Thursday, April 23, 2009

Branding

Yesterday, I talked about readers’ expectations. What can cause a reader to expect a certain tone or outcome from YOUR writing and something utterly different from someone else’s? It’s a little thing called branding. But what is branding and how does it work? Here are two examples:

1) Let’s say Judy strolls down the romance aisle in her favorite Barnes and Noble. She happens to come across your book. She’s never heard of you before, but feels the back cover blurb was interesting enough to take a risk and buy the novel. What’s Judy’s expectation? That your book will follow the same “formula” as other romance novels she’s read and loved. She wants the hero and heroine to meet fairly early in the story, but that something will keep them apart. By the end, they will conquer that conflict and live happily ever after.

Judy’s expectation: ROMANCE. Why? Because your book was placed on the shelf with other romance novels and most likely had the word romance written on its spine.


2) Michelle has bought every book you’ve written thus far and has been excitedly awaiting your next masterpiece to hit the bookstores. When that finally happens, she rushes to the “New Arrivals” shelves and grabs the book without reading the back cover. She loves your work and KNOWS this novel will be as great or better than the last.

Michelle’s expectation: CONSITENCY. What do you think would happen to Michelle’s expectations if she was accustomed to your romantic stories only to discover your new novel was about flying monkeys and how they escaped from a lab on Mars?

Branding has a lot to do with your readers’ expectations. They associate your name to a certain type of writing including the style, tone, and genre you write. This is why agents and editors will tell you it’s dangerous to write a little bit of this and a little bit of that. They recommend you stick to one genre for example and build a following. Does this mean you will forever be writing romances when there’s a mystery novel brewing in the depths of your core? No, but it does mean you have to be smart about how and when you present this new genre to your readers. Some authors, like Nora Roberts, have chosen to use a pseudonym so their readers know what to expect when they pick up the book. Nora Roberts = Romance. J.D. Robb = “In Death” series. Other authors have kept their name and tried to please both their readers and themselves by releasing one novel in their original genre and another in the new genre the same year. This is a little riskier and can alienate some of their followers, but certain authors are successful with this system.

Have you thought about branding? If you’re not published, now’s the time to decide what your brand will be. So, what IS your brand?

15 comments:

  1. Hi Lynnette,

    Another great topic! I'm targeting Steeple Hill Love Inspired and Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense lines, so I didn't want to shove myself in a corner as far as the suspense went.

    I thought about what themes my writing always have and, at a deeper level, who am I as a writer?

    My brand:

    Sweet, Emotional, Sparkling Romance

    That sums up my writing--and me too!

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  2. This is such a smart post. And true--we've got to think about ourselves in terms of a brand in order to fulfill all sorts of reader expectations.

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  3. My brand is middle grade fantasy. I loved to read it as a kid, and I still read it now!

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  4. love this post! very well spoken...er, typed. :)

    my brand is therapeutic romance (um, i created this one). my tag: where romance meets therapy.

    so i try hard to have posts from a therapist's perspective that can help other writers strengthen their work. we'll see where it gets me...it's in the beginning stages. :)

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  5. This is hard for me because I do like to write a little bit of this and that. I think that's why I commonly place my books in the "contemporary" genre because they all have similar elements that link them together, but not all are specifically suspense or specifically romance, etc. It's working okay for me now but I'll see how it goes.

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  6. This is a great post! I have thought about branding, yes, but I'm not sure what it is I am yet. I'm thinking suspense mixed with literary and a dash of romance. That seems to be what I always do, so I suppose that's my brand, and I love it!

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  7. Hmmm, this is really helpful for a aspiring writer, me :)! I must think on your wisdom here.

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  8. Great topic. I had this exact same discussion with my friend who warned me not to try and toe the line between Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. Pick one and settle in for the long haul.

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  9. I think about branding often but still don't know what I'm going to label myself. LOL

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  10. I think of my writing style, voice, POV, whatever as down home, which goes well with my womens fiction project...sorta just like my blog. :)

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  11. As a reader, I totally rely on an author's brand and certainly have expectations of their work -- as a writer, I tend to want to push against those limitations. In the end, I know these are things we need to pay close attention to.

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  12. It's a toughy when you don't follow the rules, that's for sure. :P Great post. It's definitely something worth thinking about.

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  13. Interesting thought. I've been reading Gabriel Marquez and strangely I've come to expect "inconsistency" in his choice of characters, and storylines (in the context of his other works), and would be disappointed to have any two of his books run as in a 'series'.

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  14. Great topic, and something I should probably think about more often. My general plan is just to play around with whatever genres I want until one of them (hopefully) gets published and then I will start building my brand in whatever place I happen to be at that time.

    Yeah, it's not the best plan, but it's all I've got right now;)

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  15. My first book was kind of Women's Fiction, because it had a little of everything with a twist. Think "Friends" meets "24" LOL. Maybe that's why no agent wants it? :)

    Now I'm writing a paranormal romance. So who knows where I'll land!

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