How to say "memoir" without saying "memoir" in your book's subtitle
Five approaches to memoir subtitles that just might sell your book.
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A while back, I wrote about a nonfiction book titling strategy that is all the rage right now. Today, our focus will be on the second part of book titling, the mighty subtitle.
A subtitle, like its prefix infers, comes under (or after) the title; it’s subservient to it. For a long time, subtitles simply explained what genre a nonfiction book was. “So Sad Today: Personal Essays,” or “Boy: A Memoir.” Today, subtitles communicate not only what the book’s genre is, but they also give an indication of the book’s tonality— is it funny? Is it heartbreaking? Swashbuckling? Dry and academic?— and hint at its content.
In this post, we’re going to concentrate on how you cue memoir without using that word, a naming strategy that can pull readers closer to your book—and the bookshop register. After all, if I’m considering a title that says “memoir,” that doesn’t tell me a great deal about the story waiting inside. I’ll have to rely on what the cover looks like to get a gist of the book’s content, and if I’m sufficiently interested, I’ll turn it over and read the book’s summary and blurbs. That takes, what, 10 seconds? But sometimes, book buyers don’t want to give a book ten seconds. Having a subtitle that suggests memoir without saying memoir can seduce people and make them take your book to the register or buy button.
Let’s watch how.