Comments on: It’s the brand stupid

By: Romance Books Online

Romance Books Online — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 14:08:57 +0000

[...] It’s the brand stupid [...]

By: Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Carolyn Howard-Johnson — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:46:59 +0000

Danuta: It appears that we are barking at the same tree. Your blog on branding. That’s probably why Nadine Laman (a friend of yours? ) sent me your link. I talk about branding frequently in my newsletter but it all started back in my publicist/marketing days. You might be interested in my book The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won’t. I’d love to hear from you. hojonews @ aol.com

Carolyn Howard-Johnson

By: Martyn Daniels

Martyn Daniels — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:08:51 +0000

Danuta
I read yor article with great interest as i have agreed to write a Brave New World ; Chapter two which will look at the digitisation issues in publishing from the author perspective.
What i struggle with is who’s brand is it? Is the brand the author, the genre, the publisher, the reatiler or all of the above? Who owns what brand and is responsible for its development and promotion? In the long tail world can we have long tail branding and how does that differ from front list branding?
My questions are about who actually is responsible for the long haul or are we still stuck in the 13 week window syndrome that has plagued book publishing and is not about developing direct marketing and brand marketing but simply mass marketing?
Why do agents cutthe deal and often run? Are they the business manager or merely the dating agents or eastate agents that only provide introducory services?
Why expect an editor to do more than shape, edit and position titles they aren’t marketeers?
Why expect a publisher to do more than promote and sell books? The author could be with them for a long time or move on and afterall the relationship is based on a deal which is based on sales. If the brand is owned by the author then do they have sufficient say in it development and representation or do they in effect sell it to the publisher who has their own agenda?
Branding is very important but lets sort out what brand, who owns it and how it should be developed and not merge all branding issues into one basket.
Thanks for getting my brain working this cold morning.

By: Teresa Hamilton-Jones

Teresa Hamilton-Jones — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:40:04 +0000

Danuta, you are going on about marketing and branding again and you are still failing to recognise that a good well written book will sell itself and too much marketing will just teach a discerning reader not to trust the PR.

In my view it is not necessary to brand a book. If it is well written then it will be well received. Most people do not stick to a particular genre, most people like a well written page turner.

By: Martin Edwards

Martin Edwards — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:41:56 +0000

This is an excellent and thought-provoking article.

The particular thought it’s provoked in me is: is it possible for a Reliable but Scarcely Bestselling Midlist Crime Writer to be rebranded as a Premier League Standard Exponent of the Form? Not easy (though I hope not impossible) to achieve that sort of evolution, after ten or eleven books.

I suppose the best solution is simply to write novels that are truly irresistible. But even then, it’s common for really good books to fail to register with the public simply through lack of the oxygen of publicity.

By: Danuta Kean

Danuta Kean — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:25:47 +0000

Thanks for the feedback everyone. The main reason I post articles like this is that I think these issues really need to be debated. Brokered content means basically licensing your work or part of your work for use by a site or web provider etc. As for the issue of brand, I have a few observations:
1. This article really is a comment on the poor marketing done by many publishers and booksellers, which is short term and fails to establish values around an author. Sales and marketing are not the same thing.
2. You don’t have to fix an author in amber if they are branded. In fact, as with so called heritage brands like Chanel No 5 or Worth perfume, it can be dangerous to fix a brand. I would argue that Worth has failed because it didn’t evolve and change, while Chanel No 5 has evolved and subtly changed over the years. Of course authors are not simple products, but they have values and unique characteristics that can be marketed – and by that I mean communicated to audiences of potential readers. It is worth lookign at what happens around actors and musicians. Classical musicians and actors like Judy Dench and Helen Mirren are brands who add their values to any production with which they are involved.
3. Graeme, you don’t have to ‘develop’ a persona, you just need to recognise what your persona is and then use that. I would argue that there is an angle that is easier to publicise for a housebound disabled person who writes an astonishing novel and overcomes their difficulties than yet another 20-something pretty girl who has written a first novel about living in London.
Zadie Smith was marketed as urban because that was appropriate, that does not mean that is the only way to market an author. With good branding one size definitely does not fit all, and it should be a combination of the personality of the author and their work.

By: Greg Stekelman

Greg Stekelman — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 09:24:35 +0000

It’s a good article. I think the main problem for most writers is that 90% of branding is out of their hands. Most writers are on a one-book deal and publishers are more concerned with selling that one book than establishing a long-term sellable brand. Writers can do a lot on their own, in terms of contacting friends and getting their face “out there” but they generally lack the connections and infrastructure available to publishers. I think that most writers are fairly forward-thinking and understand that their books are product, and need to be marketed accordingly. I am just not sure how much can be done without extensive backing from the publishers.

