Fiction Branding… Part 7

What Exactly Is A Brand???

Well, the general definition of a brand is pretty easy. It is a product or service that is set out and apart in such a way as to be clear to the public that it can be distinguished from other similar products or services. 

It is also a mark you burn into a horse or cow to show ownership, but we won’t go there, even though the concept is the same.

As I said before, most indie writers (not all) are pretty good and making a series of books identifiable as a unit. So a reader will know from the look (the branding) that the book is part of say a fantasy series by the author.

Indie authors must be very good at the following basic branding.

• Brand to author
• Brand to series
• Brand to genre

All three have to be done right and well to help in discoverability in a world full of books.

Most authors I know are pretty good at series branding and totally miss on the other two, even though they are basic.

Branding to author means that at a glance a reader can tell it is one of the author’s books. This is usually done with the location and design of the name on the cover, but not always.  Fonts on the name can vary slightly by genre, but the overall look is the same from book to book in each genre and in each series. Most of the time, depending on the sub-genre.

Starting to catch on why so many indie writers can’t do this well?

Branding to genre (and series) often includes the look of the art. Sometimes it can change the location of the name because of standards of the genre. This might take an author all of 15 minutes of research to get close to a genre brand, but most indie authors don’t even bother with that much.

Kris has a new Kickstarter campaign starting next week. It is a new book in the Fey world called BARKSON’S JOURNEY and it is stunningly good. Fans of the Fey are going to LOVE this one. Check out the campaign here… Barkson’s Journey

So let me show you an example from that campaign of all three forms of branding done really well. (Author, series, and genre.) Then next installment I’ll talk about the value of these three basics.

Here are the first seven books of the Fey series, reissued as new editions from the really ugly and poorly done Bantam Books editions. Below that is the new cover for Barkson’s Journey. It is the second book in a new series in the Fey world. See how all three of the parts of basic branding hold these books together?