Okay, the returns are going against Just Blog It! Let me run the three runner ups past you, and see if the do any better:

The Human Corporation —How Blogs Improve Everything In Your Business

Let Your People Blog —Why Conversational Marketing is essential to Business

Blog It!--How Blogs Improve Everything in you Business

Let me know what you think.

Comments

[Johnnie Moore]

For me, "The Red Couch" is way better. Take a risk, be less literal.

If not, then I like your fourth suggestion - Let me know what you think - better than the first three. :)

[johnmoore (from brandautopsy)]

I agree with my UK namesake. Don’t get roped into a generic and homogenized title. After all, a good blog is not generic, nor is it homogenized -- your book title shouldn’t be either. (Dig?)

THE RED COUCH title is different enough, intriguing enough, and compelling enough to one’s capture attention. Keep in mind … at some point soon the term 'blog' will become fatigued. (Double dig?)

“THE RED COUCH: Why Conversational Marketing and Blogging is Essential to Business”

I would buy that book.

[Jeremy Wright]

yep @ john & john

[Randy Charles Morin]

I'm gonna vote "Just Blog It!". A contrarian I am.

[Darren Rowse]

I agree - something a little different with a descriptive tag line is probably the best bet.

[JTH]

Unchain My Company
let my people blog

To the tune of "Unchain My Heart"
Maybe too cute, but in the same vein as "Just Blog It"

Better yet - you have it in your last line:

"Let Me Know What You Think"
Then maybe tag about blogs improving business

Point being customer/client is let known what the company/staff thinks, company/staff is let known what the customer/client thinks
Two way street!

[orcmid]

So, what happened to "Blog or Die!"? I notice that I use that (working?) title in my conversations about this blog and the book project. As much as I was thrown by it at first, it is what comes back more and more as the meme. Heh.

[orcmid]

So, what happened to "Blog or Die!"? I notice that I use that (working?) title in my conversations about this blog and the book project. As much as I was thrown by it at first, it is what comes back more and more as the meme. Heh.

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

Vaspers the Grate is shocked and dismayed...he is actually agreeing with Johnnie Moore on something. Hmmm. Maybe. Nah. Well...maybe he's not so bad after all. Just a trifle boring, though. Oh well, so am I!

The Red Couch: Blog Revolution in Corporate America is the only title worth thinking about.

Just ask Al or Laura Ries. They'll tell you all about the value of a new, original, unique name, with the equity already built into it.

It's shooting yourself in the foot to abandon this innovative title...title OF THE BLOG ITSELF...many will see this dumbed down proposed title and, in a hurry, not even connect it with Scoble and Israel's The Red Couch blog.

Forgive my inflammatory manner, but I'm now the self-proclaimed LEPER GURU of the Bloatosphere...and this is how I talk.

"Blog or Die" is stupid hyperbole, we already got past that dopey concept.

Listen to Johnnie Moore, John Moore, Jeremy Wright, Darren Rowse, these people know whereof they speak.

They know marketing and blogging. They are giants in their own right, and I admire them, even flamer Johnnie Moore who made fun of my "Secrets of the Blogging Pros" book or my stand against RSS, or something, I forget precisely why I defended my bad self against him.

All is forgiven, Johnnie. You is smart now. The LEPER GURU has spoken.

[Ken Dyck]

Though I suggested the "Blog It!" option, I'd like to cast my vote with the John(nie) Moores. "The Red Couch" is way more distinctive than any of the others.

[Jim Minatel]

This is Jim, Shel and Robert's editor. First point, my comment isn't about any one response or commenter here, don't read this serially as if I'm responding to whatever comment comes before.
Everyone at Wiley working on this book loves all the input we're getting from all of you. Keep it coming, we are reading it all.
Blog or Die was our favorite title and we were determined to stick that one out. But, a few days (weeks?) back, Steven made a good case against that title noting that in some parts of the world, blogging could be a life and death matter. We all agreed that was a persuasive reason to look for a new title.
I'm the one who so far doesn't buy the "Purple Cow" style titles for this book, even though I love it for Seth's book. (I think David in marketing and Joe the publisher are with me on this but I won't presume to speak for them.) What works for previously established authors like Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell might not be the best recipe for first time authors.
And what works for the blog-enlightened crowd that's reading the Red Couch blog today, might not be the best title to sell to a broader audience that hasn't yet bought into the value of blogs 8 months from now. We hope everyone here is going to end up liking the book enough to buy or recommend it regardless of the title. But none of you need to be sold on blogging, you are already the leading 1% (or a fraction of 1%) of the bigger business audience. If Shel and Robert are going to help spread the blog vision to business people who haven't got it yet, the first step in that has to be either them picking the book up on their own from the business section, which I don't think "The Red Couch" will get them to do, or from your recommendation. For the book to be successful, we need the ability for the title to instantly communicate what the book is about in that 1 or 2 seconds the reader is looking at it amongst 30 other books on a table or 300 other books on a shelf before they move on to the next book.
We will keep listening to your input. We hope you all understand that with this many people giving input, we'll never have near-unanimous consent and we probably won't even have a majority opinion in favor of one title. We do have to make a decision at some point soon, the title can't be an open-ended question for much longer.

