My Brand

Tuesday is the day I blog about my books and today I wanted to delve into the brand I’m trying to create for myself.

A brand is more than a tag line or a catchy slogan, it’s a promise to readers. It is what makes your reputation. And what makes this promise is everything a writer does; it’s your prose voice, your genre, what themes you write about, your public image, what makes you different from other authors in your genre. It’s everything about you. In short, a brand conveys who you are to the reading public.

I like to think that the audiences for my books are readers who want more than an entertaining read. There are plenty of choices for entertaining reads all over the net. In my mind, they want hope, inspiration, maybe even a new life (even if only for several hours). My books offer them an escape where they can see critical life lessons through another person’s eyes. They can experience the whole range of emotions, and walk away refreshed, satisfied, knowing that life, for all its joys and sorrows, is noble.

My stories are built on universal themes we all relate to, and with those themes I try to create a “feel good” message that allows people to better appreciate their own lives and situations.

That is my brand, my promise: that my readers—through my stories and themes and characters—will be drawn in, make those characters their own, and experience their own issues from a different set of eyes, ears, feelings, and they will walk away a somewhat wiser, somewhat happier person.

Yes, I know that’s a bold promise. It is, I think, what all good fiction writers strive for, and I’m striving to be a first-rate fiction writer.