Ernest Hemingway didn’t have to post on Instagram to promote A Farewell to Arms. Shakespeare didn’t need to put up “To be or not to be?” as a poll on Twitter. So why should you have to promote yourself to be an author in the 21st century?
Unfortunately, the literary market is crowded. Clever and authentic promotion across media, including social media, is one of the only reliable ways to stand out from the pack.
But to promote yourself effectively, you need to know what you’re promoting. And “me” is not a satisfactory answer to that question. You have to have a brand as a writer.
We’ll tell you why branding is important below, so read on to get a leg up on this crucial aspect of being a writer in our media-saturated era.
A full-time writer’s brand is easy to confuse with other elements of their craft and career.
A genre is not a brand. Just as Hemingway and Shakespeare produced quite different work in the shared field of literature, authors can vary wildly across genres.
One aspect of an author’s brand is their writing style. You know when you read a Stephen King novel that not only will it likely be a horror but it will be his particular brand of horror. There’s value in that.
Of course, style isn’t the only defining element of a writer’s brand. Your choice of subject, as distinct from genre, plays a factor too. Isaac Asimov wrote a lot about robots. That was part of his brand, aside from how he wrote about them.
These unique identifiers make up the brand you beam out to the world.
Unfortunately, the literary market is crowded. Clever and authentic promotion across media, including social media, is one of the only reliable ways to stand out from the pack.
But to promote yourself effectively, you need to know what you’re promoting. And “me” is not a satisfactory answer to that question. You have to have a brand as a writer.
We’ll tell you why branding is important below, so read on to get a leg up on this crucial aspect of being a writer in our media-saturated era.
A full-time writer’s brand is easy to confuse with other elements of their craft and career.
A genre is not a brand. Just as Hemingway and Shakespeare produced quite different work in the shared field of literature, authors can vary wildly across genres.
One aspect of an author’s brand is their writing style. You know when you read a Stephen King novel that not only will it likely be a horror but it will be his particular brand of horror. There’s value in that.
Of course, style isn’t the only defining element of a writer’s brand. Your choice of subject, as distinct from genre, plays a factor too. Isaac Asimov wrote a lot about robots. That was part of his brand, aside from how he wrote about them.
These unique identifiers make up the brand you beam out to the world.
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