Maureen Johnson has written a great manifesto about how she is not and never intended to become a brand – she elaborates on what’s wrong with that way of thinking (which is ultimately self-defeating, authors who get too obsessive about Branding Themselves tend to put potential readers off) and how the best way to promote yourself on the internet is to be genuinely having fun with the platforms you use. Not a new concept – this is something that Jeff VanderMeer among others has written about – but Maureen being Maureen, the message here is not only loud and clear but extremely entertaining to read.

Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray follows up this post with the deeply ironic story of an author who had been told to brand herself “just like Maureen Johnson” and looks a bit more at the actual issue of promotions in a world where over-branding labels you as insincere.

Branding and marketing are things that authors tend to worry about a lot! How do you promote yourself without coming across as too promote-y?

Maureen’s example of an author so busy trying to sell herself and her message that she’s missed out on a chance to join a conversation is a good lesson to writers, I think – something to try to avoid in ourselves, like reciting “don’t be Anne Rice on Amazon” as a mantra when dealing with critical/inaccurate reviews. Or is that just me?

I think it’s tricky in particular because the internet has changed what many readers want to see from authors. The “professional, flawless demeanour” that many authors display on shiny websites (and perhaps used to display on TV chat shows) can appear hopelessly old-fashioned, and indeed there’s a new generation of authors whose web presence revolves entirely around a tell-all personal blog or a handful of other social media. And of course, many shades in between. I know that I am genuinely startled to discover that an author I am searching for information about doesn’t have a website or blog at all – and it still happens!

As an author myself, especially with a book to promote, I am often super self-conscious at how I am using the internet to promote myself – is it too much, am I being obnoxious, am I saying too much, am I not saying enough? Everyone does it differently. While I don’t go in for the ‘brand’ concept myself(anyone who reads my blog regularly knows that consistency is not my superpower) it’s more because I would be no good at it than because I disapprove of the concept. The word ‘brand’ gets thrown around a lot when I’m talking to Alisa about Twelfth Planet Press because she literally is creating a brand, she’s trying to establish a business which is distinct from herself as a person: it’s about connecting her publishing house in people’s minds with quality fiction, with well-made books, and anything else is just decoration on top of that. Branding makes sense in that context.

But promoting a business becomes a whole lot stickier when your business is in fact yourself. You do have a responsibility to yourself, your family, your publishers, and so on, to promote your work effectively. But when this collides with all the other things the internet does and is supposed to do – it’s such a balancing act! If the internet is where you play and chat and hang out with your friends, how do you transition into using it professionally as well without turning into Maureen’s “I AM A BRAND” author? Maureen is absolutely right that the concept of a person being a brand is quite creepy and weird but at the same time – she is speaking from the position of someone who is hugely successful, rather than someone just starting out. Much though she declares she isn’t a brand, there are, as Colleen pointed out, plenty of people who look at Maureen and want to copy what she is doing. Even though that wouldn’t work for anyone else – what Maureen does comes naturally to her, so it’s not something that can be faked.

Neil Gaiman is another example of an author whose brand is effectively that you can’t pin down what his brand is… and of course he is so hugely successful that no author can hope to replicate what he does, by design or by accident.

Part of the reason I have taken so comfortably to Twitter as a platform is that it allows for a certain amount of promotional content – it doesn’t feel bad or inappropriate to link to my own stuff or point people towards blog entries or what I’ve been doing, as long as I only have that as a small facet and also use it for small conversations, big conversations, idle observations, and of course linking to awesome things that other people have done/are doing. I feel supported there, rather than judged for being Obsessive Brandwoman.

I would happily drop Facebook altogether, except that I have lots of people on there for whom this is the only thread where we are connected, and I get the impression from comments that many of them are not serial blog readers, but like to drop in on the occasional post if a link catches their eye. Since was taught the error of my Facebook ways by Alisa, and incorporated a Facebook feed into Tweetdeck, I do enjoy getting into conversations with people that way, though I still prefer the back-and-forth of Twitter. And you know, I’m probably still getting it wrong. But I keep my foothold in there, for now, even as many people are jumping ship because of the Evilness of Facebook. It’s never been evil to me because I have provided it with very little information to work with, but I completely sympathise with those who feel they have to go.

