A clever title is great if it’s clear, but a clear title is always preferable. The best? A clear and intelligent title. A shorter title is better than a longer one. Your reader will spend only four seconds on the cover. While some long titles have been successful, generally the shorter the better.

A title is part of the cover of your book. Busy shoppers, including bookstore buyers, wholesalers, distributors, and your audience, shop primarily for the cover. Dan Poynter, author of Writing Nonfiction, says, “The outside package sells the inside product.” Make your cover sizzle.

Start with a working title before writing your chapters. Include your topic, your topic, and use the benefits of the book in your subheading if possible. Here are book title ideas that sell!

1. Make impact for your headline: Check out the headlines of print magazine and radio ads.

Take a look at other authors’ titles on bookstore shelves. Your headline should compel the reader to buy now. What title catches you? Elderly rage or dad care?

2. Include your solution in your title.

Does your title sell your solution? Make sure you answer the question instead of asking one. For example, do you have minerals? o Minerals: the essential link to health. Use positive language instead of negative. For example, Without Minerals You’ll Die can be Minerals: The Essential Link to Health.

3. Make it easy for readers to buy.

Readers want a magic pill. They want to follow instructions and enjoy the benefits that the title promises. For example, John Kremer’s 1001 Ways to Market Your Books provides at least 1001 ways for authors and publishers to market their books.

4. Expand your title to other books, products, seminars, and services.

Make sure your title works well with the title of your presentations, articles, and press releases that you’ll need to promote the book. Said seminars and teleclasses titled “How to write and sell your book, fast!” and “Seven Sure Ways to Advertise Your Business” fall under the umbrella of “rapid book writing, publishing, and promotion.”

5. Use original expressions, a way of expressing an idea for your book, yours alone.

Sam Horn, author of Tongue Fu!, puts her special touch on defusing verbal conflict.

6. Include benefits in your subtitle if your title has none.

Specific benefits invite sales. For example, Jump Start Your Book Sales: A Money-Making Guide for Authors, Independent Publishers and Small Press by Marilyn and Tom Ross.

7. Choose the book covers of others in your field as models.

Go to your local bookstore with markers and five-color paper. Browse the section where your book would be filed. Choose five titles and book covers that appeal to you. Photocopy or draw those, noting the colors, layout, fonts, and font sizes. Add other colors you like. Place the cover of the book you love near your work station for inspiration. For the final copy, use professional cover designers if possible.

8. Be outrageous with the title of your book.

People judge a book by its title. Your reader will spend just four seconds on the front cover and eight seconds on the back cover. It should be so outstanding and catchy that it compels the reader to buy on the spot or look beyond the back cover. Take a risk. Being a little crazy, even wacky.

9. Be your best salesperson.

Choose the strongest words, benefits, and metaphors to move your audience to buy. Titles sell books.

10. Include your audience in your headline. This gives your book a slant.

When your title isn’t in the spotlight, the titles of other famous authors win out. Always make your title clear and make it easy for your audience to recognize that they need your book. The title and cover are your book’s number one selling tool. Short titles are best, say three to six words. John Gray did not attract much attention with his book “What your mother could not tell you and what your father did not know.” He shortened it to the now famous “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.”

An outstanding title sells books. Be sure to put time and effort into this part of your book, the number one essential “popular selling point.”