Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Step 6 - Make Your Catalog Title Work

Step 6 - Brainstorm a quilt or art catalog title that will market your book 24/7.

How do you go about buying a book? No, really. Take a moment to think about the different ways you buy a book today:

Traditional Bookstore
  • Seeing a stack of books on a table or end of aisle display
  • Roaming book stack isles and picking up a book with an interesting title or book cover
  • Hearing recommendation from book store employee
  • Reading a "top pick" card by the store's staff
Online Bookstore
  • Typing in specific title for a book
  • Typing in keywords for the type of book you're looking for
  • Seeing "featured book" or "also bought" book recommendation
  • Taking a moment to view the "Look Inside" or preview feature of a book
Online Search Engine
  • Typing in keywords for the type of book you're looking for
  • Clicking on a search engine ad or nature search result
  • Clicking on a link to a book review
And, if you have a smartphone, have you looked for a book using it?

There is little to no real chance that your quilt or art catalog will be stocked by a traditional bookstore. As a result, your title will have to work hard to attract potential buyers and readers online. What kind of keywords would you use to create your own book title? Actually, consider creating a title and subtitle to attract the widest potential audience.

What keywords would someone type to get to your art catalog? What is the theme you're trying to communicate in your book? What "target audience" are you trying to attract to your book?

May I share an example? Consider my book "This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and Other Pieces." How many potential readers would have located the book if I only had the title "This I Accomplish"? Would anyone even know what the book was about? Now, think about all the folks who might go to Google and put in "Harriet Powers" or "Bible Quilt" in the search engine. By adding these two phrases, this title works 24/7 to attract potential readers.

What are potentially popular keywords for a quilt catalog? Quilt, quilts, quilter, artist, art quilt, patchwork, and applique.

You can also visit two websites for help in locating just the right keyword for your catalog:
  1. www.google.com/insights/search
  2. www.wordtracker.com
Take some time to brainstorm on your quilt catalog title and subtitle!

4 comments:

Sarah Gibbs said...

I wrote out 7 different possible titles and then Googled each one of them. Really brought into focus some good and not-so-good choices and who has already used certain titles or parts or titles that were on my list.

Subtitles definitely make a difference. Narrows the quilt world down just a bit.

Kyra said...

Sarah - Thanks for your comment. Isn't it interesting to see about the title and subtitle?

Competition on titles with some related keywords is not a bad thing, per se. The positive side is that folks who are looking for books using similar keywords may be exposed to your catalog.

Of course, you don't want the EXACT same title for potential customer confusion.

Tara said...

Working on this part now. Thanks Kyra!

Kyra said...

Tara - Good for you!