News & Opinion

Name your own Big Idea Book.

October 18, 2007

Share

This month's issue of Wired had an activity that we, and business book authors and industry folks, got a kick out of. It was concocting a best selling book using Wired's "Patent-Pending Big Idea Book Generator. " With this patent-pending Big Idea Book GeneratorTM, we provide the title, subtitle, and premise.

This month's issue of Wired had an activity that we, and business book authors and industry folks, got a kick out of. It was concocting a best selling book using Wired's "Patent-Pending Big Idea Book Generator."
With this patent-pending Big Idea Book GeneratorTM, we provide the title, subtitle, and premise. All you need to do is pick a random object to serve as a cryptic representation of your Big Idea on the cover (we chose a peanut) and, well, write it. Hey, that's what ghostwriters are for!
Ever wonder how people come up with titles like "Freakonomics," "The Long Tail," or "The World is Flat" ? They probably didn't use this calculator, but there is something to say about the science of the best seller title.
Your title needs to both summarize your Big Idea and introduce a new term. It sounds tough, but we've made it easy.
You can put together your main title and subtitle, and then choose a premise for the book. Using their suggestions, here's an absurd combination I came up with: Title: Innovation and the Meme: A Transformative Measurement of Dynamic Change in Everything. Premise: How Hidden Wisdom Transforms the Power of Unconscious Thought. Great! Now all I have to do is write the book. [smiles] What did you come up with?

We have updated our privacy policy. Click here to read our full policy.