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Fiction Branding… Part 8
Here We Go…. I have come at fiction branding from a number of different directions in the first seven posts, not counting the “small author name” post. But as I have said, that is only the basics and most writers can’t even do all the basics of marketing well not from lack of skill but just from lack of being willing to study a little. So to make this as simple as I can, let me break up fiction branding into three major areas. 1… Marketing (discoverability… what I have been talking about so far) 2… Value (copyright and trademark) 3… Licensing (products and derivative sales) There is a fourth…
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Small Name Writers…
Something I Find Stunning… Readers buy book by not only what their front brain thinks of the sales copy and the cover, but more than that, readers (all of us) buy books because of subconscious clues. Clues like: —Cover art not professional — Cover art not to genre or book title impossible to read — Book sales copy dull and passive and gives too much plot away. — Book interior so poorly formatted as to be impossible to read. There are others, but one major clue that helps readers trust that the book is done by a professional and it will be entertaining is the size of the author name…
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ANTHOLOGY WORKSHOP DETAILS…
Wow, Will This Be Fun! Those of you already signed up, no worries, I will be contacting you in a few weeks or so. But right now I wanted to let everyone know we have the editors all lined up. First let me tell you how this works. Months ahead of time, through me, the editors all send out guidelines for their anthologies. You have a deadline to write each story for each anthology. Usually one week.) All the editors read every story, even if the story is for another anthology. Then during the workshop all the editors up front comment on the story, usually a —“I really liked this…
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The Write Stuff Storybundle Launched…
Curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch This is an amazing group of writing books and one of our workshops in one Storybundle. Let me have Kris tell you about it. THE 2024 WRITE STUFF BUNDLE The 2024 Write Stuff Bundle – Curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Every year, I put together a bundle on writing. Every year, I find new concerns and ways to help writers market their work. I also find inspiration books on craft and keeping the faith as writers struggle with the blank page. This year’s bundle has four distinct elements. First, the all-important craft. J. Daniel Sawyer teaches you how to put words on the page…
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Expanding Your Market…
Sell Dozens of Things vs One Thing… I will be talking about this concept some in the branding series, but because I had some comments and emails on this topic, I figured I would address it head-on. I have been talking about the future of indie publishing is Shopify stores. I got a couple of comments and four different emails pushing back on this and asking why I was feeling this way. Answer boils down to simple math, actually. Let’s say a writer has one series of 12 books and 12 short stories not in the series. 24 items to sell through Amazon, Kobo, D2D and the rest. Great. Not…
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Fiction Branding… Part 6
One More Preliminary Suggestion… Before getting into more details on branding in general. The suggestion: Have a Shopify store. Is it possible to build a brand with only books selling through Amazon and other bookstores world wide? Sure. My gut sense is that unless you have been living under a rock for the past 15 years or sticking your head in the traditional publishing cesspool, you have already been branding your own series. More than likely you have branded to genre. And your author name has a brand if you got out of your own way and didn’t hide your name in small print at the bottom of the cover.…
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Fiction Branding… Part 5
Not All Stories Are Created Equal… I hate to bring up this topic, but sort of needed for this series right about now. Why do I hate saying that not all stories are suited for branding? Because writers have the lowest opinions of their own work and will automatically take this as an excuse to not bother on some stories or series that could be branded. Here is the reality. Just because you can’t yet think of how a brand would even happen with a series of stories or novels does not mean it can’t happen. And the reverse is true. Just because you think a series of stories would…
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Fiction Branding… Part 4
Stories Don’t Spoil… But wow can authors kill them. I have to deal with this topic before I can move on into branding and how to do it and the reasons for it. Back in the day (say the 1960s through the 1990s), writers would sell a short story and then toss it into a file cabinet. A lucky few stories got reprinted, but the attitude was that once a story was published (no matter the market), it had spoiled and was no longer of value. Writers did this with books as well. I can’t begin to tell you about the hundreds of boxes of manuscripts, proofs, and spoiled matter…
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The Fndaway Stupidity…
Kris Took The Time To Really Explain What Happened… It is on her Patreon page, but she made it open to the public at my request. https://www.patreon.com/posts/fallacy-of-99566685 Kris and I for decades now have pushed writers to really understand business. What Findaway did was clear and obvious to anyone who understands business and negotiations. Sadly most writers thought this was a victory as they were being played. Read Kris’s post and then start the process of learning business and basic negotiations. And get out of Findaway at once.
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Fiction Branding… Part 3
Too Much of a Good Thing… Lots of varied kinds of branding that I’m going to talk about in this series. But for the moment I want to stay on the type of branding most indie writers do very well, and that is making their books look like they are in the same series. This kind of branding is a basic part of marketing and selling. So for the four books of Bryant Street ( the Kickstarter is over and thank you all), I thought it would be a cool idea for me to take the street sign that we had used to brand the Bryant Street books and recover…