads and trying to cram a lot of nuance and details and messaging into the title, we forget that there are certain phrases that just give you that ooh factor. And so if you yourself, the person writing it can feel it, you can be pretty sure that the reader on the receiving end, including the book buyer is also going to feel that. Or as to your point, the TV producer that you hope to get coverage from, the journalist that you hope to cover your book, they're also going to feel that zing.

Tanya: Absolutely. So how can an author know that their title is having that impact in reaching the right audience?

Maggie: Yeah, I think that it comes down to understanding the mindset of the reader who comes to this book and remembering that no matter what your intentions are for writing the book and what you hope to, you know, do in the world with sharing this message, your reader is not in your head.

They're coming to the book with their own agenda. They're coming to the book with their own feelings. Curiosity, fascination, frustration, whatever it is, understand, you know, what their mindset is when they're scrolling or browsing and looking for a book. You can better align with where their mind is at the time.

So you might want to put. Push forward in the title, their frustrations, there's always a journey, right? In any kind of good practical book, there's a sort of like, here's where the reader is. And then, you know, at the end of the book, um, so in that journey, you can either identify it by it's sort of, you know, by the start point or by the end point, you can sort of say something about stop doing X and, or, you know, get out of X problem or whatever, or you can talk about the result that they'll get to at the end. So that's the first most important thing, the way to call out to the reader is to speak to sort of what is the itch that they're trying to scratch.

[00:09:00]

The other way to speak to your audience directly and make sure that you're hitting the right tone is to think about the personality traits that they value. So is this an entrepreneur who's really high octane sort of. Ah, they're fueled by ambition and adrenaline and maybe, maybe anxiety and, and, uh, uh, urgent desire for success. You know, you're going to use different vernacular and a different sort of language than if you were dealing with someone who is looking for consolation in a time of bereavement. You want to use your, your sort of softer language then. So you can use punchy, short, hard hitting words. You can use soft sort of soothing words and promote the same kind of messages with these different words. So that's, I think, really, really important.

And the third thing is that everybody responds to wordplay. I'm a lover of wordplay. I mean, I would be, I work with words I have done all my life, but when you think about using devices, wordplay devices like alliteration, things like our book Discipline Without Damage, where you're hitting the D twice. It just kind of has a musicality to it and it feels authoritative and well resolved.

Another very popular formula is to think of lists, you know, the guide to X, Y, Z. Bump, bump, and the other, you know, kind of, okay, that has a good feel to it. Certain types of phrases are going to give you a sense of forward momentum and others are going to be more reflective.So being aware of how your word choice affects the readers, affects them emotionally, maybe tickles their curiosity or it makes them smile.

So let me give you an example here. One of the books that Wonderwell Press has got coming up for later in the year, Whatever the Hell You Want: An Escape Plan to Break Out of Life's Little Boxes and Live Free of Expectations. So breaking this down a little bit, Whatever the Hell you want. So the book is about how to break out of expectations. We could have said break out of your box. So we looked at these other things, escape plan, get out of, you know, get unstuck. I can't tell you how many people are trying to write a book called "get unstuck."

It's, you know, it's a very, very overused And, and I don't even know that that's what people are really, that readers are thinking of. Like, Oh, I'm stuck. I want to get unstuck. But no, how else could we say that? Well, by using the phrase, whatever the hell you want, like that's the title. It's like, Oh, like that gives me a visceral sense of like, I'm excited. Wow, really? Like I feel like I just got a pat on the back or a shot in the arm. Like that. I feel energized by that title. And it. Tells me something about the character of the authors. They're going to be sassy. They're going to be sort of bullish and and encouraging and and I want that experience because that's what I feel like I'm lacking as a reader and then the subtitle unpacks that a little bit.

This is an escape plan to break out of life's little boxes and live free of expectations. Okay, now you've explained it and that gets actually back to an important point. point that I wanted to make about the title, subtitle. You can be kind of oblique and a little sort of more poetic in one of those, but the, but at least one or two of those elements needs to be absolutely literal and direct.

So Whatever the Hell You Want, what does that mean? Well, the subtitle tells you, the title grabs your interest and then the subtitle tells you exactly [00:12:00] what it means. Sometimes the formula is to flip it. You can be super direct and on, you know, uh, obvious in the title and then the subtitle for a little bit of poetry. Poetry and getting some of those feelgood responses in.

Tanya: Yeah, I love that you pointed out the balance there. And that's the perfect example because that book, whatever the hell you want, it does have a title that makes you sit up a little bit straighter. 'cause it's got, it's kind of got an edge to it, right? It's bold.

Maggie: Yeah. And then, yeah, it's almost like a poke in the ribs. Like whatever the hell do I want? And I explain to you in the subtitles, so they really work well together.

Tanya: And speaking of subtitles, there is a trend in our business. That's almost become a running joke in the past decade or so to create these ridiculously long subtitles solely for the purpose of loading them up with keywords for search benefit, right? For SEO purposes, because so much of our book selling now is happening online. And so this is a means of discoverability. So what are your thoughts on this trend?

