Why author brand is more than annoying marketing stuff

Figuring out who you are

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When I hear the words “author brand” sometimes I default to thinking about things like logos, what colors we associate with Coke, and company letterhead. There’s a part of author brand that’s not particularly interesting to me right now (ie, who you are on social media, or whatever) and a part that is more intriguing: who you are as a writer.

Recently I was talking to another published writer about author brand—I think she may have been talking about how to market herself, or maybe even applying for a residency or something. She said something like, I have an idea of what kind of writer I want to be seen as, but not what I’m actually seen as. I’ll preface this by saying there are many, many things I hate about AI, but one thing it is good for is summarizing. I said she could ask an AI to consider the positive reviews of her books and come up with the top 5 bullet points of things that are repeatedly mentioned. (only the truly brave would ask the same question about negative things..) Now, I don’t really know where the AI is pulling from, but it gives you some idea. I really really wanted readers to think the characters in my second book were super well developed, and would think something went awry if no one said that. Knowing how people respond to your work can help you answer the question “where do I fit in with the market?” You don’t have to use AI to answer this question— you’d just need to either talk directly to people who have read your work—ideally, a lot of your work, like critique partners, or god forbid, read your actual reviews. (Last I checked there are two Chrome extensions where you can limit Goodreads to only show positive reviews of your book.)

Knowing your brand can help you think about things like the direction of your career, marketing ploys, and which of two different ideas for your next book would resonate better with your readers. I think it’s worth sitting down with a pen and paper at some point in your career and rather than just writing. One way of doing this is walking through the 5 critical questions: who, what, where, why, and how.

Who do you write for? The obvious part of this question is do you write adult, young adult, midlist, kitlit, etc. The less obvious question: who is your intended audience? Though I know people across the spectrum read my books, I think a disproportionate number of them are young women. There is a lot of thriller/ psychological suspense out there that is very much about married women, women with children, women with mysterious husbands: that is not my brand. I think my audience relates more to young people than married women who are maybe struggling with the monotony of suburbia, or the trials of being a mother. I’m not a married woman with kids living in suburbia—I probably don’t have interesting things to say about that lifestyle. But though I am not be targeting that audience with my content, I’m hoping that the strength of my work makes it interesting across demographic categories. I know, at least, from meeting with book clubs that black women and gay men like my books. I was hoping between my first and second book, that I could capture more male readers with my second book (I have no idea if that actually happened though) because I would like as broad an audience as I can get. I also know that I am not writing for conservative readers (by conservative, I don’t mean politically really, but the sort of reader who leaves a negative review if the author curses or has semi-explicit sex). I also think my writing contains some elements of meta-commentary about the genres I play with, so I like to think of my readers as smart, savvy, and aware of what is going on in the genre space. They understand that my work is in conversation with other work and that I’m being playful. I also know, somewhat problematically, that I am not writing for a straight, stable genre audience. My background was in literary fiction, but I published a straight psychological thriller, then a book marketed as a mystery, but one could easily call it a horror novel (or as one reader put it “psychological horror.”) This makes it less easy to slot me as a particular genre writer. (I also write and have published sci fi and it’s not outside the realm of reality that I publish in litfic again). This “who” question becomes really important if you’re a multigenre writer like me, because the question is if the who you have identified will follow you from one genre to another.

What do you write? The easier part of this question is just “what genre do you write?” But beyond that, you need to think about what it is you’re doing that is unique, or that you do particularly well? James Michener wrote deeply researched fictional books based on the origins/history of particular locations. Stephen King writers horror or dark fantasy with small town sensibilities. Elena Ferrante writes deeply interior first person focusing on issues that women struggle with. I like to think of myself as writing smart, well-crafted, character oriented fiction, that pushes genre boundaries and is sometimes funny or touching. If you are unusually good at something—say worldbuilding—then absolutely that should be something you lean on as part of your brand.

