Branding Breaks My Heart

For those of us who struggle with depression or that voice in our head that screams at us every day, “You’re not enough!” then branding is a bitch.

Branding is a key component to marketing. It tells the world who you are as an author. What happens if you don’t know you who are? If you spend hours upon hours trying to figure that out, but you don’t want stigmatize your brand?

“Oh, look there goes that indie author”.

“What’s her name?”

“I don’t know. But doesn’t isn’t she, like, always whining about her stupid PTSD. Grow a pair. I mean, like, come on. lol”

Branding is that red-hot poker that leaves its mark on my forehead. It covers my thirdeye. Scar tissue blinds me, making things hard to write. The sigil blocks readers from looking past it to read the stories I create.

The usages of branding are important in this webbed world. It will allow me to stick out like a sore thumb or a green thumb or a goth thumb or a Christian thumb or an entrepreneurial thumb, the list goes on.

When we sit back and think about big name authors we think of their books, maybe their personalities and get a feel for them. A sense of their brand, right? Laurell K. Hamilton is a pagan who loves wolves. Stephen King loves Maine, is creepy, highly intelligent, and funny. Anne Rice is an oddball. That is where I’ll leave that. We all know J.K. Rowling’s rags to riches story. Is that their brand or just who they are? Is it one and the same?

Would my brand then be: I’m a quirky nerd riddled with depression, who loves her family, pets, all things otherworldly and stands up for equality. Is that my brand? Is it truly that simple? 

Maybe it doesn’t matter if people joke about my mental issues or not. If they did they wouldn’t be my target audience. And who knows perhaps one day word of mouth will get so big those people will look past those stereotypes and read my work.

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