The “Stickiness” of Book Titles

Cozy Classics was launched in 2012. Star Wars Epic Yarns was launched in 2015. Since both series have been out, I’ve given dozens and dozens of school presentations about them.

Something struck me recently: when discussing the books with me, students and teachers alike regularly use the express words “Cozy Classics” to refer to our first series, but rarely if ever use the express words “Star Wars Epic Yarns” to refer to our second series. Instead, they simply say “the Star Wars books.”

Why was this?

Certainly, it’s possible that “Star Wars” is just such an overwhelmingly popular brand or phrase that any series sub-title would inevitably be overshadowed and forgotten in relation to “Star Wars.” However, when an offering under the Star Wars umbrella is popular enough, like the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, people easily jettison the “Star Wars” part and refer to the cartoon by the sub-title alone: “The Clone Wars.” I hear my seven year-old son do this with his friends all the time. So, the overwhelming importance of the Star Wars brand doesn’t seem to offer an entirely convincing explanation as to why no one – particularly children – ever really refers to the Star Wars Epic Yarns books by name.

An answer to my question began to emerge when I recently picked up a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. The book examines the virality of ideas, products and messages. One of the factors that can make an idea, product or message go viral is what Gladwell calls the Stickiness Factor, which he defined as the quality that compels people to pay close, sustained attention to a product, concept, or idea. Stickiness is hard to define, and its presence or absence often depends heavily on context.

One example of a “stickiness” is Sesame Street. The show has been widely praised for finding a way to make television “sticky”— it uses television to lodge important ideas (like the alphabet) in the minds of children. In fact, research shows that children who watch Sesame Street perform better academically than others later on during the grade-school years.

Sesame Street wanted to encourage lower-income parents to participate in the education of their children. The hope was that parents would watch Sesame Street with their kids if the show was sprinkled with adult cleverness. Thus, the show was loaded with constant punning and pop culture references.

But research showed that the content meant to get the adults to tune in would make the kids tune out. Researchers set up a distractor by presenting a test audience of children with a slide show that changed pictures every 7 seconds. The slide show was placed right next to the television that was playing an episode of Sesame Street. Researchers then recorded instances when children would watch the slide show instead of the episode and could exactly tell which part of the show had the children’s attention.

One of the insights learned through this research is that young children hate puns or plays on words because their level of intellectual development does not allow for comprehension. For example, preschoolers make a number of assumptions about words and their meaning as they acquire language. One of these assumptions is known as the principle of mutual exclusiveness, a word learning constraint that involves the tendency to assign one label/name – and in turn avoid assigning a second label/name – to a single object.

In The Tipping Point, Gladwell noted that in one test episode of Sesame Street, Big Bird wanted to change his name to Roy because he wanted a name of his own and not a descriptive name. The children were befuddled by two labels describing the same thing (the big yellow bird), and their attention dropped for that episode.

Which brings us back to Star Wars Epic Yarns and, in particular, the series sub-title “Epic Yarns.” This is an extremely “punny” – even downright confusing – title. First, most young children won’t understand the plain meaning of “Epic.” Second, “Yarns” is meant to refer to both the idea of a story and wool craft – exactly the kind of wordplay that empirical research tells us reduces children’s attention.

The whole situation is made worse by the fact that the punning reference to wool yarn isn’t even accurate. Needle felting does not usually involve yarn at all. The figures are not knit, but are created by repeatedly stabbing loose wool that comes in fairly wide bundles called “roving,” or even larger swaths called “batts.” Only occasionally would I ever felt wool in actual yarn form (if I happen to be looking for an exact colour not available in roving), and even then, only after I take the yarn, completely unfurl the yarn form, and mat the fibres into a loose, tangled mass of wool.

The working sub-title for our Star Wars books was “Short and Sweet,” which Jack and I really liked. The books were short. The books were sweet. Perfect. “Epic” is actually the complete opposite of an extreme 12-word abridgement (adding more confusion for children), and I’ve already addressed the problems with “Yarns.” But apparently the title “Epic Yarns” was run past a few adult book buyers, who thought it was funny. However, as the Sesame Street research has shown us, what appeals to adults can be meaningless to kids.

Star Wars author Jeffrey Brown, creator of the New York Times best-selling Darth Vader & Son series, recently told me that he still reads Star Wars Epic Yarns with his younger son, and they call them “the robot books.” While this could just be sort of an affectionate family in-joke for our books, I can’t help but wonder whether “Epic Yarns” is simply too confusing a series title to young readers to have any “stickiness” at all.

This is not to say that a stickier series title would have necessarily sold more books. Who knows? But surely having a series title that everyone fails to remember or is reluctant to use in conversation is not part of the formula for successful sales.

These days, there appear to be a many children’s books premised entirely on a pun in the title. I don’t want to disparage any existing books, so I’ll make up an example: Tyrannosaurus Hex (apologies if this book actually exists!), all about dinosaurs that are also spell-casting witches and wizards. First, a child needs to know that “Rex” is being replaced by “Hex.” Second, the child needs to know that “Hex” means an evil spell or curse. All of this seems pretty tough for a young child. While there may be a momentary chuckle for parents browsing a bookstore, is this enough to create the “stickiness” necessarily to drive sustained book sales, especially when the principle target audience is averse to puns and likely cannot understand the full meaning of the title?

While I have no doubt that punning titles do occasionally sell well, a quick perusal of this week’s New York Times best-selling picture books reveals that the list contains ten non-punning titles, including Princesses Save The World, Princesses Wear Pants, Dragons Love Tacos, The Day the Crayons Quit, The Book With No Pictures, and Be Kind.

So, if you’re here for the advice, this is it: there’s nothing wrong with a simple, straightforward book title or series title. Laboured puns are probably best avoided, especially if you want children to utter the names of your books! And there’s really no reason to be too cute by half.

Finally, some of you might say, “Hey, but your new picture books contain puns!” True, Great Job, Mom! and Great Job, Dad! are not only meant to praise hard-working parents, they also refer to the fact that the books are ironic jobs primers. But in the grand scheme of things, the punning is very gentle, and the titles are eminently comprehensible as simple compliments to mom and dad, even if young kids don’t (immediately) understand the reference to the concept of employment.

At the end of the day, there are no hard and fast kidlit rules. But the takeaway is this: don’t pun your way into incomprehensibility – and forgettableness.