The Joy of Titling

One of the joys of being a publisher is seeing books develop over time.

One of the trials of being a publisher is helping to pick book titles.

Sometimes it is fairly easy. Agile Web Development with Rails pretty much summed up the book's content.

At other times, though, it's remarkably difficult. A back title can seriously harm a book. For example, Chad Fowler's first book with us is really, really good: a guide to managing and developing your career as a programmer. It was a joy to edit, and everyone who's read it loves it. But when it came time to give it a title, we were stumped. In the end, we decided to go for something a little jokey with some shock value, and My Job Went to India was born.

Big mistake.

The title didn't work. We sold a decent number of copies (just under 10,000), but we *should* have sold 3, 4, or 5 times that. It's a very, very good book. But I blew it for Chad by going with the wrong title. (It says a lot for Chad that he went ahead and wrote Rails Recipes with us after that.)

And now I feel like it might be about to happen again. Jeremy Sydik is finishing off a wonderful book. IT's all about how to create web sites that can be used by people with disabilities: the blind and color blind, those with motor problems, and so on. We clearly have a responsibility to create accessible sites but, as this book points out, we can also benefit greatly in terms of traffic if our sites can be used by the whole online population.

So then we come back to the thorny title problem. Right now, we're selling the beta with the name The Accessible Web—Creating Content for Everyone. But that doesn't seem to be working; folks I've talked to aren't clear what the book is about.

We're thinking about retitling the book. The current front-runner is Designing Web Content for Users with Disabilities—36 Keys for Unlocking the Accessible Web.

So, here's my question. Does that work better as a title? Or is there a *great* title we're missing?

I want to give these books the audiences they deserve. Help me out.

Thanks

Dave

Comments

[Carlo]

Hi!
IMO the term "Accessibility" is well understood in field where "it's better to know it". Let me explain a little... If you develop a web application for Public Sector it MUST be accessible (this is especially true in countries where the Law enforce that, for example where I live... Italy). So the term "accessibility" is clear and focused on the book objective.

On the other end, in field where people (=developer) aren't aware of this topic the term "accessible" is too much vague...

In conclusion, I suggest to keep the term... people aware of it are the best clients for the book ;).

[Colin Kershaw]

From Kate Sydik's post, it seems that the book addresses Graceful Degradation and Progressive Enhancement. While I don't have an actual title suggestion, it seems those two things are both A) what the book is about B) currently on the technically "cool" list.

Perhaps some different title ideas would spring up from looking at:

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/

http://accessites.org/site/2007/02/graceful-degradation-progressive-enhancement/

[Bob Evans]

"Accessibility" has to be in the title, everyone who writes websites for a living knows the term, or doesn't write websites very well. Optionally, and this is probably only suitable for US audiences, you could throw in "Section 508 compliance", which is the legal section related to accessibility of course.

As a side note, if the title had "semantic" in it, I would never buy it :-)

[Ms. Jen]

I will be the fifth or sixth person to back Marcel.

Also in the line of the Middle Age title above, accessibility is not just about handicap or disability, but also about people whose eyesight and glasses make reading or viewing on line difficult. My mom is farsighted and today I was showing her how Ubuntu works. As the machine booted up and we were at the main screen she said, "It's burnt orange, where is the icons?" I replied, "Up on the top row." "What top row?"

And in the moment of demo'ing Ubuntu to her, I did not think to bump up the type or icons so she can see them. She also finds cell phones very frustrating as she can't see who is calling or any texts without searching for her glasses. Mom is not disabled; at 64 she surfs, skis, and drives without glasses. She just finds computers and cell phones unreadable and unusable without glasses and most times even with her glasses on.

Accessibility may be a buzz word, but if we are to do our jobs well, we should consider it for the majority of users, not just the disabled.

I like the current title (The Accessible Web) with the key illustration, both the title and the image bring the point home and intrigue me.

[Paul Carey]

Enabling the Web for Disabled Users

Interesting point about My Job Went to India - having no such qualms myself (perhaps naively), I never gave it a second look.

[Shay]

I recently read this blog by bruce eckel, it points out that wading through the author's attempts at humor can be frustrating to people who are trying to learn from these technical books.

http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=204711

It would be great if all authors and editors read this blog.

[Jonathan]

I'm going to echo Daniel's comments and suggest you buy some AdWords. Advertise with different headlines and see what gets a higher click through.

