Friday, April 05, 2013

Your Marketing Exam

Audible.com offers seven different books with the title The Long Road Home.    For valuable prizes, explain what this says about (a) the practice of book-titling; (b) the demographics of the Audible.com audience.

Fn.: None, as it happens, is the book I am looking for.

1 comment:

The New York Crank said...

Regarding the practice of book titling: Lousing up book titles is a major industry. It pervades every corner of the publishing business, even on the sleazy end.

A certain friend of ours, let's call him Peter, wrote a sexy mystery novel back in 1971. He titled it, "A Corpse on the Ceiling," referring to an incident in the first chapter of the book. His publisher chose to retitle it, "The Fatal Fetish." Yawn!

Earlier, he wrote a "dirty book" — at least they were considered dirty at the time; they were nothing. compared to 50 Shades of Bestseller. At any rate, he titled his book, "The Girls In The Front Seat." The book was about a cheap pimp who had his hookers drive him around in a Volkswagon so he could save on gas mileage while he napped in the back seat. The publisher renamed the book with the expectable title, "Joy Girls."

I could go on, but it's all too sad. The dominant publishing philosophy seems to be, "Throw the damn book out there with the title most certain to kill sales, then watch it wither on the vine." And you wonder why publishing houses are collapsing like cardboard sheds in a tornado?

Very crankily yours,
The New York Crank