Use Amazon’s Best-Rated Book Titles to Write Great Headlines in 5 Steps
By: Cynthia Marinakos
Tags: Headline Hacks, Business, Writing, Productivity, Creativity

Use Amazon’s Best-Rated Book Titles to Write Great Headlines in 5 Steps

Here are 5 examples

Illustration by Cynthia Marinakos.

When the internet is crowded with the same topics and bland headlines, your headlines can be the difference between being read or ignored. Yet it can be a struggle to elevate our headlines, can’t it?

If you’ve ever written a book: a tangible book, or even an ebook, you’ll know how excruciating it can be to come up with a headline.

You’ve put in many late nights creating draft after draft. You’ve had plenty of to and fros between others to refine your content. And your heart beats excitedly with a twinge of nerves in anticipation of the launch. Your headline has been twisted, teased, and thrown out many times before you finally settled on one.

The quest for a book title is epic. It’s why I’m fascinated by an idea I discovered recently from a fellow writer about one way he writes headlines:

Using Amazon.

How helpful would it be to piggyback off the time, energy, and intention authors have thrown into their book titles? Today I want to explore how to use this tip to spruce our headlines.

Let’s start with five article ideas and use Amazon to help us create fabulous headlines from its most highly rated book titles.

Say you want to share with readers:

Words to describe taste

Being ignored is normal for writers

Active listening tips

Foods to take hiking

An unusual way to sleep well at night

For instance, to find headlines for words to describe taste:

1. Type in a “How to” phrase into Amazon’s search. I like “How to” phrases because that’s naturally what comes to mind when we want to find more information about a topic.

Also if you look up Bestsellers or New Releases, you’ll find book titles that won’t be descriptive enough for articles. Eg. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Countdown 1945, The Vanishing Half, Fair Warning, Breath, The Buddha and the Badass.

It doesn’t mean we need to start our headlines with “How to,” the helpful part about this is we’ll get ideas about headlines based on “How to’s” without always starting with “How to.”

Search for related, and unrelated, topics so we aren’t tempted to use the same, or similar, headlines as a book of the same topic. Avoid plagiarizing headlines. I typed into Amazon: “how to be more creative.”

Perhaps we intend to share 100 words to describe taste in this article. We can also explore another direction with our search, typing in “word lists.”

Screenshot provided by author.

More than three pages of results appear.

If you can’t think of a “how to,” start typing in “how to” into the search bar and Amazon will suggest a list of “how to’s.”

Screenshot provided by author.

2. To help me filter, I want to collect up to ten headlines of books that have four to five stars from more than 50 readers.

Screenshot provided by author.

3. From there I work my way down the lists and choose headlines that meet my criteria:

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative

Art Before Breakfast: A Zillion Ways to be More Creative No Matter How Busy You Are

How To Make A Living With Your Writing: Books, Blogging and More (Books for Writers)

A Kick in the Seat of the Pants: Using Your Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior to Be More Creative

How to Be More Creative: Simple Steps To Success Through the Power of Creativity

So, You Want to Be a Writer?: How to Write, Get Published, and Maybe Even Make It Big! (Be What You Want)

1100 Words You Need to Know

The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma (Writers Helping Writers Series Book 6)

Banish Boring Words!: Dozens of Reproducible Word Lists for Helping Students Choose Just-Right Words to Strengthen Their Writing

4. I use the headlines as inspiration to create headlines for my topic. You can use the book headlines as templates. Or mix and match them.

Write Like a 5 Star Michelin Writer: 100 Scrumptious Words Nobody Will Be Able To Resist

Make Them Drool: Use These 100 Words To Serve Your Readers An Unforgettable Culinary Experience

How To Write Good Food Articles: 100 Words Your Readers Need To Get A Whiff Of

So, You Want To Write About Food: Add These 100 Words To Your Food Dictionary

Banish Boring Food Words: 100 Words for Helping Food Writers Choose Words That Hit The Spot

The Foodie Writer’s Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Droolworthy Writing

100 Food Words Every Food Writer Needs To Know

5. To help me decide, I:

Revisit my article to see which headline best captures the crux of what I want to share with my reader.

Choose one I like the most, but if I can’t decide, I like to get feedback from others: friends, other writers, family, editors, or strangers, share your top three favorite headlines on Twitter and see which ones are most popular.

So there it is: the five steps to using Amazon to write a great headline.