How NOT to Title Your Book

Don't do what reality stars do, lesson 76667

I am nothing if not a fan of reality shows.

I not only made the midsguided decision to release a book about reality shows but I also used to be a regular on Fox Reality Channel (yes, Fox had a station just devoted to reality TV, which sort of feels like what every station is now, but they had a show called Reality Remix where “reality TV experts”¹ came on and discussed reality shows every week).

Out of all the reality shows I allow to rot my precious brain cells, my favorite is surely Summer House. It’s just so wildly…happy. Delusionally happy. It doesn’t belong in the same world where people set fire to strangers’ Tesla’s because they don’t like what its CEO is doing (though it did take a stab at dealing with some race issues, that storyline was quickly dropped so we could get back to the issues Summer House excels at tackling: Hot People Partying). It’s “Who’s going out tonight”/Brunch in Montauk/non-sensical ball games on the beach/eating the most caloric foods on earth and remaining insanely thin. Summer House is essentially the closest you can get to living in the 90s today!

Carl Radke has been on Summer House from season one and we’ve watched him go from f-boy drunk to bottoming out addict to California sober to most miserable fiance to actually sober non alc entrepreneur. Carl 9.0, if you will. And now he’s publishing a book about it!

One book, lots of subtitles

Here’s what he had to say on Instagram about the book: “I’m proud to announce that my book Cake Eater will be out on December 30, 2025. You may be asking—why Cake Eater? Being from the South Hills of Pittsburgh in Upper St. Clair and other locals will know that Cake Eater is a privileged upper middle-class person who is handed everything. While I was called this many times, that wasn’t my reality. My book dives into my childhood, my family, my life in the public eye, my recovery and how I’m here today.”

Now, there are four words you NEVER want ANYONE to say about your book title and those four words are “you may be asking.” No! The purpose of a book title is for people to NOT have to ask. You want people to hear your book title and go, “Ohhh, tell me more” and NOT “Ohhh, tell me what that means.” You want it to be a reference that means something to everyone and not just to some people in the South Hills of Pittsburgh.

Your book title exists to capture attention and intrigue a potential reader. Your subtitle exists to provide a few more details and keywords (it’s Amazon’s world and we’re just living in it; people forget that Amazon is the world’s third largest search engine and while most of us buy books because someone we trust recommended it, we also search for books on certain topics on Amazon).

If I wanted to read a book about a reality star’s experience bottoming out and getting sober, would I search the words “cake” or “eater”? No. While the subtitle—”A journey of self-discovery” helps a tiny bit, it’s pretty damn vague. Oh wait, there’s KIND of two subtitles? Which is weird? There’s Getting High, Hitting Low And Trying to Stay in the Middle and A journey of self-discovery? Both are both cliches and say nothing. One uses capital case and one doesn’t. Bizarre choices! The titling, honestly kind of feels like things Kyle on Summer House might have thought of some time between returning from the club and eating all the Cheetos in the house.

Think about some of the subtitles of great recovery memoirs: poetic subtitles like Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget (on Sarah Hepola’s exquisite Blackout) or even the subtitle of Eat Pray Love (One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia).

Because here’s the thing. We—readers—are smart. And we like to feel smart. We like to hear something and go, “Ohhh, I get it.” So when I heard the title Cake Eater, hoping to feel smart, I went, “Oh yes, cake eater…that means…um, nothing.” And I didn’t feel smart! I felt, actually, like someone who has watched so much reality TV she may not even be smart anymore.

It blew my mind when I was being published by Harper how wholly arbitrary the titling process was. There were no focus groups. There was no “We find that titling this way tends to work best” conversations. It was “What do you think of….?”

We take titles pretty seriously at Legacy Launch Pad. Unless we have a client who is wholly devoted to a title, we start by brainstorming a bunch, then we narrow it down to three options and then we run a title poll on PickFu, a software that allows you to run a poll of exactly the audience you’re marketing to so you can get their anonymous feedback on it.

Because here’s the dirty little secret about subtitles: no one even notices they’re there. Half the time authors can’t tell you what their subtitles are. They’re kind of like a plus one you bring to a party who gives you someone to walk in with but then lets you do your own thing all night without them weighing you down. But, in much the same way that you need to have the good party to bring the plus one to, you need to have a title for the subtitle to attach itself to.

Cake Eater is not it. I’m sorry, Carl. I enjoy watching you. I love great memoirs from reality stars and have even published a few.² I’m psyched you’re sober. But if the professionals who are helping to shepherd this book into the world came up with (or couldn’t talk you out of) this title, I don’t have faith in their ability to craft an excellent book.

I’ll totally watch the book launch party episode on Summer House, though. Particularly if Lindsay torments you during it.

What do YOU think of Cake Eater as a title? And how are you coming up with your own book title?

1. This is when I learned what an expert is: someone who’s written a book on a topic

2. Recovering from Reality by Alexis Haines and The Gorga Guide to Success by Joe Gorga, to be precise