Trying on Brands

No, I'm not preparing to write chick lit. One aspect of writing/marketing that’s currently hot is branding – connecting your name with what you write in a way that bookstores know where to shelve you and readers know whether they want to try your books. It’s not really pigeonholing as much as focusing so readers know what to expect, much as when they pick up a Clancy or Grafton novel.

Problem is, I’ve written a historical, a romance, and am starting a fantasy. Three totally different genres. The romance isn’t that much of an issue; with the length, it should be a mass market title, likely a book club one, which doesn’t have much of an influence on building readers outside of those who belong to the book clubs. I don’t know that I could or would want to write a full-length (80,000 words +) straight romance. It would have to be mixed with some other genre, like historical, suspense, fantasy, etc.

Anyhow, I’ve been pondering this for a couple weeks now, wondering if I could establish a brand that encompasses all I want to write, if cross-genre branding was even possible. One author friend, Camy Tang, came up with a tagline that fit both genres she was pursuing. When she got a contract in one genre, she moved her focus solely on that genre. I wouldn’t mind that. So as we were singing patriotic songs at church this Sunday, America the Beautiful came up. I love the lyrics to that song, especially the “heroes proved” and “patriot dream.” That got me thinking of war, the American Revolution, my books . . . and it hit me. Spies. Hidden identities. In some respect, all of my books have to do with hiding who you are for some reason. Even my romance has it, though it could be enhanced by editing, which I need to do anyway.

So I’m brainstorming what to do with this idea. One phrase I like: Revealing your identity can save your heart – or kill you. It also ties in with my passion for being authentic – and my love of the “cool” spy stuff. It touches the periods of history I’m most interested in – the Revolution and WWII – and can also apply to contemporary international thrillers as well as cloak and dagger fantasy. Now it’s time to pull out my thesaurus and have fun – conceal, disguise, camouflage, mask, hidden, undercover, masquerade, secret, veiled, stealth, furtive, spy, identity.