How to Write Great Chapter Titles - Non-Fiction Book Writing Tips

Your chapter titles should act as little salespeople going out into the world and landing you speaking engagements, media attention, and lots of book sales. If you're wondering if your nonfiction book chapter titles are going to do their job well, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book Broad. I'm the founder of a fabulous self publishing services company called Book Launchers. Now here's the thing you need to know right off the hop. Your book isn't the first in your genre. Someone else has written a book about this subject already, and your ideal reader has more than likely read at least one other book in this category. When I got into real estate, I read at least 70 books on real estate investing. I didn't read one and think I was a master. When I started playing Texas hold' em poker, I read. Okay, well, I actually bought at least 10 books, but I. I only read four or five of them because some of them were so boring or they were just incredibly mathematical. I just couldn't. My son is incredibly into snakes right now. Do we have one snake book? We have so many snake books. My point being, your reader is looking for you to teach them something they haven't learned already or give them an experience they haven't had yet. This definitely comes back to the hook of your book. And making sure your title, cover and submit subtitles scream at your ideal reader that this book has something really cool in it for them. But if your title and cover get their attention, where do they go next? Well, most of the time they open it up or click on the Look Inside feature on Amazon and they look at the table of contents. And if they see every chapter title that looks like every other book, do you think they're going to buy your book? No. And it's not just your potential reader that's evaluating your chapter titles. I've booked speaking engagements based on chapter titles, created workshops, and been interviewed by the media specifically about chapter titles. They matter. So after your book is drafted and you've gone through your first round of developmental editing and you're ready to head to Copy edit, take some time to go through every single chapter title and work on making them the best it can be. What does that mean? Well, you want every chapter title to sell a benefit, create curiosity, or do both. If you can picture that chapter title as a workshop title or talk title at an event you'd like to speak at, then you probably have a good chapter title. If you hand your book to somebody you'd consider an ideal reader and they look at the table of contents and go, oh, I want to read that chapter. You're off to a great start. Let me give you a couple of examples from my book, Self Publish and Succeed to help illustrate this point. So I had spent time on my chapter titles during the writing process and worked with our story expert before it even went to edit. And then during the editing process, we revised them and we still evolved them during a brainstorm with my team. What I want you to avoid is having a chapter title like where you begin or Finding your why. Seriously, please don't use that as a chapter title. I see it all the time. Which means there's someone watching this video right now that has that chapter title. It's okay you didn't know, but now you do. And another chapter title to avoid is conclusion. Those are boring, have no benefit, and create this much curiosity. Let's take a look at the evolution my chapter titles went through to help illustrate this. So I'll share the original title that again had already been worked on. And then I'll share some of the brainstorm ideas and what the final choice was and why. Okay, Chapter one. The original title was the Book that changed my Life. My team's brainstorming created a short list of One book can light the way an author's power, slash, influence, or self publish in good company. My final choice, the Life Changing Book. I already know this is a winner because multiple interviews I've been on have talked about this chapter and the power of reading a book and writing a book that changes your life. When you see that, you kind of want to know what book changed my life and how, right? And you kind of wonder if a book could change your life. Maybe the one you write. Here's one more chapter 11, the original title. Unusual advice on introductions, dedications, and acknowledgement. My team's brainstorming efforts came up with 20 pages can make or break your sale. Delete your forward and add this one page. The final choice was 20 pages can make or break your sale. I also know this one was a winner because it's been mentioned in a couple of major industry reviews already. It makes a prompt promise and creates curiosity. You could also see it being a talk in the right event. One chapter that didn't change in the brainstorming process was Chapter nine. The Unexpected Problem with Book Editors. My team had this short list. It takes a village to edit, clean, polish and shine. The many steps of editing and edit, rewrite and repeat. But I stuck with the Unexpected Problem with Book Editors because I could see that being a talk title with the addition of the solution or promise of how to fix the problem. And I think it creates curiosity. So because everyone knows they should hire an editor. So what is the problem right now? If you don't have a team like my incredible crew at Book Launchers brainstorming your titles. Grab a creative friend or two and work on every chapter title. Tell them what the hook of your chapter is or at least what the outcome for your reader after they read that chapter is. And then is there anything interesting or unique that you share in that chapter? A new approach? A cool story? We often pull out tidbits from a chapter that are interesting or unique to create that curiosity or or benefit driven chapter title. For example, the far too common how to calculate your cash flow in real estate can be transformed by extracting your 60 second method to calculate cash flow or the calculator Free way to know if a property will make a profit all right, I'm game to brainstorm and have fun with this. So throw your chapter title problems in the comments with a short synopsis of what your book is about and what the chapter is about and we can dive right in. And when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet book launcher swag. We have mugs. We have hoodies. We have backpacks, journals and pens. Hit that subscribe button and turn the notifications on so you get notified when a new video comes out. This sets you up to comment the day a video is released. And if you start commenting all the time when videos come out like all of these amazing folks, it puts you one step closer to being part of this really amazing elite group of YouTube besties. Thank you to all of you for your likes, comments and shares. You make my day. Oh, thank you. And bonus tip. Sometimes a book title you fell in love with that turns out it's not a good book title after all. It could be a five star chapter title, so keep that in mind during the whole process. There's no need to waste a good title just because it's not great enough for the COVID Remember, each and every chapter title needs to sell your book. When a potential reader, interviewer, reviewer, media pro, event organizer or client picks up your book, you're not just selling your book, you're selling your value to that you can bring with the expertise you have or the story you've got to share. Showcase it with that table of contents. It's one of those things that generates unexpected results when you give it the attention it deserves. If you're gonna have a great chapter title, you better start that chapter off right to learn how. This video is a must. Watch if you don't want that one. But you're like me and you wanna keep hanging out. YouTube recommends this video. See you soon.