Making Negative Titles Work

I learned today that one of the common pitfalls of negative titles is that they usually only express a complaint or identify a problem without offering a solution. And people want solution; they are not going to read pages of some stranger's complaint that doesn't necessarily change their lives. I guess such titles could be categorized as "Anti-" titles, where they do not always contain the word "anti-," but their overall message is simply "I-hate-...the government, the institution, my boss, my next door neighbor etc."

But, of course not all negative titles put off customers. One of the examples that Jeevan gave me was Leadership and Self-Deception, which did very well despite the negative tone of the title. But, I have a feeling that this title probably worked, precisely because it was not an "Anti-something" title, but brought up an idea about the human mind. That is, self-deception describes the mind's act of unconsciously deceiving itself. Despite the possibility that the direct link between "leadership" and "self-deception" might painfully pinch the leader egos, you just can't say that the title is anti something. It definitely isn't anti-leadership (at least, judging from the title alone) and what, anti-ego? Oh please, don't let your ego become so vulnerable that it shudders at the mere word "self-deception." And some modesty never hurts in this world.

Anyways, my feeling might be totally skewed because I admit that not everyone is interested in the workings of the human mind as much as I am, but I have observed a trend in which the public's interest in applicable psychology seems to be growing. At least, for a big number of people in my generation, we don't find an appeal in something that's completely superficial, pre-digested, overdone, or kitsch. When novelty on the surface of things becomes hard to find, we dig deeper in order to probe our thinking in ways that haven't been done before. That's why I believe that the movie Inception garnered its popularity partly for the plot's complex psychological concept (other than the fact that it's directed by the awesome Christopher Nolan and stars Leonardo Di Caprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, both of whom are absolutely dreamy....but I won't go there and save you some major eye rolling).

Well, to summarize, I think negative titles work when it's smart about its negativity. The negativity needs to refer to a bigger and deeper concept that is just waiting to be spilled out by the book's content, instead of just showing an opposition to something that already exists.