I was torn.

A big publisher wanted to change my title from “Get Paid For Who You Are”…

to….

“What You Already Know Will Make You Rich”, or “Turn Your Talent Into Cash”

I was getting close to caving, when I was fortunate to have a phone call with Seth Godin (who really surprised me with his generosity – but I digress). Here’s my paraphrasing of what happened:

SETH: “Don’t change your title. It’s a good title that people will be more likely to want to pass from one to another”.

DAVID: “Well, why don’t I just test the titles and see which title gets the most clicks?”

SETH: “You can’t test a title that way. What sells books is not the impulse to click, or the impulse to pick it up from the book shelf. It’s what the first 100 people who read it say to their 500 friends”.

Wow – this reinforced my intuition that with “Get Paid For Who You Are” we have a soulful title; one that strikes a chord on different levels. One that a reader may want to tell a friend about.

So on the basis of that conversation (no pressure Seth 🙂 I stuck to my guns and turned down the publishing deal so I can publish the book I want to publish.

Thanks Seth, for helping me clearly see what I’d intuitively felt.

David