Books First, Then Brand -- Not the Other Way Around

Branding. The latest concept to trickle down into the writing world. Every writer now, in addition to writing, must build a brand. Build it and never stray forever after beyond its narrow (though hopefully long) shadow. And how does one build one's brand? You need a motto. Preferably a sentence fragment. In italics.

Like most trickle-down concepts, branding is worth consideration. But when it comes to practical application, there's often something lost in the process. As a result, a lot of really laughable nonsense passes under the banner of branding (like the aforementioned catch-phrases). So what's my formula? It's simple.

Put yourself on the page. Consistently. Find a way to describe the result. Italics optional.

In other words, the brand should emerge from the writing, not the other way around. Write the best you can, and you'll please readers in a particular set of ways. That network of pleasure forms future expectations, and if you deliver on those hopes (that's where the consistency comes in), you get a reputation. Your brand distills that reputation and starts to influence your future choices. If you stop fulfilling on expectations, or fulfill a different set of them, you'll confront the question of whether this helps or hurts your brand.

That's an organic way of approaching the problem. Marketing departments can create brands overnight -- logos, core values, founding narratives, corporate mythology -- simulating the organic process, and because writers are led to expect they'll be their own marketing departments (which is probably true in most cases), they try and do the heavy lifting themselves. They hope that their "brand" will give readers something to buy into. Sometimes it works, but in most cases I think a homemade brand comes off a lot like a homemade website or brochure. In other words, you'd be better off in most cases not to have it -- saying nothing rather than saying something stupid.

Brands are discovered more often than they're invented, that's all I'm trying to say, so any approach to the problem that treats books no different than widgets and authors like software developers isn't going to be a perfect fit.

Still, if you aren't a marketing whiz and can't afford one, but you still think you need a brand, what are you to do? I'll say it again: Put yourself on the page. Consistently. Find a way to describe the result. Italics optional. Paying the professionals is the easy way. The hard way takes time. But you're better off discovering who you are from your writing than deciding in advance on an identity and then trying to bootstrap yourself into the part.

Comments

[Kathleen Popa]

I love your advice, Mark. It's certainly timely. At a recent conference I attended Mart Martin's excellent class on branding. I came home and dutifully set to work on my tag line, and I was surprised at how easily it came to me, and how sure I was that I'd at least come close to something I could live with for a long time. I think it's because I'd done exactly what you suggested - I'd written enough that I had a good sense of what my writing would always be about. And the tag I came up with was not too narrow - I think that's important. I wanted plenty of room to progress and evolve. And I put it in parentheses, not italics.

"Put yourself on paper." I love that. Thanks.

[David Todd]

Brand yourself.
Establish a platform.
Create a website.
Have your own blog.
Commit to doing more marketing than your publisher will.
Become a marketing guru.
Non-fiction sells better.
Build relationships in the publishing industry.
Attend conferences to begin the last item.
Show, don't tell.
Third person limited, not first person.
Active, not passive, voice.
Avoid modifiers.
Know publishable page limits before you start.
Write what you know.
Research.
Revise, revise, revise.
Write fast.

Am I missing anything, short of conversing with the Divine about the whole thing?

[Nicole]

Wow. Mark, congratulations on the 3 book deal from Bethany House! Woo-Hoo! It was only a matter of time.