Maggie: Yeah, well, I am open minded about that. And what I mean by that is that, um, it used to be considered a sort of mistake to have a very long subtitle. Oh, it's really hard to read. It's really cumbersome. Um, but that's no longer true. Reader expectations have shifted. I think that we can get away with the much longer subtitle than is common in the past. And some books will lean into a very long subtitle actually almost for dramatic effect. And, and, and I think readers accept that.

SEO is also extremely important. I can't, I can't emphasize enough how important it is. So, you know, yes, having, you know, a team that is doing research into, you know, what are the commonly searched keywords in your topic and making sure that the most important of those are the most rewarding and fruitful of those are included somewhere in your title package.

However, here's my big caveat is that should never, ever, ever. Ever come at the expense, a title subtitle that has a good rhythm, cadence, musicality, that just sort of like sounds good. If it, if it starts to sound like garbage and just the list of words, then you have done yourself a disservice because no matter if it pops up on the search, it's still got to pique someone's interest and make them click on it. And find out more and they're going to do that by because they're funny bone or their curiosity or their, you know, their, their emotions.

Tanya: Now, I think we can all hear that you've certainly done a lot of work to fine tune how you approach titling. So would you pull back the curtains for us and help us understand how you approach crafting a title when you're working with an author?

Maggie: Yeah, happy to. So sometimes it comes really quickly and easily. And that always feels like a win. And I think that when you've got it, just, you know, go for it. But sometimes, you know, we've worked on titles that took maddeningly long amount of like terribly long amount of time to actually work themselves out.

[00:15:00]

And I'm talking about weeks or in some cases, even months. Many, many kicks at the can and going back and back and back. I don't think you should stop until you feel that thrill in the belly. So what are we doing over those weeks and months? Well, it starts with a kind of a brainstorming doc and, you know, Google doc or something, we'll invite the author to kind of like dump their ideas in there and then it's a team effort, various collaborators will chime in and give their ideas.

But this is not just a sort of a by committee kind of like, um, pick your favorite sort of a process. You really want to eliminate anything that doesn't. Meet all of those criteria. So it's just a small amount of words with a lot of heavy lifting to do, but, but it's just about kind of working into it and massaging it.

The first things first is to get it clear and to have, have that clear message come through, and then we work into it. How can we use very surgical word substitutions to improve that resonance or improve that clarity? You definitely want to take out duplication words or any filler words. So sometimes the subtitle and title refinement is about.

Crunching it down and making it smaller and smaller, but I'm going to give, you know, my, my favorite hack and it is actually the same hack for anything that you need to write, especially the more kind of like creative and inspired when you're stuck, go for a walk. I have had so many title subtitles come to me for clients when I'm in the shower, when I'm on a hike on the weekend, it's almost like you kind of like use your brain as a computer loaded up with the, with the data, like, here are the things we're trying to do here, the things we're considering putting in the title and then clear your mind, move your body and.

And create that white space to float to the surface. It's almost magical when it happens and you mustn't stop until you feel that click.

Tanya: I love that. Yes. I actually have those moments of clarity overnight. Sometimes like in the morning I wake up and I don't know if my brain processed it in a dream and made sense of it behind the scenes or what's happening, but sometimes just sleeping on it, and then you can wake up and suddenly, like you said, you have that very, very rewarding moment of that's it. And it's a wonderful feeling.

Maggie: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Tanya: So at what stage in the long process of creating this book, does the author need to have that title settled?

Maggie: Yeah, well, marketing and sales would love for it to be settled at the get go for it to exist for the moment that the book is conceived in reality, it's usually going to be written while the manuscript is being written.

And very often changes during the edit or even post edit, although that's getting tough because, you know, there are cover design, uh, imperatives, there are sales presentation, uh, timelines to adhere to, but you know, the sooner the, as soon as possible, but, but not sooner than is possible, I guess is my answer.

[00:18:00]

And the other thing that I want to say about timing is that I often meet people who say, I want to write a book. I haven't started yet, but I know, I know what it's called. It's fill in the blank. And. It's great to feel inspired. It's, it's really, really important not to get attached to that early idea. I think it has to come once you have enough of the manuscript written that you really know the nuance of where you're going in the material.

And also, Any snazzy, unique themes or key phrases or coined terminology, you know, you may not know those things until you have written the manuscript. And they can make really great additions to a title and subtitle to give them some distinctiveness. So I guess my answer is as soon as possible, but not sooner than possible.

Tanya: Got it. And what are some of the hallmarks of the bad titles that make you cringe? What should people avoid?

Maggie: Yeah. So I'm gonna, I guess rather than a hallmark of a bad title, I'm going to say most common mistakes that I encounter and they're really, really, you know, ubiquitous. I see these mistakes come up again and again, just a handful of the worst ones that can kind of derail the entire process.