Where is your fiction taking place? IMHO, all writing should have a strong sense of place, but not all fiction does. “Where” could mean “contemporary New York, specifically, Brooklyn” but it could also mean “Westeros, an island continent struggling with a war for control over the Iron Throne that includes both armies and magic.” You need to do worldbuilding even if your book isn’t science fiction or fantasy. I can’t stand when a book takes place in New York and there’s maybe one mention of the subway and otherwise the book is taking place in some sort of blank space that makes me wonder if the author has even ever been to New York. If you say New York, I want to smell that smell when you walk down the stairs into the subway, I want to know which pizza place they went to, I want to know exactly what type of crazy person accosted them on the street. This is all the more critical if you are writing SFF. If you’re taking us out of a place where we can fill things in (ie, we have all seen New York on TV), you need to fill in all those blank spaces.

Does this mean your where becomes part of your brand? It might. I will be writing more books that take place in DC, and while they don’t all take place there, I would like people to think of me as a DC writer. People know Brandon Sanderson for the worlds he creates. Stephen King writes about Maine but also he created Mid-World, the location where much of the Dark Tower series takes place. James Michener’s brand was literally “I write about places.” Faulkner wrote about the South. They more than wrote stories that took place there, but they also were providing commentary about those places.

Are you a where writer? My first book takes place in DC but isn’t really about DC. My second book, though, is a where book. It’s very much about a particular place, and commentary about that particular type of place (ie, small town suburbia).

Why do you write? Are you writing because you would like people to understand what it is like to have the disability that you have? Are you writing because you want Black kids to see themselves in stories in a way that you couldn’t as a kid? Are you trying to take down capitalism? I have much less lofty goals, and I accept that. I want to entertain people and make them laugh. I want people to gasp, or cry, or laugh or maybe smirk at some commentary I’ve made about how the world works. I personally am not trying to revolutionize the world with my work, but maybe you are. But listen, not everyone is Ta-Nehisi Coates. It’s okay if you’re not. It’s okay to not be an “important” writer. Do you know what books consistently outsell all other books—? Romances. Books that I think many people don’t take seriously at all. Reading about people finding, falling, and being in love is apparently a very big business that makes a lot of people happy.

How do you write? This touches on some of the same stuff as the “what” so you could combine these two if you were writing them up. If people excitedly buy the next Vera Kurian, what are they expecting to see? What would they be disappointed with if it was not there? I think on the spectrum ranging from clean, fast-paced writing to purple prose on the other side, I’m more on the left side of the spectrum. I’m writing humor even if the content is dark. I’m writing character driven fiction even if there is a lot of plot. I think of myself as an old-fashioned story teller: there’s a beginning, middle, and end, and I try to knock down the pins I set up. I like to push the reader into the slightly unexpected. I like to make them feel things they didn’t expect: they find themselves cheering for a psychopath who wants to kill someone; they sympathize with the school mean girl because they see her as more than just that stereotype.

I guess think of it this way: another writer can have the same “what” as you— you both write smutty fairy romantasy. But HOW do you write it differently than everyone else? I mentioned in last week’s post that I wouldn’t fret too much if someone stole one of my ideas because I would write the idea differently and I’m confident in my voice being strong.

Take a few moments to walk yourself through these questions. And, if you’re brave, ask someone who’s read your work (a lot of it) if your ideas are on point.

Sidebar- small announcement!

I wanted to let you all know that I’m going to be (slowly) rolling out a new feature for paid subscribers. I’m going to start doing audio posts, to include my own reading of older posts in addition to some fiction. The audio version of older posts would probably include some commentary here and there, and, if people want, I could do audio versions of responses to questions if people want to send me them. The reason I’m doing this is that my posts are long enough so that someone could do something like walk their dog while listening to a post, and some people learn more listening than by reading. (Also, people keep complimenting me on my voice.) The fiction will be short stories or cut scenes/ chapters from my books with some commentary/ backstory afterwards—this is more directed at superfans of my fiction than the would-be writers that make up the majority of my subscribers. I won’t be doing it often, so I’m not going to set it up as a separate newsletter. I also will not be sending the posts to free subscribers with an annoying “you have to pay to listen to this.” I personally find that annoying though I get why Substackers do it.

I will likely be selecting the audio posts based on my favorites, but if you have specific requests, DM me.

Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash