What to Title Your Business Book (7 of 7)

The Subtitle, Your Title's Wingman

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."

- Rudyard Kipling

Every business book should have a subtitle.

Period.

Your title should do the heavy lifting in convincing your reader to buy the book. However, a subtitle gives you a second chance to fill in the gaps where your title didn't do its job.

Subtitles can be as long as you want and need them to be. The subtitle of one of Dan Kennedy's No B.S. books is The Ultimate No Holds Barred Take No Prisoner Guide to Growing Sales and Profits of Local Small Businesses.

Eighteen words long—and that doesn't include the title.

If your title is clever but lacking in the clarity department, then your subtitle gives you the chance to clearly identify its contents and/or target audience. As I noted, Eat That Frog clearly makes the cut in creativity but we're left with no idea as to its subject. As such, that's what the subtitle has to accomplish, and Brian Tracy does so with this: 21 Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time. Clear and compelling.

On the other hand, if your book's title is utilitarian, you need a subtitle that makes it interesting. If your title is succinct, then the subtitle gives you the real estate to spread out. The E-Myth gets points for being short and sweet, but leaves no clue what the author is writing about. Ergo, its subtitle

Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It fills in the gap.

Some books are so tied to their subtitles that it is nearly impossible to separate them. Trump: The Art of the Deal and Jack: Straight From the Gut are two prime examples. Although Trump could perhaps stand on its own if it

had to, Jack could not. Because the subtitle is an integral part of the title, I can't even bring myself to refer to it as just Jack. It doesn't even make sense.

But even though you can accomplish everything with a subtitle that you can with the title, a subtitle still carries the "sub" designation. That is, it's a secondary consideration. If you can't get your reader's attention with the title, then the subtitle will never have a chance.

But if you let your title do everything it should, then your subtitle can shift from supporting to amplifying. I identified EntreLeadership as a great business book title. Since it does everything it needs to, the author can use the subtitle to underscore his own experience with 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches. With his title covering all the bases, the subtitle shifted from selling the book to selling the author—traditionally what the bio has to do. Similarly, The 4-Hour Workweek's subtitle—Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich—can go from piquing your interest to painting a tantalizing vision of the life you could have…if only you read this book. Because Tim Ferris did such a great job with the main title, the subtitle could provoke an even deeper emotional response, vs. having to finish doing the title's job in the first place.

A Final Word on the 5 Cs

"Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything."

- Eugène Delacroix

I'll share a bit of my father's hard-earned wisdom as an engineer with you: "Any time you solve one problem, you create another. The question is: is it worth it?"

Sometimes you can make your title easier to remember, but at the sacrifice of communicating what it's about. Sometimes you can set up your title for an entire series of business books, at the expense of any of the titles being interesting.

When in doubt, err on the side of clarity.

If your title is interesting but obscure (Getting Naked, The E-Myth), unless you have great marketing to fall back on, you won't enjoy the success

you could have otherwise. If you have a specific marketing strategy that does not rely on the strength of your title, then you can afford to be weird, silly, or mysterious. Just keep in mind that the harder it is to grab your reader's attention…well, the harder it will be to grab their attention.

Don't kill yourself trying to create the best title in the history of mankind. If all else fails, just call your book what it is.