The first is to get. Overly attached to a phrase that is meaningful to the author but no one else so you know oh my brother and I always used to call it blah and so I really want to name the book after that or you know this is this special to my you know my family or my history or um it's a it's a thing that I developed but that I'm not really use or you know whatever it is if it's if it's meaningful to you it's that is a terrible reason to put it in your title doesn't mean that it won't find it It's way in there.

It might also, but that should be like a nice bonus. That's absolutely not important to the book sales. And if you get over attached to it, you could tank your success. So that's thing number one that I see all the time. Thing number two is trying to cram too much into the book's title and subtitle when people are trying to sort of Transcribed Sum up the, the teaching points, in the title and subtitle.

Uh, that doesn't work. A really awkward, clunky, long-winded, cumbersome title, but it has nothing to do with the reader's pain points. So if you have a problem, maybe you wanna, uh, reduce your cholesterol and I have a solution. And I happen to know that my solution is, you know, to do x, y, Z with your diet. And I'm saying.

Try to put my solutions into the title. You're not going to recognize it as the answer to your problem part that the reader is aware of instead of trying to cram it in, you know, summarize your book and the third, um, mistake that I see people make is to. Attach too strongly to literal interpretations or technical definitions of the words.

Sometimes you'll have a marketing team that just wants to use that. That layman's term and the author will go like, no, well, technically it's not, that's not exactly right. It's not wrong, but that's not right. You know, and there'll be get too nuanced. And that's also a mistake because again, it's all about speaking to what the reader is looking [00:21:00] for.

Just think of, you know, when you go into a grocery store and you've never been in that grocery store before, but you've, you've got like five minutes to like get in and get, come out with some like yogurt, um, and the car's running, you know, Because your spouse is waiting for you and you're late for a thing.

You are going to scan, scan, scan, scan, scan anything that looks like a dairy section, anything that looks like a yogurt tub. So make it very easy for people to recognize you.

Tanya: All right, and do you have examples of titles that you love and/or that you developed?

Maggie: Yeah, I think that my favorite, well, one is Discipline Without Damage, which I mentioned earlier with the alliteration. I love Whatever the Hell You Want also. We developed both of those. But the other one that, I think maybe my all time favorite title of a Wonderwell Press book is Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time. This title does so much, and it's concise. So, Lifting Heavy Things itself, it's literal, it says what it means, but it's kind of poetic wordplay.

You know, what is "lifting heavy things"? I don't really know what that means, but the subtitle will tell you this is "healing trauma, one rep at a time." This is a book on how to use strength training and any kind of form of exercise as an embodied movement practice to help heal with trauma. You can see that it's about strength training because of the cover, which features a kettlebell, but healing trauma one rep at a time is extremely succinct and direct.

This is what you're going to do if you read this book. So she has gone poetic in the title. He lifting heavy things that also has a double meaning, right? Because we're talking about lifting heavy objects, but we're also talking about lifting the heavy experiences of life, lifting, you know, carrying our, our heavy emotional experience.

Um, and lightening it ideally. And then the one rep at a time is, um, man, actually. Puns very rarely work, um, but when they do, they're great and this is one I think that works because there's no way that you can think that, you know, you, this, the, the phrase that you're familiar with is one step at a time.

This is, it just rhymes, right? One rep at a time. Oh, that's clever. I get it. So when you look at this whole package together, it creates resonance. It is direct and clear. It's easy to remember. And what that adds up to is it feels well. Resolved and the reason that that matters is because it elevates the book above everything else a book that doesn't have a well resolved title and subtitle is going to feel kind of hacked out it's going to feel sort of.

I don't know less professional less good less serious less high quality it really is and so when you come across a title subtitle that it's succinct it uses plain language it feels confident enough. To not do a bunch of awkward cartwheels and handstands and tricks for you. It's just out there saying what it is and you instantly trust the author more.

So that's a little, you know, psychology magic that goes into titling.

[00:24:00]

Tanya: Yeah, beautifully said. Well, I think we could talk about titling for hours. This is just a lot of fun because we're both word nerds, but alas, we don't have hours. So any parting tips for our listeners today?

Maggie: I'm just going to go back to what I said earlier, you know, keep at it.

It can be vexingly difficult to make that magical phrase come together. It is so, so, so important to de-bias yourself, which means, you know, kind of, use the expert support that is around you to in your grip on your pet phrases, trust the experts, but also really listen to your body rather than insisting with your head that you know, what's best keep working until you feel that resonant hum.

Tanya: Awesome. Thank you so much, Maggie. This was wonderful. I really appreciate your time.

Maggie: Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks, Tanya.

That's it for today's episode. We hope you enjoyed learning about book titling. For more information, visit greenleafbookgroup.com/episode88. You can also find advice for writing, publishing, and promoting your work in Tanya Hall's book, Ideas, Influence, and Income, which you can learn more about at ideasinfluenceandincome.com.

A big thank you to Madison Johnson who produces the published podcast and to our five star reviewers. Thank you for your support, and we will be back with another episode on the last Tuesday of next month.