Branding Yourself
Ich lerne Deustch jetzt. Warum? Because I’m a geek, that why. And if you think this is at all related to Der Glöckner von Notre Dame, then you would be absolutely correct. Also, because I want to be able to end conversations with tchüß! and auf wiedersehn! without sounding pretentious or like I’m putting on airs.
Just do it.
But my desire for polyglotism aside, an interesting topic came up in today’s editorial meeting that sort of sparked a blog post. And, knowing me, it will run on for 1000 words or more, but I think it’s pretty important: branding.
In publishing, the craft and artistry of a “novel” as a concept often overshadows the notion of a “book” as a product. We are in the business of selling books, which includes specific “brands”, i.e. the author. In particular, we were discussing a really talented author who had some decent sales but was hard to “pin down”, so to speak.
Said author wrote a few novels in one genre, then another, was published in trade paperback original, then single title hardcover, etc. Author’s previous publishing house didn’t effectively “brand” the writer and our challenge (should we take this person on) was to figure out a way to, well, “sell the brand”.
There are lot of interesting psychological studies on “branding”, but I want to discuss this tricky idea of an author brand.
