3. INFORMATIVE (GIVES AN IDEA OF WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT) This is the least crucial aspect for fiction books, but very import- ant for nonfiction. The title, including the subtitle, should give the reader some sort of idea of what the book is about. People aren’t going to do your work for you; the easier you make it for them to understand the subject, the more likely you are to draw in the people who would find your book interesting. A good test is to ask yourself this: If you were to tell someone the title of your book at a party, would they have to ask what it’s generally about? If so, that’s probably a bad title. Don’t out-think yourself on your title. A title that is overly clever or somewhat unclear signals that the book is for people who imme- diately understand the word or phrase—which makes people who don’t get it right away feel unintelligent, and thus less likely to buy the book. By using a word or phrase that is either not immediately under- standable by your desired audience or doesn’t convey the point of the book, you are putting a huge obstacle in front of your success. Though your book title should be informative and easily under- stood, it does not need to spell out the whole book idea. Take Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers for example: this title does a great job of cuing the content of the book without describing it outright. 4. EASY AND NOT EMBARRASSING TO SAY Having an easy-to-say title is a concept called cognitive fluency and to make it simple, it means that people are more likely to remember and respond favorably to words and phrases they can immediately understand and pronounce. We don’t want to go too far into the PiCkiNg ThE PErfECT BOOk TiTlE · 187