Sam Horn Pop! Blog

Best Book Titles About Love. Relationships and Dating

Posted by Sam Horn

Every smart author knows the value of linking their book to an evergreen topic AND an annual event.

Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture, Bill Cosby’s Congratulations! Now What? and Maria Shriver’s Just Who Will You Be? Big Question. Little Book. Answer Within. will be on the front table of every bookstore in the country in the months around graduation time. As a result, their books are back-listed and continue to sell millions of copies year after year.

Authors and publishers with books about love, relationships and dating know the value of Valentine’s Day and capitalize on it with new, stop-em-in-their-tracks titles and sub-titles.

Favorite examples include:

Better Off Wed? Fling to Ring – Which Finger to Give Him by Alison James

The Man Plan: Drive Men Wild – Not Away by Whitney Casey

What Was I Thinking? 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories, edited by Barbara Davilman and Liz Dubelman

I Used to Miss Him . . . But My Aim’s Improving by Alison James (a creative, witty author)

1001 Ways to Be Romantic by Greg Godek

What Men Won’t Tell You and Women Need to Know by Bob Berkowitz

Men Are From Mars, Women are From Venus by John Gray (which has spawned a cottage industry of follow-up books)

And of course the grandaddy of them all — He’s Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo

That best-selling book has inspired several copy-cats such as:

He Just THINKS He’s Not That Into You: The Insanely Determined Girl’s Guide to Getting The Man She Wants by Danielle Whitman

Be Honest – You’re Not That Into Him Either: Raise Your Standards and Reach for the Love You Deserve by Ian Kerner

The point? It takes months to write a quality book. Yet it may never get read if you don’t give it a strategic, attention-grabbing name that gets it noticed.

All of the above names are poster childs for POP! techniques including one called AIR-tight Sound Bites which shows how to use:
Alliteration
Iambic rhythym
Rhyme
to create memorable titles and sub-titles that help your book(s) POP! off the shelf.

My book POP! Create the Perfect Pitch, Title and Tagline just came out in paperback from Perigee-Penguin.

If you want your book to be a back-listed bestseller, buy a copy today and discover for yourself why Jacqueline Deval (author of Publicize Your Book) said, “One of the keys to attracting media coverage is to have intriguing, memorable sound bites that grab the attention of broadcast reporters and producers. POP! is filled with specific, innovative ways you can craft pitches and titles to do jsut that.”