I'm no more inclined to look at
neo-slave narrative than
femslash.
Literature is sufficiently robust to have spawned numerous subgenres and classifications and there's doubtful need to reproduce them all under the binary 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' constructs in this blog. Suffice to say that I was struck by the titles of our bestsellers. After Napoleon Hill, or his flourish of a nom de plume (I don't know which), came up with his title there must have been other publishers and authors who went green around the gills.
The perfect non-fiction title becomes the largest selling non-fiction title. Louise Hay's second place getter is a mighty contender. As I said in my last post, second person self-help and a real call to arms in both cases.
There's prurient interest in
The Hite Report and
The Happy Hooker. It's there in
Fear of Flying and connoted in Dr Dyer's pun. And though she may have the kind of name that suggests something, you have to be educated in cultural terms and know who Shere Hite is. Nor is Erica Jong giving anything away until you start turning pages.
The Secret, like
Think and Grow Rich and
You Can Heal Your Life are just those titles that are going to catch the eye of the bookshop browser. I believe there is precedent for the material in both
Your Erroneous Zones and The Secret but celebrity authors and/or catchy titles creating a buzz do the job and the books fly off the shelves. (Like they do in books about a boy wizard but I wouldn't push it)
On the other hand, if your story is interesting enough - you've hidden from the Nazis or floated across the ocean on a raft - the title is less important.
Or you could be enigmatic:
Who Moved My Cheese? What's he talking about? The teaser title has to deliver the goods and I doubt there are maiden aunts wanting to cure their fear of air travel who were subsequently shocked.
I don't know of anyone who reads a report without knowing what it's about.
While a biologist has moved into the book trade mainstream in part virtue of having the name he has given it. Readers who might not go near anthropology, or even theory, are hooked by this image and want to see what it's all about.
The march forward in titles is subtle:
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care is reassuringly third person and impersonal yet, despite the authors having read it cover to cover and drawing inspiration from it, their book moves into involving the reader using second person:
What to Expect When You're Expecting.
It's not fanciful like many a fiction title. It either shows a change in attitudes or the more authoritative title was taken. There's a gender studies unit there for the taking.
