{"id":"4961","date":"2020-08-26T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickfu.com\/blog\/?p=4961"},"modified":"2020-07-27T12:35:19","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T19:35:19","slug":"which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/","title":{"rendered":"Which One Won? Avoiding bad self-help book titles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Be careful what you name your book. Bad self-help book titles can be a real turn-off for potential readers. You’ve got to get your title just right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One author recently discovered this lesson while testing titles for a self-help book<\/a> on PickFu. This author wisely asked 100 people who read at least one book a month for votes and opinions on these three potential titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The first title (Option A) reads, Our Stories: Transforming What Triggers Us Into Personal Triumphs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Option B, the author writes, Triggers to Triumphs: How We Can Become A Hero In Our Life Story.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in Option C, it’s Reboot: How We Can Reprogram Our Internal Stories For Success.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you guess which one won?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

And the winner is… Option C! With a score of 58 to B’s 42 and A’s mere 26, it’s clear readers favored Option C. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s why. <\/p>\n\n\n

People are triggered by the word trigger<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n

It seems that people, especially white males in this poll, dislike the idea that someone would be triggered by, well, a trigger. So using that word in a title will nearly always receive backlash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One young white male who makes $61- 100K a year said, “When I think of triggering, I think of people being offended by something. I didn’t think it fit for this title.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another white male who voted for Option C said, “I can’t stand the use of the word triggered<\/em> in the context that it is being used.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet another white male said, “I don’t like Option B because I think Triggers<\/em> can be a loaded word today in the political sphere, so I would avoid it at least in the main title.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fourth white male said, “I dislike the word trigger<\/em> as a concept and didn’t want to pick a title with that word.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White Male #5 said, “I went with ‘Reboot’ because I’d never purchase any self-help book with some gobbledygook about ‘trigger alerts’ in the title. Just grow up!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, then. Trigger<\/em> is obviously a triggering word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, many people understand that triggers are real and valid words, images, or events that can reignite trauma. But because so many readers are offended by the word trigger<\/em>, leaving it out of a title can be beneficial for book sales. <\/p>\n\n\n

Reboot: a strong verb<\/h2>\n\n\n

For every person who couldn’t stand the word trigger<\/em>, there were several who adored the word reboot<\/em> simply because of its positive, motivational connotations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Asian male said, “[Option C] makes me want to think about rebooting myself and doing it right. That makes the best and most motivational title.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A white female said, “I like Option C because of the use of ‘Reboot’; I feel like that is a really positive call to action. It’s not super passive but isn’t super intense either. It brings to mind new beginnings and bettering yourself.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then she added, “I don’t know how I feel about the reprogramming internal stories because it makes me think of lying to myself.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a valid point to bring up: internal stories can’t always be reprogrammed into something good. The author may want to tweak the subtitle based on this one bit of feedback alone. <\/p>\n\n\n

Key takeaways to avoid bad self-help book titles<\/h2>\n\n\n

If you’re hoping to reach a large audience, using a loaded word like trigger<\/em> can turn some readers away, unfortunately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, strong verbs like reboot<\/em> draw them in, providing optimism and a sense of purpose in moving through trauma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have a self-help book title you need to market test<\/g>? Take it to PickFu today<\/a> to see which one your target readers prefer!<\/p>\n","protected":""},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Be careful what you name your book. Bad self-help book titles can be a real turn-off for potential readers. You’ve got to get your title just right. One author recently …<\/p>\n","protected":""},"author":"9","featured_media":"4962","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":"","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":"","_editorskit_reading_time":"0","_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":"","_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":["21","15"],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhich One Won? Avoiding bad self-help book titles - The PickFu blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you want your target audience to read a self-help book you wrote, you may need to avoid titles that trigger annoyance. This week's WOW dives in.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Which One Won? Avoiding bad self-help book titles - The PickFu blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you want your target audience to read a self-help book you wrote, you may need to avoid titles that trigger annoyance. This week's WOW dives in.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The PickFu blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pickfu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=100000373763478\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-08-26T14:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-07-27T19:35:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/which-one-won-titles-that-trigger.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Laura Ojeda Melchor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@lauraomelchor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@pickfu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Laura Ojeda Melchor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Laura Ojeda Melchor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#\/schema\/person\/808db59d4354f39626f5e53815e19b48\"},\"headline\":\"Which One Won? Avoiding bad self-help book titles\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-26T14:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-07-27T19:35:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/\"},\"wordCount\":629,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"#WhichOneWon\",\"Publishing\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/\",\"name\":\"Which One Won? Avoiding bad self-help book titles - The PickFu blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-26T14:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-07-27T19:35:19+00:00\",\"description\":\"If you want your target audience to read a self-help book you wrote, you may need to avoid titles that trigger annoyance. This week's WOW dives in.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Which One Won? Avoiding bad self-help book titles\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/\",\"name\":\"The PickFu blog\",\"description\":\"How-to guides, customer success stories, and news about PickFu\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"PickFu\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/logo-large-transparent-1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/logo-large-transparent-1.png\",\"width\":1800,\"height\":600,\"caption\":\"PickFu\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pickfu\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pickfu\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#\/schema\/person\/808db59d4354f39626f5e53815e19b48\",\"name\":\"Laura Ojeda Melchor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/LauraOjedaMelchor-shadow-mountain-1jpg-96x96.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/LauraOjedaMelchor-shadow-mountain-1jpg-96x96.jpeg\",\"caption\":\"Laura Ojeda Melchor\"},\"description\":\"Laura Ojeda Melchor (she\/her) is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Parents.com, Mom.com, Gardener\u2019s Path, and of course, PickFu. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her debut middle-grade novel, Missing Okalee, was published in the fall of 2021 by Shadow Mountain Publishing.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/lauraojedamelchor.com\/\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=100000373763478\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lauraojedamelchor\/?hl=en\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/lauraojedamelchor\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lauraomelchor\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/author\/lauramelchor\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Which One Won? Avoiding bad self-help book titles - The PickFu blog","description":"If you want your target audience to read a self-help book you wrote, you may need to avoid titles that trigger annoyance. This week's WOW dives in.","robots":"Array","canonical":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Which One Won? Avoiding bad self-help book titles - The PickFu blog","og_description":"If you want your target audience to read a self-help book you wrote, you may need to avoid titles that trigger annoyance. This week's WOW dives in.","og_url":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/which-one-won-avoiding-bad-self-help-book-titles\/","og_site_name":"The PickFu blog","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pickfu","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=100000373763478","article_published_time":"2020-08-26T14:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-07-27T19:35:19+00:00","og_image":"Array","author":"Laura Ojeda Melchor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@lauraomelchor","twitter_site":"@pickfu","twitter_misc":"Array","schema":"Array"},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Laura Ojeda Melchor","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/author\/lauramelchor\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/which-one-won-titles-that-trigger-470x235.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":"Array"},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on August 26, 2020","modified":"Updated on July 27, 2020"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on August 26, 2020 7:00 am","modified":"Updated on July 27, 2020 12:35 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4961"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5644,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4961\/revisions\/5644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pickfu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}