I like these:

THE GOODS: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are

BOUGHT & PAID FOR: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are

The title should probably be written out as text on a Neighborhoodie…

I like I’M WITH THE BRAND! The others all strike me as relatively weak brand statements. Your first choice matches your wit, tone and point-of-view. These others don’t.

A playwriting teacher once told me that my play titles were too provocative, too strong, too clever–that play titles need to be vague in order to appeal to the largest possible audience (the first of which, in his mind, was the artistic staff at any Regional Repertory Theatre, people with reputations for producing easily-digestible products).

A lot of the titles for books like yours, books that uncover and unpack the more nefarious aspects of consumer culture and capitalism, strike me as following my old teacher’s school of thought–be bland, open-ended, mildly enticing, but don’t be clever (or, to me, compelling). (I can’t cite examples at the moment because I can’t remember any of the actual titles. I’ll peruse my bookshelves for examples to cite next time.)

Does the book industry require writers to give their books bland titles (leaving all the heavy lifting to the subtitle)? Does it improve sales?

But I’ll try to be constuctive. THE GOODS is okay. It’s sort of clever with its (at least) two levels of meaning (It’s about products, GOODS. And Rob Walker has THE GOODS on this whole consumerism thing.) But I think it’s not half as clever as I’M WITH THE BRAND. Perhaps it’s as clever as a major publisher is willing to go?

I WANT works better for me. I guess it’s my favorite, and it’s the one most likely to drive my intent to purchase and my likelihood to recommmend to a friend. I like the directness. And I like the (at least) two levels of meaning. I WANTeverything/this book. And I WANTfor self control as an active consumer. This particular bit of cleverness speaks to me more than does THE GOODS but less than I’M WITH THE BRAND.

THE DESIRE CODE seems to me the sort of title I would expect a book like this to have if published by a major publisher. It feels like the product of a marketing team. It has Code in it, like THE DA VINCI CODE. It has Desire in it, like, well, all kinds of things. It has The in it, and who amonst us does not love The? It might catch my eye and get me to pick it up and peruse it at Borders.

BUYING IN. I’m not buying in on this one.

Random House–please reconsider I’M WITH THE BRAND. It catches the eye, engages the mind, and economically summarizes (in a good bumper-sticker-like way) R. Walker’s public works in this field.

(Alas, I didn’t read my Journal of Murketing Newsletter soon enough to get in on the giveaway. But I will gladly thwart The Man by using a portion of His monthly remunerations for my work-product to get myself a copy next Spring, whatever (despite) the title. Congratulations, and good luck!)

Before I put up my “no email” plea, a friend sent this, so I add it here to the public comments:

“The Desire Code sounds like a bad business book, and I am sure that yours isn’t. Kind of cheesy and lame to play off of a literary phenomenon that peaked a couple of years ago.

“Buying In also sounds like a bad business book, but one about leadership and management that would have the subhead: How to get your team to follow you wherever you lead.

“The Goods is pretty good, but it’s maybe too generic.

“I Want, I like. It’s distinctive and it makes me curious to learn more. Paired with the subhead, it piques my interest more than the alternatives.”

I also say I Want is the strongest, punchiest.

The Goods sounds too to me too much like rubrics in the Times’ special/regular mags etc (The Get, etc…).

Buying In sounds like a poker reference.

Congrats on the approaching pub date. I look forward to reading it.

I’m with 4percent, of the options I’m for the non-option of I’M WITH THE BRAND. If I had to pick THE GOODS would be it.

Congrats On Finishing the Book!

Congratulations on the book! Can’t wait to read it.

The Desire Code strikes me, as it does others, as overly derivative–not just of The DaVinci Code but, more to the point, of Clotaire Rapaille’s The Culture Code, which is also about marketing and branding.

I’m picky about titles and subtitles that begin with the same word. So I’d nix The Goods, even though it has a strong double meaning.

I’m favoring the verb titles. I like the double meaning of Buying In, and–not being a poker player–I didn’t get that association.

But my money’s on I Want. It’s distinctive: so many book titles are formulaic (have you ever counted all the books titled “The End of …”?), and this one feels fresh and vigorous. It’s bald, aggressive, avaricious: the naked id of consumerism. And it fully supports the subtitle, and vice versa: “I want” is the beginning of the dialogue that continues with other verbs (“I spend,” “I regret,” etc.).

I want it.

Thanks for the feedback everybody, I really appreciate it. I’ll let you know the final decision — which I now see is sure to annoy somebody, no matter what we do — as soon as it’s made.