Authors, Writers, Publishers, and Book Readers

Do Authors Need to Build Brands? (You Don’t LOOK Like a Box of TIDE)

A very good article on building your author brand.

Here’s a small demonstration: Does the name Stephen King conjure something different for you than the name J.K. Rowling? What about Dan Brown, Elizabeth Gilbert, Jodi Picoult? Or Malcolm Gladwell, Joan Didion, Seth Godin? What association appears for a second or so when you first see each name?

People Brands Aren’t Product Brands

Whatever that instant of recognition is composed of, it’s there because that author’s brand put it there. Each association is complex and meaningful — unlike the association you’d experience for a brand of laundry detergent.

Article

How have you been building your author brand? Do you feel you need to?

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Permalink Reply by Larry A Cochran on June 20, 2011 at 2:35pm

Building a personal brand is akin to good social networking, but building an author brand has to also include the content to which the author is speaking. I think that the author needs a brand prior to writing in order to ensure a following of some kind. It is much harder to be a writer pushing content no one is interested in. Also, the fields are so crowded, how can an author differentiate from others within a genre. I am in the process of continuing to build a personal brand and working slowly on adding the author brand. Being an unknown is not a great way to start out as an author.