The landing page could be an email signup to share chapter excerpts. You can then measure the % conversions to email-subscribers.

jaw

[Bharat Philiph-Patel]

I think its important to focus on Accessibility as the key but also to tie the benefits to everyone. Lets face it, we all love the low curbs that were put in for wheel chairs which also allow the rest of us to easily rollerblade, bike or easily transition from the sidewalk to the street. So there is good in making things accessible as it good for the common man as well - and besides the side benefits are speed and performance as we remove a lot of bloated stuff off our sites as well. We stick to web standards and sure enough we arrive at "accessibility - good for the common man" or "Accessibility for everybody - How to make your site more user friendly and gain performance while your at it!"

Or maybe focus on "Usability for everyone" - and address accessibility as a core benefit of making your site more usable by sticking to web standards and "thinking about others before your self".

A great title that was taken a few years back - "Maximum Accessibility - Making your website more usable for everyone" by John Slatin and Sharron Rush addresses this issue as well.

BPP

[Sam Griffith Jr.]

Dave,

I think the title should be:

Web Section 508 - Accessibility for Everyone

[Leif Wickland]

I stopped by to suggest something like "Accessible web: Designing Websites for Users with Disabilities", but saw that someone already had. I'd modify it slightly to "The Accessible Web: 36 Keys to Designing Websites for Users with Disabilities" to indicate right in the title that the book is in the PragProg or PAD mold. I'd be much more likely in store to pick up a book that I knew was segmented conveniently into practices so I could sit down and read one.

[Charles Flatt]

Some "top of the head" titles I came up with are:

Used By Everyone - Enabling Web Sites for Disabled People
Total Accessibility - Designing Web Sites for Disabled People
Disabled Welcome - Making Your Web Sites Disabled-Friendly
Equal Access - Easy Ways to Design Disabled-Friendly Web Sites

I also really like another poster's "Inclusive Web" suggestion. Thanks for putting such care into this important topic.

[Stephan Branczyk]

How about "Web Accessibility: Not just a legal and moral requirement" or "Pragmatic Web Accessibility"

I also like the braille on the cover idea, gimmicks can indeed sell a lot of books. Thought I would consult with a couple of blind (braille literate) people first, to make sure that the execution of the cover was done correctly and done in good taste.

[Surendra Singhi]

I haven't read "My Job Went to India" and nor do I intend to (I am an Indian), its a racist title, and most people will think the book is the same. Besides, you have anyway reduced the number of possible people who can buy the book by one billion.

And as far as outsourcing is concerned, capitalism and business is a 2-way traffic, right? If American companies, can sell their wares in India, the law of natural justice gives similar rights to Indian companies to do so. I don't believe there is anything wrong in American companies going for something which they thinks give them a better for their money. If any Indian were not to buy an American product, because its American, I'll dismiss him as chauvinist.

Dude, its capitalism, if you want to stay ahead of the game innovate, and not whine about outsourcing.

I brought your Rails book, and has bought other Pragmatic books also; but sorry to see, what I consider shallow thinking, from such smart people.

Anyway, its completely off topic post, but I couldn't stop myself.

Good luck with naming this book.

[Dave Thomas]

Surendra:

That's exactly what the book says: you and Chad are speaking the same language. Chad's whole premise is that developers have to improve to compete.

I don't think our thinking is shallow: I honestly feel the book is important and the content is deep. (In fact, I'd argue that it's fairly shallow to criticize the content of a book you haven't yet read, but I can understand your anger over the title)

What we were was stupid when we tried to make a joke from the title (it's named after T-Shirts that say "My Mom Went to New York and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt)

Dave

[ogletree]

I am a low vision computer user as well as a web consultant. I have trained blind users on the Internet in the past and often give recommendations to companies on accessibility, usability, and SEO. One of the thins I always tell people is that those 3 things should always be looked at as the same thing. If you do any one of them well the other 2 goals should be met. I think that title is too long and uses words a lot of people don't know the meaning.

[Jason Feinstein]

A candidate title:

"See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil: A guide to developing accessible web content."

[Jason Feinstein]

A candidate title:

"See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil: A guide to developing accessible web content."

[J. Pablo Fernandez]

So, the term accessibility is not good. That leaves out two of the proposed titles. The other one, about web sites for people with disabilities. Most people will believe "who cares! there's enough public without disabilities". I believe "Creating Content for Everyone" or "Creating web applications for everyone" are much better and catchy. Everyone wants everyone to use their applications.

[Diego]

I personally loved the "my job went to india" title, especially with the tagline.
Maybe it's because it's my type of humor and the book it's pretty awesome.

[Mike Cherim]

Boy, I can relate to this. One of my blog's readers just pointed this article out to me. I written about a similar issue bit ago in "That Evil Accessibility Word"

http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=214