‘Brand’ Is Not A Four Letter Word by guest @DVinjamuri
I couldn’t be more pleased to hand the floor over to branding expert, Forbes writer, professor of social media, published author and all-around cool dude, David Vinjamuri. Since branding seems to be one of those elusive concepts many people discuss but few understand, I asked him to elaborate on it for us: authors.
‘Brand’ Is Not A Four Letter Word
Being a professional brand marketer is a little like being a politician, a psychologist or a primary school teacher. Everybody knows something about your job and they are all certain they could do it better than you.
I’ll tell you a secret, though. Branding is not what you think it is. It’s not about selling people something they don’t want, or selling out your own integrity. For authors, it doesn’t mean cheap sales gimmicks or cutting your book into a thousand slices and selling them one by one. It does not even mean that you have to write in a single genre.
Brands exist for a simple reason. There is too much choice. Consumers are paralyzed by it. An average suburban supermarket contains over 100,000 separate, purchasable items. For each entry on your shopping list like “soap,” “cereal” or “tea” there may be as many as 100 choices. If we had to fully evaluate our choices every time we made a purchase, we would spend all day buying groceries.
A brand trades time for money. The consumer says: I like you and I trust you. As long as you don’t disappoint me, I will choose you over others when I see you. You can charge me a little more and work less hard to get my attention. I’ll remember your name the next time I shop. Branding is a promise, pure and simple.
For authors, understanding and developing our brand is vital. Please notice I’m not saying “choosing to brand” or “engaging in branding.” That’s the fallacy that authors who don’t understand consumer marketing would have you believe. The reality is that you do have a brand and you are branding, regardless of whether you are doing it intentionally or accidentally.
Some people have great instincts for branding even if they’re not professional trained, and they build brands that are strong and durable completely accidentally. But whether you think about your brand or not, please understand that you are branding. It’s unavoidable. Consumers have to make choices and when they encounter you they’ll make shorthand impressions and attach those to your name or the title, series name or protagonist in your novel.
If you admit that you’re branding, it only makes sense to try to do it well. This doesn’t mean advertising, selling, promoting or networking. It means understanding the appeal of your books to your readers and making sure that you don’t do anything to detract from it. So what is branding really about? It’s about maximizing the value of that promise to your readers. There are three traits that strong brands share: they are consistent, authentic and unique.
Being consistent means always delivering on your promise to readers. But that promise doesn’t have to be to always deliver a particular character or even genre. The promise could be the pacing of your books, a particular style of writing or even your unique way of viewing the world. If you want to mix up all of these elements, then it’s best to de-emphasize your name and punch up the name of your series and then stay consistent within the series.
Being authentic is about expertise. It’s about being the most believable voice writing what you are writing. But the odds are that if you write romance, you’re not Don Juan. Few science fiction authors are quantum physicists and nobody writing vampire literature is undead (I hope). So your authenticity must come from making your characters and situations completely real, even if they could never have existed in our world. For a writer that means finding the truth, whether it is emotional or factual verisimilitude. It helps if you can create a niche within the genre that nobody else occupies. Then you’re already the expert.
Uniqueness is the hardest challenge in a marketplace where a half-million books get published every year. This is a particular problem for genre literature. As long as we are imitating what others do, it’s hard to be unique. The good news is that there are many ways to be unique. If you have a strong voice, that may be enough. Your wit (as my blog host, Rachel has found) is unique to you. You may write dialogue or description in a distinctive and unique manner (look at Michael Chabon’s descriptions, for instance). Whatever it is, you have to find that unique thing about you and make sure that it shines through. If the people who love your writing best don’t talk about this trait in your writing, it’s probably not what makes you unique.
Branding is just this simple – and this difficult. It’s not about losing your integrity but maintaining it. It’s not about selling out but buying in. It is not about anything you do with your work but about the work itself.
How you talk about it and what you do to promote it has another name.
That’s called marketing.
Please leave your comments, experiences, or questions below for David. 
I encourage you to follow him on Twitter @DVinjamuri, read his books Operator and Accidental Branding on Amazon, and definitely read his column on Forbes.
