An attention-grabbing title can make all the difference between success and failure with a book.

The average person in a book store takes just 8 seconds looking at the front cover of a book before deciding whether or not to buy it.

Publishers, and marketing savvy writers, know this. They use this very simple trick to turn publishing flops into bestselling sensations.

To prove the point, here’s a handful of other manuscripts that have been successfully re-titled:

• The Squash Book was tested as a title versus The Zucchini Cookbook. The first title sold just 1,500 copies. The second sold 300,000 because it was more specific. It let people know exactly what it was about. It also addressed the needs of the many people who grow zucchini (or courgettes as they’re know in the UK) and didn’t know what to do with them.
• Aspiring author, Colin McEnroe, created what he thought was a great book title, Swimming Chickens. After dismal sales, he decided to come up with another one. Lose Weight Through Great Sex With Celebrities: The Elvis Way went on to sell several hundred thousand copies.
• John Gray didn’t get much attention with his book What Your Mother Couldn’t Tell You and What Your Father Didn’t Know. He shortened it to the now famous, Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. The rest, as they say, is history…
• The young F. Scott Fitzgerald sent his new novel, Trimalchio in West Egg, to publishers in 1924. Charles Scribner’s Sons unsurprisingly hated the title and told him to change it. Fitzgerald obliged and came up with the bestseller, The Great Gatsby.

If you’re a writer, make the most of this opportunity. Draw up a list of at least 100 different titles, then test them on family and friends. Use the power of the written word to help you get your message out to as many readers as possible.