I put out “Book Marketing is Dead” almost 2 months ago and haven’t thought much about it. It’s doing pretty well and earning positive reviews. Then I showed it to some indie author friends in Puerto Galera, Philippines this week and they both commented on the title: After the main title, the subtitle was all lowercase. That’s also the way I have it on the cover.
“Book Marketing is Dead: book promotion secrets you MUST know BEFORE you publish your book.”
I’m not a fan of over capitalization, I also try not to do it with blog post titles. I preferred it down.
But they both told me they thought it looked really unprofessional, and since it doesn’t matter much to me, I went ahead and changed it.
“Book Marketing is Dead: Book Promotion Secrets You MUST Know BEFORE You Publish Your Book.”
A couple days later I checked my rankings. I’m #1 in several categories – and not just for publishing.
Of course my pricing strategy (99cents) is helping a lot too by keeping up the download numbers, but I haven’t seen rankings that good since I launched. Perhaps the subtle change was just enough to convert those people who were, like my friends, punctuation-hesistant?
Just goes to show you should always test, ask for feedback, and that very small changes can have a big impact on sales.

I’m a philosophy dropout with a PhD in Literature. I covet a cabin full of cats, where I can write fantasy novels to pay for my cake addiction. Sometimes I live in castles.
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