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About David:
I am a longtime brand guy – mostly from the client side. I write mostly about smart or foolish things that brands do. I teach branding and social media at NYU and for ThirdWay Brand Trainers. Worked in marketing for Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, DoubleClick and others …
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Thanks for this great post! I’ve never really seen the whole “branding” thing broken down into these small bites – you made it very easy to understand (still not easy to implement, but great food for thought.)
Hi Deborah,
Thanks so much. Sometime in the next few months I’ll write something with a lot of specific advice on understanding and staying true to your brand. One good thing to do is to look for familiar themes in your positive (and negative) reviews. It can give you clues about those brand associations …
I’m so glad you commented, Debora! So many people, not only authors, don’t understand branding or are afraid of it. David does a wonderful job of breaking it down and I know his future articles will shed even more light. Best to you!
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I love how David simplifies the concept of branding, and there is some comfort in knowing it’s being done regardless of the effort being put in. The question is: Is it being done well?
To be consistent, authentic and unique sounds simple, but is obviously not, yet I think if we can use these as markers for how we interact socially and in our writing, then we are moving in the right direction.
Branding vs. marketing is also an important distinction. Great piece, David.
eden
Nice article gives a lot of good points on developing your brand.
Thanks, Michelle. I agree! Sometimes it seems confusing but really it’s what we’re already doing and identifying that moving forward. thanks for your comment.
‘Brand’ Is Not A Four Letter Word by guest @DVinjamuri http://t.co/V6tirh3G
Excellent take on branding, David. One of the best insights I’ve read and your words made me look at what I’ve been doing, how I’ve been interacting with others on social media . . . at one point I thought about purchasing a cymbal-slapping monkey.
Thanks for commenting, Justin. We’ve had LOTS of conversations about this and I agree, David breaks it down so well. I love the point that we’re all branding whether we make the effort to or not, so why not embrace it?
xo
Justin,
Thanks, and I’d love to see that monkey if you buy him 🙂
David
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Encore! Encore!
Thanks for the tips. I like how, at the end, you also distinguish between branding and marketing.
Sherri,
A good way to think about the difference between branding and marketing is to think of branding as “who you are and how to stay true to that” and marketing as “how to get people to engage with you”. I realize that’s still a little vague but I will definitely be writing more on this. In the meantime you can read “Positioning, The Battle for the Mind” by Al Ries and Jack Trout.
David
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I could not agree more. The first thing I did when I published my first novel, was to get my author name everywhere I could. Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, everywhere. Very important to protect your brand.
That’s so important, B.Y., absolutely. I find it’s important to purchase domains, blog frequently (at least weekly), and interact. Too many authors make the mistake of only promoting and not engaging.
Thanks so much for your feedback.
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Glad to see the topic tackled for writers. So many of them believe that it all has to do with selling your soul.
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Yes, the “branding thing” has been a little confusing in terms of Branding v.s. Marketing. My perception is that you have to market yourself somewhat before becoming a brand if you want people to start talking about the uniqueness your brand has to offer. The lines are blurry with the branding and sometimes the marketing thing. Been contemplating hiring someone to help with those aspects.
But the one thing I have learned is that I can no longer sit there and say, “I’m a writer, I just want to write things,” and then expect for people to find me or know who I am. Thanks for all the good advice. Now, I shall go and ponder.
Thanks for your reply, A.M. If it’s helpful, here’s been my experience: I was naturally drawn to writing about men and women, relationships, love, loss, and humor. so that became my brand! I used those terms long before I released my book: across social media, in my blog posts, guest posts, interviews — everywhere!
What’s helpful is to think like the reader: what words will they use to look up books? bestselling, top 10, nonfiction, essays, humor…whatever. Then use those words as a guideline for content.
Hope that helps! xo
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Thanks for this article @DVinjamuri! Thanks for hosting, Rachel. This article made me feel better about my branding but also reminded me to stay true to my style.
I’m so glad Wilma. David explained it so well. Thanks for the comment and sharing.
Wilma,
It was a pleasure to contribute to Rachel’s blog. I really want authors to succeed and I believe that being aware of the brand you develop and consciously managing it improves our odds.
David
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