Have you ever noticed how some writers seem to be able to literally ‘play’ with your emotions? A good writer can send their readers from one emotion to another almost at will: you might be sweating from fear in one instant and bawling your eyes out the next. Or you might fly into a fit of anger, ready to toss the book across the room... ok, so maybe that might be a bit over dramatic, but you get the point. It is the art of using power words.
Power Words
Power words are the writer’s best friend, and it begins with crafting a great book title! The creative and intelligent use of power words, as opposed to overusing them, can play a major role in your book’s successful launch.
Emotional words, even negative ones, can resonant powerfully with consumers and pique their interest enough to buy your book. The best titles will have a balance of common and power words that relate well to the topic. The right combination should be captivating and an honest description of the book’s content.
Fortunately, for beginning writers, power words are one of the easiest tools to master.
Learning to use a few effective power words into your writing is an easy and painless process.
Here is a list of 32 power words you can incorporate in your book title and subtitle:
Secret, Radically, Powerful, Breakthrough, Amazing, Masterful, Free, Ultimate, Targeted, Secret, Belief, Idea, Concept, Plan, Challenge, Code, Steps, Life, Process, Plan, Discover, Understand, Reveal, Create, Visualize, Transform, Change, Learn, Improve, Smash, Triumph, Victory, Eye Opening.
In fact, the title and subtitle is so important, that many authors craft this FIRST, and then build the book around it, especially in the non-fiction verticals. This is an especially powerful approach if you are writing short books/reports in the self-help and health verticals, or any niche where the reader is looking for a solution to a vexing problem.
Starting with a strong title and subtitle sets the tone for your book, and gives you a powerful starting point - but sometimes a book takes on a life of it’s own, and may veer off from where you started as you work your way through, and that is okay!
Make sure that the final product, from title to content, are fully in line with each other, and the title is compelling and powerful enough to grab the potential reader’s attention, and literally force them to click through for more details…and of course, the ultimate goal is get them to click that buy now button!
For beginning writers, power words are one of the easiest tools to master. Unlike many storytelling strategies which can take years of practice to master, you can start sprinkling power words into your writing, and you will notice an immediate lift in the quality of your prose.