Make Your Book Sell Itself with a Subtitle

Blogathon, day 24. (And I will be glad when it's over!) 

Today’s post is for book authors, or those who want to be. One of the reasons I started ghostwriting (after I’d already published my own books) is because of the enormous amount of time you must spend promoting and marketing your books after they’re published. As a ghostwriter, I don’t have to worry about promoting a book; I just have to write it. And that makes me much more efficient and means I make a lot more per-hour.

But I still write my own books, and that means I have to market them, even years after they’ve been published. That’s why I continue to blog, and speak, and write articles about freelancing, and Tweet, and maintain a Facebook page, you name it. 

The bottom line, though, is that selling books comes down to one simple thing—giving readers a reason to buy them. Make them a promise with your book's subtitle, and make sure that your books deliver on that promise. (For example, Dollars and Deadlines: Make Money Writing Articles for Print and Online Publications and Goodbye Byline, Hello Big Bucks: Make Money Ghostwriting Books, Articles, Blogs, and More, Second Edition.) My subtitles may not be sexy, but they get the point across. 

Promises sell books. Make sure your subtitle sets out that promise.

Your assignment: Choose a subtitle that makes a promise to readers--and deliver on it.