How to Write a Great Bestselling Book Title: Tips from Timothy Ferriss

Two Brilliant Tips from Bestselling Author Timothy Ferriss On How To Write a Great Book Title
There are countless tips on how to wordsmith the perfect title but aside from your Mom, best friends and cats, how do you really know how to write a great book title that will sell volumes of your tome? Timothy Ferriss, author of the huge bestselling non-fiction book, The Four Hour Work Week shares his secrets with how he tested his non-fiction best seller to write a great book title that ultimately would sell tons of books. In interviews about his book, The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss has floated a couple of insights into how the great book title came about -- one is live observational market research, the other is Google adword testing.

How to Write a Greatselling Book Title by Testing in Bookstores
At a recent question and answer session with the folks at Google in London posted April 29, 2008 on You Tube called "Fireside Chat: Google and Tim Ferriss", Tim Ferriss talks about some serious fun he had in testing out his book title using a very unscientific method to check-out the reactions and popularity to the idea of The Four Hour Work Week. An audience member recounted how they had initially avoided purchasing Ferriss' book because the book cover seemed somewhat glib in making over-the-top performance claims. Ferriss acknowledges some people's reaction has been that the book cover appears superficial, kind of hyped-up as if it were promoting a 6 minute ab workout, but Ferriss goes on to defend how he chose to write a great book title with mass appeal.

In Store Testing to Help Write a Great Book Title
Timothy Ferriss explains the process further when he went to a book store on a high traffic day to test his hypothesis which he grants is a very small sampling. He took a book about the same size, put a bunch of different covers on the books, put them in the new non-fiction book section, then just sat back and observed people for the next few hours, watching their reactions. An overwhelming percentage, something like 300% more people picked up The Four Hour Work Week title than the others. Tim Ferriss recognized the responsibility of the author was to provide a book cover so titillating that it will compel people to at least pick up the book and he was so confident in the rest of his content that he knew he could translate this great book title cover into sales especially with the powerful subtitle: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.

Test, Write and Refine a Great Book Title Using Google Adwords
The original title of the 4 Hour Work Week was apparently Dealing Drugs For Fun and Profit Tim Ferriss revealed at a web conference in Reston last November, reports Todd Zeigler of The Bivings Report. Zeigler goes on to tell how Ferriss and his writing team came up with 12 alternate names. To break the deadlock and to help finalize and write the great book title they eventually came up with, Timothy Ferris ran a Google Adwords campaign. " He bought ads for relevant keywords for all twelve potential book titles and tracked which titles performed the best. The clickthrough rate for The 4 Hour Work Week was by far the highest, so that is what his book is called." As far as using Google Adwords to write a great book title, Ferriss proved it's possible and as Zeigler reports, "a smart and novel approach to write a great book title. "Google Adwords is a cheap and real time focus group."

For Additional Information
On his blog, Timothy Ferriss offers more of his thoughts on lifestyle design, mini-retirements, outsourcing life and how to streamline your efficiency with an e-mail detox and low information diet.

Sources:
"Fireside Chat: Google and Tim Ferriss", April 29, 2008, You Tube
"It's all in a Name: 4 Hour Work Week", Todd Zeigler, November 1, 2007, The Bivings Report
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/, Timothy Ferriss