Non-fiction sub-titles: Scams?

eplovejoy · #1 06-14-2005, 03:45 PM

Is anyone else bothered by what seems to be a growing tendency toward promising more than the book delivers?

Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship that Changed America is interesting and worth reading, but the business/editorial relationship between the men did not change America the way a presidential election does. Or a war. Or an economic disaster. Or a terrorist attack. Or . . . .

The Best Year of Their Lives: Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon in 1948, Learning the Secrets of Power is a rehash of familiar political history. Kennedy does not belong in the book, according to the author's thesis, and if the men learned something secret about power, there is no indication of it in the book. (I know: then it wouldn't be a secret.)

Hard News: The Scandals at the New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media is about only one scandal and it provides no analysis placing it in a larger national context.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #2 06-14-2005, 03:51 PM

I've found just the plethora of subtitles in the past few years astounding. It used to be a book had an explanatory title. End of story. But I think people have tried to come up with clever titles and then had to add a subtitle to explain the title. Now the subtitle is the marketing slogan for the book.

**taurusmoon** · #3 06-14-2005, 04:09 PM

:cow:

After reading MJ's post I decided to look at the issue of Publishers Weekly that I had conveniently open on my desk.

I never noticed it before, but MJ's comment was right on the money.

There were 47 nonfiction book reviews in the issue.

Can you guess how many of the titles that were reviewed had a subtitle?

Guess again.

Granted, not all of the subtitles contained hyperbole. But, damn.

I do admit to getting a kick out of this one though --

Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit

Redlass · #4 06-14-2005, 04:23 PM

I think subtitles make sense on biographies. Otherwise you have 3,000 books all titled "Abraham Lincoln".

But it is disturbing when the subtitles state a thesis that isn't supported by the content.

**AuntieEmma**[$] · #5 06-14-2005, 04:39 PM

I read somewhere that publishers are adding more/longer subtitles because of electronic searching -- to snag someone who comes into a store (or goes online to Amazon, etc.) looking for a particular book but who can't remember the exact title or the author. So the clerk tries to find it on the computer, and the longer the subtitle, the more likely the book will pop up on a search of related or half-remembered title words.

eplovejoy · #6 06-16-2005, 02:17 PM

Quote:

AuntieEmma said

I read somewhere that publishers are adding more/longer subtitles because of electronic searching

How interesting. It makes sense. Thanks for sharing this.

When this trend comes to fiction: Harry Potter: The Boy Wizard with the Lightning Scar on his Forehead Who Has Been in Some Movies with People Like Maggie Smith and Kenneth Branagh and Titles Something Like Prisoner and Stone, I Think and The Book About a Painter, DaVinci, Maybe, that the Vatican Does Not Like, Something About a Code.

**taurusmoon** · #7 06-16-2005, 02:53 PM

From the same issue of PW, comes this fiction title.

That Anvil of Our Souls: A Novel of the Monitor and the Merrimack

Which leads me to believe that fiction is as strange as truth.

**AuntieEmma**[$] · #8 06-16-2005, 02:56 PM

Quote:

When this trend comes to fiction: Harry Potter: The Boy Wizard with the Lightning Scar on his Forehead Who Has Been in Some Movies with People Like Maggie Smith and Kenneth Branagh and Titles Something Like Prisoner and Stone, I Think and The Book About a Painter, DaVinci, Maybe, that the Vatican Does Not Like, Something About a Code.

LOL