Book Subtitles Are Getting Ridiculously Long. Blame it on SEO. (washingtonpost.com) 86
How many words can you fit in a subtitle? For a slew of modern books, the answer seems to be as many as possible. From a report: Just look at Julie Holland's "Moody Bitches: The Truth About the Drugs You're Taking, the Sleep You're Missing, the Sex You're Not Having, and What's Really Making You Crazy," Erin McHugh's "Political Suicide: Missteps, Peccadilloes, Bad Calls, Backroom Hijinx, Sordid Pasts, Rotten Breaks, and Just Plain Dumb Mistakes in the Annals of American Politics" and Ryan Grim's "We've Got People: From Jesse Jackson to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement." Blame a one-word culprit: search.
Todd Stocke, senior vice president and editorial director at Sourcebooks, said that subtitle length and content have a lot to do with finding readers through online searches. "It used to be that you could solve merchandising communication on the cover by adding a tagline, blurb or bulleted list," he said. But now, publishers "pack the keywords and search terms into the subtitle field because in theory that'll help the book surface more easily." He should know. Sourcebooks will publish Shafia Zaloom's "Sex, Teens, and Everything in Between: The New and Necessary Conversations Today's Teenagers Need to Have about Consent, Sexual Harassment, Healthy Relationships, Love, and More" in September.
Amazon allows up to 199 characters for a book's title and subtitle combined, making the word combination possibilities, if not endless, vast. Anne Bogel, host of the podcast "What Should I Read Next?," is not generally a fan of the trend. "I don't feel respected as a reader when I feel like the subtitle was created not to give me a feeling of what kind of reading experience I may get, but for search engines," she said. When Bogel asked author friends how they came up with their subtitles, several told her they can't even remember which words they ended up using. That being said, sometimes titular long-windedness works.
Todd Stocke, senior vice president and editorial director at Sourcebooks, said that subtitle length and content have a lot to do with finding readers through online searches. "It used to be that you could solve merchandising communication on the cover by adding a tagline, blurb or bulleted list," he said. But now, publishers "pack the keywords and search terms into the subtitle field because in theory that'll help the book surface more easily." He should know. Sourcebooks will publish Shafia Zaloom's "Sex, Teens, and Everything in Between: The New and Necessary Conversations Today's Teenagers Need to Have about Consent, Sexual Harassment, Healthy Relationships, Love, and More" in September.
Amazon allows up to 199 characters for a book's title and subtitle combined, making the word combination possibilities, if not endless, vast. Anne Bogel, host of the podcast "What Should I Read Next?," is not generally a fan of the trend. "I don't feel respected as a reader when I feel like the subtitle was created not to give me a feeling of what kind of reading experience I may get, but for search engines," she said. When Bogel asked author friends how they came up with their subtitles, several told her they can't even remember which words they ended up using. That being said, sometimes titular long-windedness works.
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Those subtiles sound to me like they're full of left wing buzzwords and drivel.
But if that is an accurate description of the book's contents, then what's the problem?
Re:Sounds more like left wing buzzwords to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Those subtiles sound to me like they're full of left wing buzzwords and drivel.
Are you saying conservatives don't have sex, sleep, healthy relationships, or teenagers?
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Those subtiles sound to me like they're full of left wing buzzwords and drivel.
Are you saying conservatives don't have sex, sleep, healthy relationships, or teenagers?
Maybe he's saying they don't need a book to tell them how to do all that?
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Not sure how to find any particular right wing book when each is titled:
"All Mine: Fuck You."
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SAO = Sword Art Online
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SCO = Synthetic Crude Oil
I don't read books... (Score:5, Funny)
and I'm perfectly healthy, what a waste of time! I also don't read articles that start titles with "Why..." ... for example
"Why the Apple phone will fail, and fail badly"
https://www.theregister.co.uk/... [theregister.co.uk]
I also don't read replies so have a great weekend everyone!
Nobody cares fatass Kendall (Score:1)
Illiteracy is a winning Republican hand I guess.
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I can't read replies even if I wanted to. A couple months ago, my on-site notifications (for replies to my posts and moderation changes) stopped coming. The notification settings are the same, I haven't changed them. I disabled and re-enabled notifications... nothing.
Wondering if anyone else experienced the same thing and what did they do to resolve it.
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To work around the issue, bookmark https://slashdot.org/my/inbox/ [slashdot.org] and https://slashdot.org/~<your user name>/comments [slashdot.org].
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I tend to not read books because I have a condition where it is difficult for my eye to follow a straight line. This makes reading books stressful and a lot of strain for me. I am much better with a computer screen. Before being Diagnosed with the issue, teachers just thought I was Lazy or stupid.
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Optometrists can usually find that out. Just let them know you have trouble reading books, and they can track your eye movement while you read a paragraph, a little longer then normal.
Re: I don't read books... (Score:1)
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That is what I normally do. Or read it on a lower resolution display. The lines between the pixels are good enough to help as guidelines. Also If it is flat paper. A ruler helps too. But books with the curve on the spine cause all sorts of problems.
