Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books.
Today, my special guest is Maggie Mills. Maggie is the most published author you've never heard of. That's because she's a ghostwriter. Maggie has spent her decades-long career happily behind the scenes, making other people look good in print and online. She's combined her years in the advertising and marketing business with her time spent in publishing to weave words into pictures and make sinners sound like saints. I love that.
Maggie, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
Maggie Mills [00:00:56]:
Oh, Susan, it is a complete honor for me to have this time to have this fun and hopefully informative conversation with you today.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:05]:
I know it is because when you and I spoke before, we talked about book titles. And I've been doing this podcast now for eight years weekly, and I don't believe that we have ever spent a whole episode talking about book titles. So I am really, really excited to discuss this with you. Let's start at the very beginning, as they say, and talk about what should an author keep in mind when choosing their book title?
Maggie Mills [00:01:38]:
Book titles are often very personal to the author as they should be. And they are also a marketing tool, a very important marketing tool, because it's almost like your elevator speech. You need to very quickly be able to communicate what your book is about through the title. Because when you think about how long people spend breezing past the books, whether they're in a store, or scrolling through Amazon, you have a very short period of time to capture their attention.
Susan Friedmann [00:02:15]:
Yeah. I know. That's so true because it's like an advertisement. It's like seconds. If you don't grab me with it within a few seconds, I'm off to the next. And your title is one of multiple titles on that same shelf. Talk to us about what makes a good title. And then we'll talk about the, obviously, the other side of the coin.
Maggie Mills [00:02:43]:
There's a little bit of variation between fiction and nonfiction. We'll start with nonfiction, and we'll address again for just a moment. Many times the titles are personal to the authors. They have had the idea for this book for many years. In their mind, this book has a title. Well, because a word or phrase has a lot of meaning to you, it doesn't have that same impact with readers. But good news, there's a way around this with this beautiful thing called the subtitle. I have had so much fun with our topic since we talked about it.
Maggie Mills [00:03:28]:
I took myself on a trip through two local private bookstores last weekend and looked at all the titles, the ones that captured my eye, the ones that just completely turned me off. They were so confusing. They wouldn't work at all, but let's think back to some titles that instantly, you know, what people are talking about. The four hour work week. I think any of us who would see that on the shelf would say, I want that. That's a Tim Ferris book. That's been out, oh, I think at least ten years. I'm not sure.
Maggie Mills [00:04:06]:
Brilliant title. Exactly. It got me to download it. Yes. I would like to work less. Also, the seven spiritual laws of success. Deepak Chopra. I think we know what we're gonna get into there.
Maggie Mills [00:04:21]:
Who doesn't wanna be successful? And then to add the spiritual component to it makes it even better. It's like, we've been blessed. I can be successful, and it's okay on a spiritual level. Here's one. I also went through Amazon bestseller, New York times bestseller list to see what's hot today. How to be old.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:42]:
How to be old?
Maggie Mills [00:04:44]:
How to be old. And Okay. Exactly. Here is your subtitle for that book, lessons in living boldly from the accidental icon. Now the author here is named Lynn Slater, and I happen to have already been familiar with her because she is an influencer. She's got a very strong following on Instagram, and she calls herself the accidental icon because she just enjoyed getting dressed nicely for everywhere she went, and she just started posting these pictures of her outfits and really took off. And as you might guess from the title, she is not 25 years old. So And
Susan Friedmann [00:05:31]:
that's what makes it so intriguing because when you think of attractive, you think of models, maybe, film stars, and they tend to be younger and nicely shaped. So yes.
Maggie Mills [00:05:46]:
Yes. All of these titles are empowering. Let's approach some that aren't quite so obvious. We started with the obvious ones, and then I found a couple that I thought, that's well done. It was one I saw called ticking clock. Now since we just talked about age, ticking clock could refer to a lot of things. It could be my clock is ticking, and maybe I would like to think about having children now. Or a ticking clock could remind you of a scene from those old spy movies where someone has made a bomb and there's a clock attached to it.