[/pd]

Title " Blog Strategies for Business Excellence"
Tag Line " The Strategic Weapon of the Brave, is in the Blog"

...or well or somethign like that.. check my previous comments for verbiage :)-

[Jeremy Wright]

Jim, I'm sure everyone appreciates your comments. It's actually the exact same thing my editor said, which is why we're ultimately going with a more "mainstream" title for mine as well.

Good luck with this decision. It's hard to be 100% happy with something as personal as a book title.

[Larry Borsato]

How about:

A Human Voice

or

A Friendly Voice

[johnmoore (from brandautopsy)]

Jim … without research to back me up, I think you are operating under the fallacy that a book title needs to instantly communicate everything to the reader in a second or two.

What the title MUST DO is cause a reader to pause and react by picking up the book. Once attention has been captured, the reader will decide if he/she wants to buy it after spending a few moments with it.

I argue a title like THE RED COUCH will stop me in my tracks as I gaze at the 30 some-odd spines on a bookshelf. And a title like THE RED COUCH will be remarkable enough that when I tell my non-blogging business friends about it, they will remember it. While a more literal title will not.

If you go the hyperbole route for the title … you must be sure the book follows through on the hyper-expectations it is sure to promise. BLOG OR DIE makes an awfully big promise, one that that the book will be hard-pressed to follow-through on.

And Jim … don’t underestimate us. The readers of this blog and other like-minded blogs are the influentials within our networks. While we are the 1%, we need tools to help us champion the blogging cause to the decision-makers in the other 99%. And because we need these tools, we can help make this book cross the proverbial chasm to reach a broader business audience. (Triple dig?)

[Jim Minatel]

John: I promise the influencers are not and will not be underestimated on this. And I am sincere when I say I can't describe enough how great it is to have so many influencers contributing their opinions on this. At no other time in the 17 years I've been in publishing, on no other project, could I have ever gotten such great input from such a diverse group of experts.

[johnmoore (from brandautopsy)]

Welcome to the WISDOM OF CROWDS and to A WHOLE NEW MIND. Our IDEAS ARE FREE and they're sure to take this book idea from GOOD TO GREAT. After all, THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED.

[johnmoore (from brandautopsy)]

Jim ... I'm curious ... did the "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" instantly communicate to you what the book was about in 1 or 2 seconds?

[Jim Minatel]

On "Curious Incident," I guessed that it was a mystery, which I don't usually read. I didn't pick it up until I'd read the Amazon blurb and several reviews there.

Having never worked in fiction, I can only guess that book titling decisions are made differently there than in non-fiction. I know as a consumer, I buy fiction differently than I do non-fiction.

I also try never to use myself as an example. Working in publishing, my assumption is I love books and pore over each book purchase decision differently than the bigger audience. I'm not the target audience.

[Tom Guarriello]

Blog or Die sounds too strident to me. I also don't think "die" is such a good word in a book title. What's the best book ever with "die" in its title?

The Red Couch: How Blogs _______ Business

Fill in the blank.

[BillSaysThis]

Part of the appeal of using The Red Couch as title is that it can be an ongoing operation, not just the one book. While there are probably sales synergies in having an ongoing business or editorial project, this is not strictly a Wiley interest, understood. However, the more time goes by, the less useful I think the word blog becomes. It's just another method of having the conversation (as in markets are...) and by the end of the year I think a lot of business execs, who aren't bloggers now, will be tired of the word if it keeps gettings attention like the BusinessWeek cover. I'd recommend thinking more about hooking the title into the conversation aspect of blogging instead of depending on that keyword, such as "The Red Couch: Conversation with your customers, partners and staff".

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

Jim, the Wiley editor, dude, you're messing with a marketing wizard here.

You may be able to out-edit me, but there's not a chance in hell you will ever be able to out-market me.

I've dealt with book publishing editors in the past, and I have to tell you...you guys should stick to editing and stay the hell away from marketing.

I say that with all due respect and NOT antagonistically. But I say it, as I say all things, aggressively.

Go ahead and hate me, I wish you would, and I really mean it.

But...listen to John Moore and the other genuine marketing minds and blog pros.

The old economy, with its outmoded broadcast and Impulse Shopping mentality is pure stinking dung.

