You’ve written your life story.
You’ve laid your heart bare before the world
So, what’s the best title for your one-of-a-kind masterpiece?
“____________: An Autobiography”?
Nooo!
Seriously, unless you’re a household name, using “autobiography” as part of your title might not work in your favor, but not to worry. You don’t have to be famous to write an autobiography, but you do need a title that will grab a buyer’s attention, so they know your book is worth a second look.
The purpose of this article is to break down what makes a standout autobiography title and the process for creating your own.
The process of creating an autobiography book title that gets noticed starts with a marketer’s mindset.
Yes, it all boils down to strategic book positioning in the marketplace. Creativity is a big part of it, but that’s a small part of the bigger picture. After all, if your book doesn’t get in front of the people who would be most likely to read it, you can’t change lives with the content inside!
Unlike fiction books or other types of nonfiction books (e.g. business books or textbooks) where there’s a specific category or genre expectation, autobiographies play by their own set of rules—the more creative the better.
If you are self-publishing your book, then you’re probably already aware that marketing is a key component of your book’s success, but what is marketing exactly?
The American Marketing Association defines marketing as
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
When marketing your book, knowing how to write a good book title matters, because, along with your cover, it’s the first thing a potential buyer sees (reads) before making a buying decision. A casual search for “autobiography” on Amazon pulled up over 700,000 results. This doesn’t mean that every book belongs in the category, but it’s still a lot of books.
You might be asking how you get your book to rise to the top of search results.
Start with a great title.
Here are some best practices:
Hint: Keep it short. According to Amazon, “Customers are more likely to skim past long titles (over 60 characters). There are exceptions to the rules. You’ll see some in the list that follows.
Don’t forget about writing a subtitle for your book. They are optional but a great way to add a splash of flavor.
After an exhaustive search in the autobiography categories of the top online book retailers, I selected 50 incredible autobiography titles as a starting point for creating an amazing title for your autobiography.
Note: Memoir titles listed under the autobiography category are included in the list.
You obviously can’t use these published autobiography titles for your own book – but you can use our free book title generator to come up with suggestions that you could use.
It’s really easy to use, and instantly gives you an unlimited amount of working titles – or even final titles – to use for your book!
For the next question, if you have a book description, type “yes” and add your description in the text box.
If you don’t have a description yet, answer “no” and fill out the questions. Eventually, you will need to write a book description, but this is often something our authors do after they complete their manuscript.
That’s it! Get ready for some unique autobiography book title suggestions. Remember, if you don’t like the one that you see, you can continue to generate as many as you’d like.
Your autobiography title can be the difference between someone scrolling past your book on Amazon or stopping to read a sample. Whatever title you choose, remember that it’s just as much about you as your reader. Make them want to read your story by giving them something unique that piques their interest.
You can also look for inspiration in other genres. For example, some memoir book titles could also lend well to an autobiography – like What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo. Intriguing, isn’t it? Don’t limit yourself!
Are you ready to take the next steps with your autobiography? We have a professional publishing team ready to guide you through the book development process.
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