12 Days of Author Gifts, Day 9: Authors, Do You Also Squirm at the Idea of a Being a Brand or Having a Brand for Your Books?

Here’s a perspective that changed my thinking on branding

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.

Who knew that Coke would help me get over my distaste of branding? People as brands. Places as brands. Everyone needing a brand. Yuck. It matched the aversion I had to niching in my business (I wrote about that here for likeminded others).

Coke promises a smile and it delivered…in the form of this insight from its former CEO that changed the idea of branding for me:

“A brand is a promise. A good brand is a promise kept.”

— Muhtar Kent, former Coca-Cola Company CEO and Chairman

How did this help me? First, it helped a few author clients I work with. As in…I was mulling over this promise thing, when I started seeing it in my clients’ existing approaches, in their ways of being and doing. When I started hearing it in their own words. I saw and heard their brands and when I shared it with them, they were like, Oh, wow. Yes.

In a nutshell: What do you as an author promise your readers and customers? What are you promising a fan every time they pick up one of your books? What can they expect? What do you deliver every…