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A computer screen, uses pixels, with a very slight border between each pixel, which is enough to help keep my eyes aligned. Also I will often use the text highlight feature to select text I am reading.
Books, especially ones with poor paper stock, are hard to read. Not impossible mind you. But I get no joy sitting down and reading a book like other people do sadly. Because it requires a lot of work on my part.
Screens are easier to read for me, also I rarely reading as much content at once too.
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I don't read anything either, because what you call ignorance, I call imagination. You think I don't know the world? I define my fantasy world. You think I'm disconnected from reality? I am objective reality, and without my perception, the universe doesn't event exist. You think the Mueller report damns Trump? I say it exonerates him.
Fuck your elitist knowledge. All knowledge is just propaganda.
Who the fuck modded this up? (Score:2)
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From that article:
-------------
Apple will launch a mobile phone in January, and it will become available during 2007. It will be a lovely bit of kit, a pleasure to behold, and its limited functionality will be easy to access and use.
The Apple phone will be exclusive to one of the major networks in each territory and some customers will switch networks just to get it, but not as many as had been hoped.
As customers start to realise that the competition offers better functionality at a lower price, by negotiat
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I don't read books... and I'm perfectly healthy
Did you also win by the largest electoral college margin ever, and have the largest turnout ever for your inauguration?
What fucking useless thing is this!? (Score:2)
Subtitles for books? It's already in text form, why would you need subtitles?!
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I blame CowboyNeal.
limerick (Score:5, Funny)
There once was a poet named Dan,
Whose poetry never would scan.
When told this was so,
He said "Yes, I know;
It's because I always try to fit as many words into the last line as I possibly can."
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
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Or, if you’re in a proto-SF mood, there’s “Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, first a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships.”
Products too (Score:5, Funny)
Chinese websites started first, now the same thing is cropping onto Amazon, Ebay and the like.
Here's a random headset name from AliExpress: "Honeywell L2 Anti-noise Earmuffs Soundproof Ear Protector Reduction Noise Comfortable Ear Muff for Travel Sleep Study Work".
This sometimes leads to ridiculously funny names such as "Biyetimi OTG Colorful Usb Flash Drive Pen Drive 32GB 64GB 128GB Memory Usb Stick U Dick Pendrive Flash Drive For Android P" or "10pcs artificial flower 6 color diameter 9cm rose head high simulation rose wedding decoration home handmade flower wall DIY". It's a funny/sad circus of keywords.
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The most obvious ones are headphones, phone chargers, cables... phone accessories, basically. Because people search for '[my phone] charger', sellers end up cramming every major brand they can think of until they run out of characters. You end up with things like "USB power supply phone charger 2A 3A 4A Apple Sony Samsung HTC Nokia Google LG Blackberry Vodaphone iPhone iPad Galaxy Acer Motorola."
Microsoft don't get mentioned - there aren't enough Windows phone users to waste the characters.
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It's a funny/sad circus of keywords.
So are western websites with Chinese translations that I got from google. I don't know which offered word is correct, so I'm going to use them all and at least something in there describes it.
There May Be Other Reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
Books from 100 years ago (Score:1)
Look at books from 100 years ago. Many of them had really long titles/subtitles....and I'm pretty sure that was before SEO was a thing.
And I thought mine was bad. (Score:2)
A few months after my first novel was published, I started second guessing whether the overall name of the series was too long. It was 5 words (30 characters) long. These make mine look like the very definition of brevity, though!
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Don't be a moran.
The Japanese really like doing this too (Score:2)
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The Japanese really like long title names for their light novels/manga these days as well. "Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?"
Yeah but the sequel is just Sword Oratoria, so it isn't consistent.
well (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently you haven't seen subtitles from the 1800s.
E.g. from George Macdonald:
Exotics: A Translation of the Spiritual Songs of Novalis, the Hymn-book of Luther, and Other Poems from the German and Italian (1876)
The Portent: A Story of the Inner Vision of the Highlanders, Commonly Called "The Second Sight" (1864)
Or better, Defoe:
Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of AMERICA, near the Mouth of the Great River of OROONOQUE; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. WITH an Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by PYRATES.
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Or from the 1970s.
E.g. from Michael McDonald:
Ride Like the Wind: Bah-dah-dah-dah Buh-buh-buh-BAAH (1979)
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Now that song is stuck in my head.
Thanks for ruining my weekend, asshat.
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Defoe is the right author, but his most spectacular title is for the book now usually called "Moll Flanders":
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Years a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her brother) Twelve Years a Thief, Eight Years a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent
Better than Cliff Notes!
Charles Darwin, On The Origin Of Species (Score:1)
Long titles have been around forever. They help you know what the book is about.
SEO = ? (Score:2)
Search Engine Optimization.
If you used an optimized search engine to figure out the acronym that the editors could have stated for you then maybe you too could be an editor.
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maybe you too could be an editor.
Naww, reading is to hard.
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I still shop at the same independent brick-and-mortar book store I shopped at as a child.
Most of the chain stores died, though.
Keyword Stuffing... (Score:2)
Movies too (Score:1)