The legendary bookseller, E. Haldeman-Julius was one of the biggest publishing sensations of all time. He sold over a 100 million books during the 1920s – which is an eye-watering amount of sales by anyone’s standards.

In all, he published around 2,000 titles as part of a series called Little Blue Books. What’s particularly interesting is that all the books were packaged in a similar way. They all had blue covers and there was little to distinguish them.

No sales copy was used to promote them. This meant that buyers’ decisions were based mainly on the titles.

Thankfully for us, Haldeman-Julius kept detailed records of all his book sales. There’s a lot we can learn from his records:

• How to Improve Your Conversation sold 77,000 copies, while The Romance of Words appealed to just 10,500 readers.
• The Art of Kissing sold 60,500 copies, whereas The Art of Courtship sold 17,500.
• Modern Aspects of Birth Control sold 73,000 copies. Debate on Birth Control sold only 27,000.
• How to Psycho Analyse Yourself sold 29,000 copies, whereas How I Psycho Analysed Myself sold only 13,500 copies.

From these non-fiction titles, we can see that specifics such as ‘kissing’ win out over broader generic terms such as ‘courtship’.

Readers respond well to ‘how to…’ messages which tell them exactly what they will learn.

They also get hooked in by use of the second-person (you, yourself). This is the WIFM (What’s In It For Me?”) principle at work.

Formal words like ‘debate’ have a lesser appeal than more ordinary words and phrases.

Without doubt, there will be other factors at work such as the readership targeted and the customer database. However, there can be little doubt that a title is your number one tool for getting people to buy your book.

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.