Defining Your Brand

So, we’ve done some research into what our readers like about our books, and we’ve looked at what readers like—and don’t like—about the competition (yes, I know we’re all supposed to be one big supportive writing community, but we’re talking marketing here). Now what?

Now we look at our readers’ comments, and think about our books, and come up with a list of what makes our books interesting, attractive and different. We add to this list anything that makes us, as writers, interesting, attractive and different. Why? Because while it may not be fair, the truth is that if you’re young and pretty and graduated from Harvard or Oxford, it will help sell your book.

This is the tricky part. To quote marketing guru Malcolm Schwarzenbach, “The real genius is in the editing.” Getting this part right requires an intuitive, up-to-the-minute grasp of our current culture—everything from the emergence of a “sustainability” movement (which, since it’s about saving us instead of saving the world, seems to have caught on in a way the Green movement never did) to “casual collapse” (the loosening up of society, less attractively known as cultural decadence) to political trends. Ask yourself, What’s going on out there that’s interesting and that connects with me and my books? Who out there would buy what I’m writing?

This is where knowing and understanding the competition helps. What else is out there that people are buying? Why are they successful? What is the market crying out for?

This is also where I have a hard time. Having lived so much of my life abroad, I am woefully out of step with modern America (I still remember the time when I was visiting my mother from the Middle East and noticed a magazine near the checkout in Borders; I asked my companion, “Who is Oprah?” and twenty people turned around and STARED at me.). I don’t watch TV. I get my news from international sources online, although I have started checking abcnews every day just so I have some insight into the “news” most people are seeing (so yes, I do know the latest in Britney’s life). If you’re culturally challenged like me, you may need some help here. The trick, as I understand it, is figuring out what is unique and different about your books, and yet not too unique and different. Even I know that now is not the time to try to sell a thriller with a hero named Mustafa Haddad.

To look at our earlier examples, What was so interesting about Anne Rice’s vampires? My guess is New Orleans and sex. Tom Clancy? Uh…I know guys like gadgets and…somebody help me out here.

Anyway, in pondering all these questions, I’ve concluded that the selling points of my Sebastian St. Cyr series are:
*fast pacing and action-packed suspense
*a sexy, Regency-era hero (hey; sex sells)
*my own background as a professional historian
I’d like to try to work in some of the other things people said they liked about my books, but I can’t see how to encapsulate those important aspects of my work into an easily conveyed image or tagline.

Now, having decided on our brand, the next step is to figure out how we convey that image to the world. I’ll talk about that next week.

Author Branding, Part Two: Market Research

In my last post, I talked about the concept of author branding. Today I’m going to look at the first step in creating an author brand: research. This involves asking some questions. The most obvious question to address is, What do my readers like about my books? This tells us what to stress. After all, we don’t simply want to attract readers to our books; we want to attract the readers who will LIKE our books. You see, branding isn’t about telling lies; it’s about recognizing what’s unique and interesting about each of us, and then using it to sell our books.

While it isn’t always possible to get either an honest or an informed answer, for published authors, an obvious place to start our research is with reviews of our books. (Unfortunately, while this will work for my Sebastian series, I don’t have that option with my up-coming thriller series; more about that later.) Unpublished authors can canvas all the writing colleagues, friends, and relatives who’ve read their manuscripts over the years.

So, what do my readers say they like about my Sebastian St. Cyr series? The most frequent responses are, in no necessary order: fast-pacing; complex, richly layered plots; action and suspense; historical accuracy that takes readers into all strata of Regency society; an ensemble of strong characters including a sexy hero; the overarcing mystery in the hero’s personal life (interestingly, the last is inevitably mentioned in person but rarely in written reviews).

For comparative purposes, I then looked at two very different bestselling historical mysteries from 2007: Mistress of the Art of Death and Silent in the Grave (neither of which I have read, so I have no personal prejudices here). Both have female protagonists. “Mistress” is a gritty story about the murder and sexual mutilation of children, set in the time of Henry II (“CSI meets Canterbury Tales”). “Silent” is a cozy set in Victorian England. So, what did the readers of these books like? Fans of “Mistress” repeatedly mention the strong female protagonist, the fascinating historical tidbits and CSI-like forensic details, the secondary romance, and the literary snob appeal of the Chaucer link. Fans of “Silent” liked the strong female protagonist, the Victorian setting, the clothing details, the secondary romance with a dark and mysterious stranger, and the humorous, breezy voice.

I also glanced at what readers of these books said they did NOT like. The secondary romance in “Mistress” annoyed many readers; no one complained about it in “Silent.” This tells me that readers attracted to cozy period mysteries are happy with a romance, whereas at least some readers of “gritty” mysteries will find it an annoyance. Various readers complained of historical inaccuracies. In certain cases these complaints were valid (activities in Victorian England that, while possible, would have raised eyebrows rather than merely earning indulgent smiles; a medieval cholera plague when cholera didn’t actually hit Europe until the 19th century; Sephardic Jews speaking Yiddish, etc); in other cases readers complaining about historical inaccuracies were actually wrong themselves. Some readers of “Mistress” found the prose awkward. Some readers of “Silent” found the breezy voice annoying, and the “strong” female protagonist an idiot. One of my readers said reading my book caused her to suffer what she called “chase-anxiety;” she prefers less suspenseful, less action-packed mysteries with no sex. Several other readers found Sebastian too liberal-minded for their tastes (scary thought). I also know from a link I belong to (CrimeThruTime) that many historical mystery fans didn’t even pick up “Mistress” because they don’t like reading about serial killers of children. Inevitably, the very aspect of a book than attracts some readers will turn off others.

Armed with this kind of information, the author-in-search-of-a-branded-identity then needs to ask some more questions. What is it about my books and about me as a writer that’s different or unique? Who out there would buy what I’m writing? What else is out there that people are buying? What is the market crying for? How do I connect with my readers?

More on that next time.