Maggie Mills [00:06:23]:
But in this case, the subtitle really clears it up for you. Behind the Scenes at sixty Minutes written by the producer, Ira Rosen. And then for all of us who grew up with sixty Minutes, it makes perfect sense. Oh, the ticking clock, because that was the beginning to that program every week.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:45]:
Absolutely. I can just see it now when they're they're starting out and that clock is ticking because it was a sixty minute. They wanna make as much use of that time as they can.
Maggie Mills [00:06:58]:
Yes. Brilliant. We've got a title that's catchy, but a little generic, but they follow right up with that subtitle that tells it all. Then they came across another one called four shots in the night. Again, that could be a murder mystery. Those could be shots of tequila. What are these four shots in the night? The subtitle for this is a true story of spies, murder and justice in Northern Ireland,
Susan Friedmann [00:07:28]:
by who?
Maggie Mills [00:07:30]:
Again, a nonfiction book. It's easy to get intrigued in the bookstore, isn't it?
Susan Friedmann [00:07:35]:
Oh, it certainly is. And I love looking at titles. Now let's talk a little bit about cryptic titles, maybe even made up words. What do you think about that as being the title? And then, of course, you're explaining what this means in the subtitle, but talk to us a little bit about that.
Maggie Mills [00:07:55]:
If you're famous, this will work for you. If you're already selling books, this will work for you. Or you need to really have a good explanation in your subtitle. One of the things I recommend authors working with their publishers to you're gonna have some hard decisions to make. How married am I to this title versus do I want my book to sell? I always recommend, listen to your publisher, they're going to have some good ideas about what is trending, what their experiences because many time authors have written one book or two books or very fortunately, maybe 10 or 20 books. But your publisher has produced dozens, hundreds, thousands of books. They have a good perspective on this, and they want to see you do well. And again, we find titles so much fun.
Maggie Mills [00:08:53]:
Keep that title as your working title. As you're writing your book and as you're editing your book, it's fine. You need to be able to think of it as something and refer to it as something and imagine, visualize this book. I see authors many times as they're working through the book, they change their mind about what the title should be. They've written something, there's some new material surfaces, and they say, oh, wow, that's the title. That's so much better than what I've been thinking about for ten years. So stay open and remember you want your book to sell.
Susan Friedmann [00:09:31]:
What I find often, Maggie, is that authors are married to a title. They sort of question it sometimes and say, okay, how about testing it? Test it, but test it with your target audience, not your friends and family, because they're all gonna say, oh, I love
Maggie Mills [00:09:52]:
it. Oh, I'm so glad you brought this up because when someone is open to that, it accomplishes a couple of things. They can begin by sharing this on their own social media. And again, caveat, your friends are gonna tell you anything you say is wonderful. And if they don't, they're not really your friends. However, if your own social media, your own group is also your demographic, you're going to get some good feedback. And sometimes people who feel comfortable with you will make suggestions on how to tweak it a little bit, and then you're accomplishing something else. You are promoting your book.
Maggie Mills [00:10:30]:
You're letting everybody know there's a book coming. We're working on the title. You're getting them interested. So and oh gosh, don't we know that when you ask questions on social media, you get more engagement. You're already marketing your book. You don't have to stick with that title. And then that can help people step away from a title they thought was just genius and maybe doesn't sell that well. Doesn't mean your title's bad.
Maggie Mills [00:10:59]:
Just means it's not ringing true with other people.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:02]:
Particularly, as you say, your demographic, your target audience, because those are the people who are going to buy it, potentially. Yes. It's gotta ring true with them. And often if an author comes to me with a title that's a bit obscure, then of course we work on the subtitle because it's gotta tell people what the book is about. Mhmm. How to you don't necessarily have to have those words, I believe, but how to do something or what are you going to get from reading this book. Talk to us more about that.
Maggie Mills [00:11:39]:
How to or the essential guide for and in marketing, again, a title is a marketing tool. Two of the titles I brought up first, four hour work week, seven steps, they're list of goals as they're called in marketing. People really gravitate toward those because it makes it easy for the reader. They think whatever this is, I'm going to be able to accomplish it in four steps or seven steps or four hours. When writing nonfiction, many authors really are trying to explain a process or a strategy, And they've already broken down these steps in their content, so why not use that for your title depending on what your process is? If you're going to make a course out of it, then you have more material. In some cases, some authors have trademarked some of these things. They've got a trademark. They've got a book title.
