Meryl's Notes Blog

Lulu.com did a study of book titles and determined what makes a good title. The company looked at every title of nonfiction and fiction books from 1955 to 2004 and analyzed what works. But of course, the title doesn’t guarantee failure or success since the analysis says The DaVinci Code is considered less likely to produce a best seller.

As a result of the study, Lulu.com has a Title Scorer so you can test your title.

Another article shows we judge a book by its cover. An author whose book cover got a makeover saw her book sales double. I try to look beyond the book’s title and cover to judge it, but I admit some books turn me away with their bland titles or covers. Here’s another article on the topic.

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Looking at my bookshelf, I see bland covers there, too. In reality, when we pick a book, many things come into play and it most likely varies with each purchase decision. Things that affect our decisions:

• How did you find out about the book?

• Do you know the author?

• How much does the book’s topic grab you?

Then the rest of the stuff like the title and cover helps us with our final decision, if we haven’t made one yet.