Unless you are Stephen King, John Grisham or Nora Roberts, as a writer you will have to learn how to market your books. An important part of that is Brand building. Now if you’re like me, business classes are those credits offered while most of us took ethics classes ;-). Actually, they were the classes that made my head hurt and thus they needed to be avoided.
Which is fine for my day job in the laboratory.
But since most writers would like to have a well-padded wallet, we need to keep studying the business end of publishing and branding is part of it. Low and behold, on a day I was feeling adventurous and had lots of aspirin on had, a blurb came across one of my many loops mentioning a book on Brand Building. The book is Market or Die: Sensible Brand Building Advice for Writers by Jennifer Fusco.
Now maybe it’s just me but when the word Die is mentioned, I tend to take note. Clicking on my friend, amazon.com, I pulled up the book. Kindle was cheaper but I don’t have a kindle, so I opted for the print book.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Until it finally shipped then arrived. My husband read it first as it was a small book. My husband is not really a reader of books, just magazines, newspapers and news stories on the internet. He said I had homework to do.
Hmmm. Homework? I usually only have that when my children are in school. But, I tucked the book into my bag and took it to work. I read it, thought I understood it, then read it again. Although written in plain English, my brain filtered it through the Businessese language first–looking for logic or sanity without really expecting to find any. Results will vary by reader.
On the second read through, I caught on to most of what she wrote about brand. Then she asked three simple questions. Being that I write horror, scifi/fantasy, and paranormal romance, this posed quite a challenge. Still I worked and worked at it until I arrived at something I thought described all my stories.
Then I tried it on a friend who’s read my work and is brutally honest.
Close, but not quite right.
She gave me a tip that might help you. Compile a list of words that fit those descriptions and then go to a thesaurus for more–somewhere will be the right one for you.
Market or Die is an excellent place to start for authors to understand what a brand is and how you go about creating one for your books. As for spreading your brand, it is sufficiently vague to give you an overview of marketing without getting bogged down in the nuts and bolts, that change pretty much daily as the internet sphere expands into the real world.
Author Linda Andrews
Linda Andrews Tweets
- Friday Fun Fact authorlindaandrews.com/2021/01/15/fri… 2 days ago
- Organizing authorlindaandrews.com/2021/01/13/org… 4 days ago
- Writing but not producing authorlindaandrews.com/2021/01/11/wri… 6 days ago
- Friday Fun Fact authorlindaandrews.com/2021/01/08/fri… 1 week ago
- Reading Challenge authorlindaandrews.com/2021/01/06/rea… 1 week ago
Meta
-
Recent Posts
Archives
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
Categories