Newbie Title Challenge

[PsiCat]

Greetings Everyone, (please forgive the length of this post)

I'm just putting the finishing touches on a info product and I think I have a rather unique problem that I'm hoping more experienced folk than I can help with.

My product goes into the very specific details of creating tangible, "Miraculous" psychic phemomena.... not the "internal perception" psychic stuff that most people are more familiar with like clairvoyance or telepathy, but things that can be objectively witnessed by others, like creating psychic light, telekinesis, materializations, levitation, etc.

I go into gently explained details on how "miracles" work based on a scientific framework, including acoustic and magnetic levitation, how existing technology like that of a plasma speaker could modulate flame to produce sound (and emulate something like the "burning bush" miracle in the bible), etc.

Then I go into how these things could be triggered organically and provide my first hand experiences and the system that I have developed based on my own twenty five years of research and experimentation and based on interviews and demonstrations from folks far more advanced than myself.

The problem is that the central theme of my information is about generating "real miracles", but the word "miracle" has been beaten to death by every tag line of every niche and every market and I fear most folks are probably desensitized to it.

I need a title that conveys what my product is: A step-by-step course of psychic development for the rank beginner with an emphisis on producing tangible, "miraculous" abilities.

My perfect title: "A Course in Miracles" is already taken by a series of books and writings that aren't *really* about literal miracle making, but I've brain stormed a number of titles and I would be very grateful for your opinions and suggestions, both for a title, and for a tag-line (additional suggestions and ideas are VERY welcome):

The Psychic SuperMan
The Miracle Manual
Miracle Mastery
Mystic Mastery
Tangibly Psychic


My potential target markets:
- Folks fascinated with psychic/new-age ideas and want to explore "the deep end of the pool"
- Open minded folks who are interested in how these things really work
- Folks fascinated by various fantasy stories like Harry Potter and want to understand the real framework for "magic"
- The religeously devout who want to learn how to "Pray correctly"
- Scientists that want to set up experiments correctly to get results or want to actually hear me out before attempting to debunk my claims

I thought I did the hard work in writing the book, but now I see that a whole new set of challenges is in front of me... How to market it so that the correct audience "Gets it!" Please help.

Thanks in advance!

-Psicat

[Kevin Lam]

Scientific Miracle - Immolating the Impossible

[CDarklock]

"Were These The Secrets Of Jesus?"

[Hugh Thyer]

Your target audiences are SO completely different you wont be able to write a sales letter (or eBook title) that will appeal to everyone.

You've got new-age, scientists, religious audiences and there is no common way to appeal to them.

What I suggest is a different title and sales letter for EACH audience.

Some changes to your current eBook should allow you to produce a book that appeals to each audience. Your sales letters will need to be quite different though, because each audience is so different.

Hugh

[BrianMcLeod]

The Secrets of Psychokenesis
A Practical Guide To Creating "Miracles"

[PsiCat]

Thanks everyone,

In retrospect, making multiple versions of this information to suit my various target audiences is obvious (thanks, Hugh!), but of course I hadn't thought of it myself!

As titles go for my pious audience, how does something like this sound for title and lead in (inspired by CDarklock... Thanks, mate!):

***********************
What Jesus taught the Twelve
"He that believeth in me, the works that I do, shall he do also; and greater works than these will he do" - John 14:12

If Jesus was saying that we will do greater things than HE was doing, clearly he was expecting a lot from us.

So what happened? Does no one truly believe anymore or is it more likely that some part of his teaching has been lost...
***********************

I'm also still looking for a "wow" title for my new-age/open minded audience... particularly, since in its current state, this is the target market that I am ready to work with.

Any more ideas? What do folks think about something like "Tapping the Divine: The Miracle Makers Handbook" or just "The Miracle Makers Handbook"?

For the fantasy set, maybe something a little more cute like "The Psychic Cookbook: Practical Recipies for manipulating Mind, Matter, and Energy." or "Wizardology: Secrets of the Real Mages, Masters and Mystics" To wrap a sci-fi angle on it: "The Jedi Codex: Practical development of Tangible Mystic Abilities"

Please let me know what you think, and please feel free to chime in with new ideas. I'm very excited to release this information but being new to this, I'm afraid that a bad title will stack the deck against me before I have a chance to prove my case!

Kevin, Brian, thanks for the input. I'm still mulling over / mangling your ideas, and hope to hear even more!

For my more logical/science minded friends I trying to come up with a title that implies that this is a "how-to" guide... maybe something more like:
"The Death of the Impossible: Systematic development of Miraculous Psychic Abilities"
Or
"The Science of Miracles: Developing your Extraordinary Psychic Abilities"

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks, in advance everyone!