Maggie Mills [00:12:43]:
They've got a whole process that they can turn into several other revenue streams.
Susan Friedmann [00:12:48]:
Oh, you've brought out a couple of things that I want to dig deeper in. Number one is numbers. Having a number as part of the subtitle, the seven steps, the four ways, whatever number. Is there anything with regard to the kind of number? Should it be odd? Should it be even? Because I know one time, there was, like, only use odd numbers, but I don't know that that exists anymore.
Maggie Mills [00:13:15]:
I am not sure. I have not seen any analytics on that, but it does remind me. Do you remember when pricing retail products, you don't want it to be $20. You want it to be $19.99.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:31]:
Yeah. Exactly. I mean, it used to be 95, 19 90 5, and now they have actually gone to 99. And you look at the traditional publishers, and the books are $22.99, which was the strangest number. But I'm like, okay. You're the big guys. You should know.
Maggie Mills [00:13:52]:
Either that or there are numerologists out there advising people on their book titles.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:59]:
I never thought of that one, but that's really cool. Yes. Let's see what the numerology says. Where are the stars aligned today?
Maggie Mills [00:14:08]:
Exactly. This is a good number for family. This is a good number for business. Yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:15]:
I mean, I know people love angel numbers. People love angel numbers too. They love when it's the same. 111, 5 5 5, 4 4 4. Yeah.
Maggie Mills [00:14:26]:
But I don't know if I would buy a book that was the 444 steps. I might get half six. I was gonna say,
Susan Friedmann [00:14:35]:
it sounds exhausting just thinking about 444. Yes. You bring up another point, Maggie, and that is trademarking. Now let's talk about copywriting versus trademarking, because so many authors come to me and they say, I want to copyright my work.
Maggie Mills [00:14:54]:
Well, you can copyright your work. Idols are not copyrighted. I always advise whenever we talk copyright, check with the Library of Congress and the copyright guidelines, because with AI, they are changing every day. I always advise get your work copyrighted. However, as of today in 2025, you will not receive a copyright for your work if any of it has been AI generated. That does not mean AI assisted. You can still run your work through a spell checker, which is basically AI. That's AI assisted.
Maggie Mills [00:15:39]:
It's not AI generated. If your book is very important to you, and let's assume that all books are important to all authors, you want to avoid AI. There are some people who want to very quickly produce very short guides for this, that, and the other. They're just cranking them out, selling them for a dollar or 2 a piece as marketing tools. They don't care about copyright. But when you are putting your knowledge, your method, your opinions in something you want it copyrighted, especially now because AI is out there farming for material. You want it protected, and you want to place a notice in the front of your book that none of this content has been AI generated. And furthermore, we're not giving permission for it to be farmed, searched, reused in any way.
Susan Friedmann [00:16:39]:
That's a new point, and that's a really, really important one that it's not been generated by AI. Yes. Should you say it's been assisted?
Maggie Mills [00:16:50]:
No. I wouldn't do that. And also, as of the last time I checked with library of Congress images, you may have AI generated images in your book and still get it copyrighted. Your images won't be copyrighted, but your content will be. And really, that is more important. Again, always check again at the time of publication because Library of Congress is reviewing all submissions with opinions about this on a daily basis.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:23]:
Yeah. They've got their hands full with us.
Maggie Mills [00:17:25]:
Absolutely.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:26]:
Now trademarking, you can trademark a title, correct?
Maggie Mills [00:17:31]:
I do not think so. Oh my gosh. I do not have my trademark notes in front of me.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:38]:
But maybe a word within that.
Maggie Mills [00:17:41]:
You can trademark a process. Let me see if I can give an example here that might help. I recently worked with an author who wrote a book about her process. Now the name of the book reflects the process. She had the process, the name of the process trademarked. And this is why we need trademark attorneys and not necessarily copyright attorneys because it gets much more complicated. Your process cannot be used by anyone else without facing a legal challenge. They might be able to refer to the name of your book, name something else with that name, but please consult an attorney.