By: Graeme K Talboys

Graeme K Talboys — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:52:12 +0000

I found this deeply depressing. Yet another layer of flummery and jargon which add up to nothing. What next for authors? We write the book at our own risk, we have to tout it round (fair enough), then we have to market it, we have to develop a ‘persona’, we have to glam ourselves up (and heaven help any of us who are housebound disabled – no room for that is there), and now we have to become a brand. What next? Put up the costs involved in printing the book?

By: Emma Darwin

Emma Darwin — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:04:43 +0000

I agree with Judy that sticking to your brand values doesn’t come easily to authors. But I’m not sure it’s inevitable that we’re doomed to an absolute straitjacket. Brands do develop, even if slowly. And it can work in reverse, at least for really well-established authors, so that brand value can be used to make something new acceptable to the market. Why else would brands like M&S or John Lewis have joined up with financial services institutions? There was something to be made from their perceived values being applied to a sector that consumers feel much more equivocal about.

By: Judy Strachan

Judy Strachan — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:41:51 +0000

This is another great article, Danuta. I have a double interest as I write fiction (no novels yet published, sadly, but I have had short stories published) and I also lecture in marketing. As it happens, I teach a 3rd year module called Contemporary Brand Management and have, for some time, been thinking about doing some academic research into the marketing and especially the branding of fiction.

One thing that has always struck me is how the imprint name means very little to book buyers: they really aren’t bothered whether the book they buy is published by Headline, Picador or whoever (except possibly Penguin, which has more of a brand personality, I suspect, than any other imprint). For readers the author is the brand and I don’t think publishers have yet come to grips with what that means in terms of marketing and promotion.

But being a brand creates a tension for authors, as it means knowing your brand values and brand personality and then sticking to them: which not all authors may want to do. Writers develop, so an author needs to ensure their branding isn’t too tightly tied to a restrictive style and genre.

I do agree with the ‘it’s about mentality’ comment but it’s not just about the mentality of publishers: branding is, above all else, what goes on in the consumer mindspace.

Thanks again, Danuta. There is much food for thought in this topic.

By: Bob Blackman

Bob Blackman — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:15:56 +0000

Danuta,

You quoted Steve Hatch as saying “If I were a publisher, I would do a brokered content deal with Yahoo.”

What did he mean exactly by a brokered content deal?

By: Richard Havers

Richard Havers — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 12:51:52 +0000

Emma, your point about controlling your brand is a very important one. The major obstacle that I can see is getting the other parties involved in your brand to get ‘on message’. For me the greatest challenge for publishing is to really understand and make marketing work. As Danuta says in the article it’s not so much about delivering a marketing budget but a sales budget these days. As the article finishes up by saying, “it’s about a mentality.”

By: Emma Darwin

Emma Darwin — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:50:12 +0000

Great article, Danuta, thank you.

Yes, I think we authors need to get over the branding thing, but it’s not easy. We associate brands with recognisability, unchangingness, with always being reassuringly the same – the Oxo Factor, or the Agatha Christie Factor, if you like – whereas it’s in the cussed, hard-to-pin-down, slippery nature of creativity to need and feed on the new and different.

But the Zadie Smith example is encouraging, because she’s been branded not for the genre of books she writes (except in that they belong to that broad and peculiar church, Lit Fic), but for being the produce of her self. Not all of us can manage the cool, urban, multicultural thing as well as she does, but if I can imagine the Emma Darwin brand of the future as ‘good writer, good storyteller, let’s have a look at the new one,’ then I don’t mind.

But we want to control our brand. Maybe we’ll all feel more comfortable with the idea if we also realise we can. At the moment, operating at the sharpest, most insecure end of the book trade, we don’t have the nerve, or the chutzpah: most authors are too grateful to have a deal at all, and too nervous of what’s waiting at the end of the contract.

By: Richard Havers

Richard Havers — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:17:59 +0000

Danuta, as usual a great article that gets to the heart of the matter. Let’s hope some people in publishing take note. It’s interesting that the amount of money asked for (demanded by?) high street retailers is on the up. Of course what it’s doing is putting off the evil day, from their point of view, when their bottom line, bottoms out. As Roger says the brand thing is a bit daunting for some, but as you say authors need to get over it. Similarly they need to have a clear idea of how the marketing is going to work for their work. There are only so many TV tie ins, so there have to be other ways for non fiction to function. There’s also a big difference between fiction and non-fiction.

We’ve had some success with our Airline Confidential blog tie ( http://airlineconfidential.blogspot.com/ )in as a way of spreading the word, unfortunately we have a publisher who has helped to redefine inept. They just don’t understand marketing and have no idea how to spin the wheels.

By: Cities and Towns of Vermont » Blog Archive » It’s the brand stupid

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:25:54 +0000

[...] It’s the brand stupidBy Danuta Kean“Branding is almost non-existent in publishing,” is the robust opinion of Dominic Proctor, worldwide ceo of advertising giant Mindshare. That may seem harsh to a trade responsible for global brands names from Steven King to JK Rowling, …Danuta Kean – Freelance Journalist – http://www.danutakean.com/blog [...]