- PsiCat

[CDarklock]

You might just try quoting Crowley:

"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

Follow this with a suitably compelling first paragraph, and your entire new age / fantasy demographic should be absolutely compelled to read the whole thing.

[PsiCat]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

You might just try quoting Crowley:

"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

Follow this with a suitably compelling first paragraph, and your entire new age / fantasy demographic should be absolutely compelled to read the whole thing.

Nice, CDarklock! I see you are up on your esoteric literature. I hadn't thought to use Crowley in marketing, but of course, it's perfect!

[Clint]

I think a great title is "unraveling God" this title will reveal amazing potential. If you decide to use his title. Let me know and I can come up with new enemies praises for you. Hope this help till next time. good day

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by PsiCat

Nice, CDarklock! I see you are up on your esoteric literature. I hadn't thought to use Crowley in marketing, but of course, it's perfect!

One of the least-appreciated marketers on the planet is the late Anton Szandor LaVey. I don't subscribe to his beliefs, but he sells them superbly. If you're selling to a similar demographic, you could do a lot worse than reading the hell (no pun intended... okay, yes it is) out of his Satanic Bible.

"Unraveling God" is an excellent concept, by the way. I think it probably needs more work, but it's a decent grabber as it stands.

[fancyrae]

PsiCat--
Did you know that Google Adwords is an ideal way to test book titles? You can also use it to identify the keywords appropriate for each segment of your targeted markets. Then you can customize different versions of the book with language specific to each segment. Feel free to contact me for info on how to set this up.

[Don Schenk]

I am not an attorney and have never played one on television or elsewhere, but my very favorite attorney (I'm married to her) tells me, "You can't copyright a book title."

I know a name can become a trademark (a patented name) like "The Idiot's Guide..." or the "For Dummies" series.

I just went to the US patent office site and did a short trademark search on "Course In Miracles."

This is what it gave me:


Refine Search
Current Search:
S1: (course in miracles)[COMB] docs: 3 occ: 15

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Serial Number Reg. Number Word Mark Check Status Live/Dead
1 76640604 3131731 ACIM TARR LIVE
2 75860849 2397964 FOUNDATION FOR A COURSE IN MIRACLES TARR LIVE
3 74363520 1807235 A COURSE IN MIRACLES TARR DEAD


Apparently the word DEAD or LIVE at the end tells whether the mark is still in use.

I wonder if you can use a name like "The Course In Real Miracles."

Marketer Joe Vitale after appearing in "The Secret" published an audio course called "The Missing Secret."

It might be worth investing a couple hundred dollars in spending an hour with a patent/trademark attorney.

:-Don

BTW I think your line, "A step-by-step course of psychic development for the rank beginner with an emphisis on producing tangible, "miraculous" abilities" could be a good, descriptive sub-title for the book.

[PsiCat]

Wow, Thanks for all the ideas and feedback, folks.

I'm churning the "Unravaling God" idea around in my head for my science minded customers (thanks Clint!). I like it, but I'm having troubles coming up with a subtitle to tie this title to the "how-to" approach that the book actually takes.

Maybe something like one of the following:

Unraveling God
1) Practical Experiments for the Exploration of Miraculous Abilities
2) Revolutionary advances in psychic development for the manifestation of miraculous abilities
or maybe
3) Revoultionary techniques for the development of miraculous abilities


CDarklock: I actually have the Satanic Bible to round out my research library, but never actually got around to reading it! Still, you are not the first person who told me that Anton Levey was a silver-tongued devil (so to speak). Maybe with the added incentive of marketing research I'll make the time to take a look!

Fancyrae: Thanks for the tip! I'd like to take you up on your offer of more info!

Don: Thanks for the info. That is *so cool* that regular folks can do preliminary research into trademarks and copyrights! I thought that was something that had to go through an attorney even to explore. I'll keep that in mind. I'm very surprised that the title might be available. I saw one of the "A Course in Miracles" books in a bookstore just a couple months ago.

Still, even if the title is available or I could get something very similar, I wouldn't want to use it because my information is very different from the info that was offered under that title before and I wouldn't want to confuse, mislead, or get sales (or returns!) based on what folks might have heard about the old system. Thanks anyway though!

- PsiCat

[PsiCat]

fancyrae,

Sorry... I'm so new that my message count is too low to send you a private post or email! Would you consider starting a new topic on how to use adwords for title testing so that other newbies like myself can benefit from your experience too?

Thanks!

- PsiCat