Maggie Mills [00:18:27]:
Trademarking is very, very specific. It costs more. It takes longer. There are more rules. For instance, I know several years ago, there was a very popular yogi who had many students throughout The United States in studios. He was opening up studios, and he wanted to have his yoga process trademarked. He had chosen among the thousands of yoga positions, a few that he was teaching in his studios, and decided, I wanna trademark them so no one else can use these. Well, yoga's been around for thousands of years, and he was turned down.
Maggie Mills [00:19:15]:
He was not allowed. But he tried. He tried to trademark something that had preceded him by many, many generations.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:23]:
Yeah. I mean, I've heard of people being turned down. I mean, the only experience I've had with trademarking was in my book Riches and Niches, How to Make It Big in a Small Market. I created the term nichepreneur, somebody who specializes in niche markets. And they trademarked that because, really, it was a made up word. That word did not exist.
Maggie Mills [00:19:48]:
That's a wonderful example. I like that. I'm glad you had that to provide for us. Thank you. Yeah. It just suddenly came
Susan Friedmann [00:19:57]:
to me. Oh my goodness. Yes. I've had this experience. However, it was not in the title, but it was throughout the book that I used that term, you know, nichepreneur. Every time that it appeared in the book, it had the little TM next to it.
Maggie Mills [00:20:16]:
Yes. That's an excellent idea for people who want to be speakers as well. They describe themselves a certain way. For instance, if you are going on a speaking tour and you are Susan Friedman, the niche preneur, you don't want Betty, somebody out there also in a speaking tourist going, no, I'm a nichepreneur. Yes. My niche is bigger than yours. My niche was first.
Susan Friedmann [00:20:44]:
Let's talk about a series of books. And we know there's some very famous ones out there. I mean, I've written For Dummies. I've actually written two For Dummies works, and I've written an Idiot's Guide. Oh, and then we've got Chicken Soup for the Soul. What about that idea of creating a name for a series?
Maggie Mills [00:21:07]:
This is so much fun, and I'm working with an author right now on this. It is never too soon to think you're going to have a series. Even if you only have your notes and ideas ready for one book right now, get that book title ready to start your series, to be your pilot, the first book in a series. So you don't have to worry about making them match later on. In nonfiction series, again, you want to have a title and a subtitle, and keep one consistent. For instance, there's a series about photography. The first one is called Taking the Shot, Photography for Teens, Displaying the Shot, more photography for teens, setting up the shot, photography for teens. You can see they've identified their market in the subtitle, and you know it's about photography in the subtitle as opposed to a shooting range.
Maggie Mills [00:22:11]:
They changed up the main title: Taking the Shot, Displaying the Shot, Setting up the Shot, so that they're focusing on a different topic for each one. And in another series, they called the whole series the Opposing Viewpoint Series. Again, it was animal rights, opposing viewpoints, atheism, opposing viewpoints. You need to plan ahead for that, and it doesn't make your title any weaker if that's the only book you ever decide to write because you don't have to call it a series on day one. Any one of those titles I just mentioned would stand alone. It's a bit tricky. It needs to stand alone and then also be able to be repeated.
Susan Friedmann [00:22:59]:
Yeah. It's funny you should say that because I'm thinking years ago, I wrote and I produced anthologies, and they were called exhibiting success. The first one was exhibiting success, and then we did a second one, we said more exhibiting success. And then the third one was still more exhibiting success, and so it then became a bundle of three. It sold really well, obviously, for the right target audience.
Maggie Mills [00:23:29]:
Exactly. I think a lot of people might be worried about, well, I don't know if I have more books than me. Yes. You do. Well, we go through the process. This has happened more than once. People will come to me with one book, and by the time we get off the phone, we have decided you have enough here for four books. We're going to start with one.
Maggie Mills [00:23:50]:
And that also helps the author focus on their subject when they know they don't have to talk about every possible aspect. If you want to become a doctor, how many different types of doctors can you become? You can have your following books focus on different types of medicine. Don't try to tell it all in one story, and that goes back to marketing for your target audience. One book at a time, one audience at a time.
Susan Friedmann [00:24:21]:
Authors think they have to write War and Peace. It's far too much. I mean, yes, I've seen sci-fi books. My son-in-law is a great sci-fi reader, and his books are at least a thousand pages. I was like, I can't even imagine reading a thousand pages. Works in that environment, but for a nonfiction book, yes, that genre.
