Branding

As I'm sure you've noticed, there have been some changes around here. It's taken a while, but I love it, and hope you do too!

Still some things to finish up, but in the meantime, I wanted to talk about author branding. Branding, in its simplest terms, means identity. You can look at something and with no explanation, know what company/person/brand it belongs to.

It doesn't say Disney, yet simply because of how it looks, you know it is.

Now, Disney may be something of an extreme example as they are the grand masters of branding, but it works on a smaller scale too. In this day-and-age, the idea of branding is incredibly important for authors. Take Emily Giffin, author of Something Borrowed. All her books are styled exactly the same, each in a different color, and the colors on her website match those of her books. Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, it takes more than color matching to achieve a successful brand, but you get my point.

Where am I going with this?

I'm going to the countless hours of thought I've given this whole idea lately, and the realization that there is only so much you can do. I have been working hard to be consistent--blog, webpage, and twitter all now match--but as a yet unpublished author, there isn't much more I can do. I was bummed until I came across a picture today that helped put it all in perspective. Take a look back up at the top of this post. Everyone all over the world knows those guys--The Muppets. You could see a Muppet--even a brand new one like Walter from the most recent movie--and know immediately that he or she is a Henson Muppet. It's an internationally recognized brand worth millions of dollars. And yet, for all the success the brand has had since, it all started like this:

That is Mr. Jim Henson, with the original Kermit the Frog(and God knows who else), who now currently sits in The Smithsonian.

Moral of the story; branding doesn't happen overnight, and you can't force it. All you can do is your best, and make sure that branding and consistency are always in your thoughts as you continue to cultivate your career.