Is an “Avoiding Pain” or “Gaining Pleasure” title better for my UBC?

Using an “avoiding pain” style of title can be an effective strategy for selling more copies of the book, but remember that your UBC won’t necessarily be something that you care about selling…that’s a bonus.

Your book is going to be one of the ways that you brand yourself, so you need to decide what sort of emotions you want to invoke when you are meeting with somebody and hand them your book. For me personally, I try to find a good title first and don’t worry a lot about getting into specifics, just making sure that it’s a relevant title. In the subtitle, that’s where I try to get some keywords and more subtle calls to action or messaging across, especially for something where I won’t be relying upon people doing a search in Amazon or Google in order to find the book.

My first concern with this particular book (the UBC) is to get business or referrals from somebody after I hand them the book, so if I think that a more negative title is appropriate for the service or subject matter then that is what I’ll use, but if all you are doing is trying to catch a name on a search, then only use it if it also works in person.

Ideally, your title and subtitle will work no matter how the book is found or distributed, but for the ultimate business card just keep in mind that most of the services you sell will probably come from handing a book to somebody directly or to somebody that then refers that person (or even hands your book to them for you!)