Read Christopher Locke's GONZO MARKETING, or Al Ries and Jack Trout's POSITIONING: THE BATTLE FOR YOUR MIND or their MARKETING WARFARE.

Do something to get up to speed with the New Marketing Reality.

"Instantly communicate" is Old School, Passe, Outmoded, Hard Sell, Impulse Purchase mentality.

Consumers are networking now. They aren't reading your moldy catalogs and fluffy static web sites. They're reading my blogs, and John Moore, and Johnny Moore, and Laura Ries, Seth Godin, Scobleizer, It Seems to Me, Boing Boing, etc.

Don't say "1%" like it's small "tuned in" percentage. The bloggers are THE thought leaders. And we can destroy any mainstream media or publishing conglomerate in the BLINK of a Gladwell eye.

I wonder why I don't seem to have any Wiley titles in my business book library.

Let's see.

I've got business books from McGraw-Hill, Harvard Business School Press, Dow Jones Irwin, SPC Press, Warner Books, Harper & Row, Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, O'Reilly, Penguin, Portfolio/Penguin, Prentis Hall, Random House, Currency Doubleday, Broadway Books, St. Martin's Griffin, Houghton Mifflin, Owl Books, Running Press, Perseus Publishing...

...oh, here's one: CREDIBIITY by Kouzes & Posner, Jossey Bass, a Wiley Imprint. But this is associated with the Tom Peters Company, so of course I purchased it.

Sorry to have to be so harsh all the time, but I'm dismayed that it took my "Blog AND Die" explanation to persuade you to ditch that very stupid title "Blog or Die"

Does "hyperbole" and "trite" and "unimaginative" mean anything to you?

Wish I could be nice and polite.

I can't. I'm a crippled leper.

[Bren]

Okay, first with the new titles. My favorite is the combo of "Blog It! — Why Conversational Marketing is essential to Business." That combo does what you're looking for with the 'instantly communicate' bit. I'm not totally sold on the "Blog It!" piece, but I am totally sold on the "Why Conversational Marketing is essential to Business" piece.

Runner up is "Let My People Blog" though I definitely get a Moses/Charlton Heston vibe going with that one. If you pick that one, you've got an automatic moral obligation to put Heston and the stone tablets on the cover! :-)

Like some others, "The Red Couch" was growing on me and it seems like that title, along with the "Why Conversational Marketing is essential to Business" tag is a good compromise between literal and hipster. Gotta say, though, "The Red Couch" immediately makes me think of Diamant's "The Red Tent." Probably not exactly an association you'd pursue, but "The Red Tent" is a best seller, so who knows...

[Brian Bailey]

I agree with Jim that an esoteric or nonsensical title should be avoided in certain markets (particularly business) and in situations where the authors name alone does not sell the book. I love "The Red Couch" and it does make it easy to share the title, but as entrenched web people, we are trained that the name is almost irrelevant, along as the service and tool is captivating (orbitz, odeo, google, yahoo, go daddy). I don't think the same rules apply when people are browsing the local bookstore.

My current favorite?

The Power of Many Voices: Reinventing Your Company through Blogs

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

I'm turned off by book titles that are dumbed down.

I would rather eat someone else's vomit than even touch any book that had "...for Dummies" or "Complete Idiot's Guide to..." in the title.

Yes, these titles may sell well. So does crack cocaine.

Shel tells me Jim the Wiley Editor "named" 30 books that were commercially successful. Shel asks "how many have you named?"

Now I admire Shel, and anyone who has the guts to stand up to me with an intelligent and calm response. (I think I could sense his fists balling up, but I can duck a punch pretty quickly...heh.)

Well, I have written advertising and direct marketing material for such clients as Doubleday Book Club, Scholastic, Inc., American Banker magazine, Wall Street Transcript, Advertising Age, Crafts Magazine, and some other publishing accounts...

...but no, I haven't "named" any successful books.

Where does that leave me then? Are my marketing ideas irrelevant?

Let me ask Jim the Wiley Editor: was the success of those 30 books due primarily to their titles? What research do you have to back this up? According to Wiley, or Publishers Weekly, or Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or Borders, how much sales impact does a title have?

I'm sure titles have huge impact. I almost always judge a book by its cover. Especially the back cover, the blurbs. Of course, I inspect the writing inside, too.

I really don't like any of these new proposed titles.

But, if Scoble and Israel's book ends up with a lousy title...maybe that's good news for the new books coming out by me, Jeremy Wright, Hugh Hewitt, Biz Stone, Christopher Locke, Seth Godin, Debbie Weil, and others.

Maybe I'm shooting myself in the foot, and a lot of other feet, by struggling with the marketing and titling of the Scoble/Israel book.

Maybe I should just attend to my own books and blogs and be self-centered, misanthropic, and miserly.

Then again....