Maggie Mills [00:24:43]:
The word count recommendation is, you know, is different for every genre, whether it's romance or business or memoirs, science fiction, historical books. And then again, that word count is is a trend. It changes over time. It will be pretty consistent for a year or two years. Books sort of follow fashion in that there are things that are in style and popular, and then they go out of style.
Susan Friedmann [00:25:14]:
The fact is that I think people are reading less so that I think the word count is getting shorter. Am I correct with that, or is it just me?
Maggie Mills [00:25:23]:
No. You're correct. The word count is getting shorter, and also chapters are getting shorter because we consume content differently. We're on the run. We're doing several things at once. We're consuming it on our tablets, on our phones, while we're waiting in line, while we're waiting for the next appointment. We also recognize now with the written word that people have a different ability to consume the content. It's not just a trend, especially if you're trying to teach something and not just tell a story, that it's okay to use a certain amount of repetitiveness, to create numbered lists to create bulleted lists to create a recap at the end of a chapter.
Maggie Mills [00:26:19]:
Because I worked in educational publishing, we were concerned with the font that is used. Is it something that people with reading and learning differences can work better with? We're looking at the line length. If you remember when websites first came out, you had to read all the way across the screen. Well, the website design changed because people are getting lost. Make those columns more narrow, like a newspaper, for instance, so that people can consume the content better for their purposes. So, yes, the general word count is getting shorter. Chapters are getting briefer. And it's not a bad thing because our goal is to share ideas with people, make it so they can understand it and consume it comfortably.
Susan Friedmann [00:27:11]:
What's the word count approximate now for, let's say, a business book?
Maggie Mills [00:27:17]:
30 to 50,000 generally. Some of that has to do with, you don't want very small books because it gets into production things. Like, you want your book to have enough words and to be big enough that it has a spine so that you can see it on a shelf. Because some books are produced digitally only, but a lot of books with with the clients that I work with, I don't know about your clients. They want both. They want hard copies and they want digital copies. There is a perception of value that goes along with this When you hold something in your hand, and it doesn't mean it has to be a giant coffee table book, but it needs to have some density to it, some thickness to it. I would say you're safe in the 30 to 50,000 word range for that.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:11]:
That's good for our listeners to know, you know, especially if they're in the process of writing. It's like less is more.
Maggie Mills [00:28:19]:
Yes. And again, double check your genre at the time. Obviously children's books are going to have fewer words. Books for the young adult audience have a different word count. And those you see a lot of series in young adult, which is kind of exciting. They're interested in reading and one that can sum up the other.
Susan Friedmann [00:28:40]:
I know. I see my grandkids and the kinds of books that they're interested in. Maggie, this is a great opportunity for you to share your information with our listeners. How can they get hold of you?
Maggie Mills [00:28:55]:
I like good old fashioned email. You can reach me at [email protected], and I'll spell that out, [email protected]. They can find me on LinkedIn. I'll connect that way as well. I love to answer questions.
Susan Friedmann [00:29:17]:
Beautiful. And such a wealth of knowledge. And this has been so much fun. And as you know, I always have our guests leave our listeners with a golden nugget. Words of wisdom, what are yours?
Maggie Mills [00:29:31]:
I truly believe everyone has a story to tell, and your story can help educate someone, and it can help heal someone. And I'm very excited about the way publishing is changing so that more people have the opportunity to write books and get them out there so other people can benefit from them. I encourage everyone, if you've even thought of writing a book, go ahead and get started. There's so many ways that you can get assistance. You don't need to be an English teacher or have an advanced degree in literature. All kinds of tools and people to help you. Your message is important.
Susan Friedmann [00:30:21]:
I love that. Yeah. And so many people say, oh, I would love to write a book. And as you say, now it couldn't be easier with the tools that you've got. So they can share their message with the world. That's wonderful. Thank you. And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. It's been an honor to have you here.
And by the way, listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expect it to, let's jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales, because you've invested a whole lot of time, money and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. So go to BookMarketingBrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. So until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
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