You know your author brand. Now what?
Remember last week, when we talked about author branding being an introduction?
When you introduce yourself to someone, you don’t regurgitate your whole life story in minute detail with footnotes and color commentary. You give snippets of information, as a way to gauge commonality. Generally, what you decide to share further is based on the context of your listener and your environment.
For example, if you’re at a job fair, you’re going to say “I’m a certified welder” as opposed to “I can fit forty grapes in my mouth at a time”… a fun fact which you might share at, say, a competitive eating convention.
For writers, context is genre, sub-genre, and category.
How do you describe your story?
If you meet someone and volunteer you’re a writer, the first question they ask is: “Oh, what do you write?”
Lots of people muddle this because they think of all of the nuances of their story. But one of the quickest ways to start is by narrowing down that context.
“It’s a romantic comedy about…”
“It’s a political thriller about…”
“It’s an upmarket literary novel about…”
Keep in mind, this is a jumping off point. If you don’t know what genre you’re in, it makes it very hard to find your Right Reader… because you don’t know where to target.
(If you want to deep dive into how to choose your genre, and the different genre experiences – and you should – you can always pick up my book Genre & Voice, which goes into more detail. Otherwise, looking at the top 20-50 bestselling books per category and then looking at their five star reviews, and 1 star reviews, will give you a sense of what people look for and what people don’t want in any particular genre.)
Find some comps.
Some authors have difficulty picking a genre, or coming up with an elevator pitch, because their book is “too unique.”
It’s cross-genre… possibly across multiple genres.
Or it’s a “radical re-imagining” of a genre.
Or it doesn’t really fit any genre. So what are you to do?
This is, in fact, a problem… and as my teenaged son would say, it is a skill issue.
In my experience, it’s not that your book is so incredibly unique it can’t be categorized. It’s that your perception of your book’s subject matter and positioning is skewed, causing you to botch the landing and cause your audience to miss you entirely. (Again, see Genre & Voice for a more comprehensive explanation.)
Usually, you’re either placing it in the wrong genre or missing where the “primary” appeal is in your book. Knowing what genre expectations are, and what you’re most likely to appeal to, will go a long way here.
In rare instances, your work might be extremely experimental: slipstream, collections of micro-fiction, or even taking traditional genres but tackling them in a wildly different stylistic manner (removing punctuation like quotation marks or commas, for example, or writing in second person past throughout without identifying the narrator.)
What you’re going to do is look at the existing genres and subgenres, and find books that are marginally successful and would be enjoyed by you and your readers.
If you don’t enjoy any successful books in a genre, I would strongly advise that you not write for that genre.
Start wide, then zero in.
Just because you have comps and a set genre and/or subgenre does not mean that you need to sand off all your edges and become a generic, homogenized story. Far from it.
I mentioned that I recently wrote a post that touches on this for Writer Unboxed. You absolutely do NOT want to describe your book as “will appeal to all ages/genders/etc.” Because frankly, your book won’t, no matter how universal the themes. (The article also covers why writers have to push boundaries a little harder now than previously in order to succeed. You might want to read it for that, too.)
So you’re going to look at where your book does stand apart, while still emphasizing reader satisfaction.
An example in specificity.
Here’s a silly example. You’re opening a restaurant. If you put up a sign that says FOOD on it, that’s not helpful. Even if you say AMAZING GOOD FOOD, you’re not getting a lot of takers.
So you narrow it down: AMAZING PIZZA.
You’re on the right track. But there are twenty pizzerias in a five-block radius, so your adjective probably isn’t convincing enough.
What you’re going to do then is make sure that what you do best is communicated clearly.
You’ll call it MARGHERITA’S FINE PIZZAS in the signage and in the window and emphasize that it’s hand-crafted with local grown artisan ingredients on the menu and in any sales copy.
Or, conversely, you’ll call it FAT SLICE and emphasize that it’s so Detroit-styled you can practically hear Motown as you gobble it down. Only has three options but it knocks them all out of the park.
That is not to say that pizza aficionados won’t necessarily eat both from time to time. They’re not mutually exclusive: pizza fans, like readers. contain multitudes.
But to try to serve both is to court disaster. It becomes a squishy mess of indecisiveness, a marketing nightmare that confuses potential new fans and turns away your audience before they can even try your work.
Fine! I know my brand, my genre, my audience… how do I get those sales?
A lot of authors act like there are hunting grounds for readers… and feel like the reason they’re not making sales is because they haven’t discovered these mythical biomes, where their perfect reader is just waiting to throw cash at them.
These authors take a lot of courses. They look for secret social media tricks. Advertising hacks. Lists of booktokkers who can help them go viral.
But ultimately, it’s not about using new tricks, tips, and tools. It’s about positioning yourself correctly. Understanding what you have, where it fits, and why an existing market would connect with it.
Then communicating that, clearly, consistently, and (somewhat) relentlessly.
These are crucial. If you don’t have that nailed down, all the rest simply will not work.
Next week: marketing tools and troubleshooting.
Next week, we’re going to get a bit more granular about making your brand a beacon, using marketing tools more effectively, and troubleshooting why you might be having problems.
If you have any questions in the meantime, please email me.