As you might have guessed, I’ve been getting way into podcasts lately, both producing them and listening to them, and I love that as a creative format to play with. It fills me with delight to see so many people I know having a go at it too! I always cringe a bit about promoting my own stuff on Galactic Suburbia – because that’s not really what it’s about, it’s a fun project in which we comment on the industry, so it feels out of place to talk about me. But it helps to have fellow hosts who not only don’t mind, will actively push that into the conversation! One of my favourite things about the old Sofanauts format was the way Tony would always ask his panellists at the end what they had to plug – basically he was giving them permission to promote themselves, and their work, and expressing an interest. Which meant of course they didn’t have to find a way to drop mentions of their work into the conversation, a pet hate of mine when authors are appearing as panellists – it’s fine if it’s on topic, or if you’ve been asked to talk about your work, but it looks bad if you approach a general topic with only examples of your books as if there are no other books in the world! Much nicer to be invited to do a small plug to people who have been listening to you for a while and therefore are all primed to be interested in what you do.

Then there’s blogging, something I’ve been doing seriously since January 2005. It’s no coincidence that this was the month I had Raeli, and the first month I was officially “at home” rather than having an office full of people to hang out with every day. The internet became my tearoom, watercooler, etc. from the last month of my pregnancy onwards, and has done a fantastic job at keeping me company since then. For most of those five years, while I’ve had quite a few projects here and there, my professional writer aspect was still only a tiny part of what I blogged and read blogs about, and I would bore myself silly if I tried to get all reserved and impersonal now.

I actually fought against the idea of setting up a separate Creature Court blog – I don’t like the idea of having a blog for every project, and if you stretch yourself too thin then it’s hard to produce quality content. I kind of love having one single blog where I can talk about anything from writing to the kids, craft, football, reading, random obsessions, feminism, and so on. But it did make sense to have a focal point for people who are interested in those books first, and where I can put the supporting material and those necessary informational posts – while I am using a blog format, I think of it as more of a Googleable resource, and certainly wouldn’t expect people to subscribe to it as a source of regular entertainment.

None of that means that what I do on the internet is entirely without artifice. I try to always be aware that what I write here is permanent – yes, even Tweets! They might seem to disappear into the ether but they also appear on Google, so it’s something to be cautious about. My honey & I decided I wouldn’t post pictures of the children anymore, which I had been doing a lot of, and I found it so much harder than I had expected! As you saw recently, I couldn’t resist with the launch-related pics. But I was also aware that I was breaking a rule I had created for myself, and for good reason. I still blog about the kids a lot, because they’re an integral part of my life, and I know that many people following my blog are interested in the balance between writing and motherhood. It would feel irresponsible not to blog about that, as I dislike the idea of making what I do seem too easy, while at the same time I don’t want to bang on about it too much…

Heh. Yes. Artifice. Or, you know, responsibility is another word for it. Raeli is learning to read and I think we’re not too far off a point where I will be checking with her before I post anything about her online. I deliberately only use the girls’ nicknames on here so as not to tie up their legal names with my internet presence, but even that might be too much when she’s a bit older and her friends are also reading the Internet. Is it fair that her teen peers might be able to read about her childhood sleeping/eating/tantrum habits? Probably not. But it’s my story, too!

There are no easy answers and I don’t pretend that I’m any kind of expert on what authors should be doing about this stuff – I’m finding my own way through it by figuring out what I’m comfortable with, and what I enjoy. I don’t have time to spend hours turning the Internet into more work! The thought of an author sitting there, teeth gritted, thinking “how can I make this web thing work for me” makes me want to shudder. And pat them on the head, and make them a cup of tea. On the whole, if it’s too hard, you’re better off going back to working on that tricky next chapter instead.

Promotional platforms, internet friends and social networks are, after all, most effective when we use them to procrastinate! The best blog entries come about when you’re supposed to be doing something else.

Ha. This is a very long blog entry. But, you know. I’m waiting for a vital phone call. This was probably the most productive I could possibly have been for the last hour…

Oh, crap, I was supposed to be putting the dinner on. Oops.

And now the baby’s awake. Damn it!

Really didn’t mean to spend so much time here this afternoon…

Tags: authoring, family, jem, mama writer, maureen johnson, raeli