Branding—Even BEFORE You Sell! By Terry Spear
Are you an expert at anything? Scuba diver? Snorkler? (Hey, you don’t have to be an expert, but if you’ve done it, you can write about it!) Ghost Buster? (Even if you only see the ghosts and don’t bust them!) Lawyer? Been in the military? Hired a Private Eye?
So this sounds more like writing what you know. But actually, if you can sell an editor or agent on how you know what you’re talking about, that will give you somewhat of a boost in believability, even if you write about the unbelievable!
And that gets into branding—even before you sell. Here we go. I'm at FF&P today, talking about branding.
http://ffnp.blogspot.com/2012/11/brandingeven-before-you-sell-by-terry.html
About Terry
USA Today Bestselling Author of A SEAL in Wolf's Clothing.
Award-winning author of paranormal romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and medieval romantic susense. PW's BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR. Retired LTC with the USAR and award-winning teddy bear artist whose...
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Terry’s Favorite Books
I'm an eclectic reader so love reading true stories, mythology, romance, historical, paranormal, romantic suspense, YA, historical fiction, just a hodge podge...
Branding
I enjoyed your advice, Terry, on the subject of Branding. I spent many years in the advertising agency business while trying to get started as a novelist on the side--like so many before me. I worked alongside talented creative types as well as suits and learned branding backwards and forwards. I kept thinking that I had automatically branded myself as a guy who knew the ad agency business. Thankfully, I was wrong; advertising was the last thing I wanted to write about.
I discovered much later that what I really knew was how people behaved, what made them buy, what made them resist. What made clients praise you and what made them fire you. Fear. Hatred. Unbridled success. Bloody collapse. In other words, I took away something much deeper than happened to lie on the surface. So we still have to play the branding game with agents but as we all know only too well--it's the power of the story that counts.
Absolutely!
In the end, the story is what makes all the difference in the world. Thanks so much for your insightful comments, William! I loved them!
If you can catch the readers' attention first, then they come to love the stories you write, often word of mouth will spread. We help by being there for fans, interacting with them, showing we appreciate them, but in the end, it's the story that really gets that buzz going.
That said, if no one knows about that wonderful story...we'll never know if it really is a wonderful story--in the eyes and minds of readers.
:) Thanks again, William!