Building a brand

As a stay at home writer/mother/wife I break my days down into the week being for writing and motherly duties, and the weekend is for research, keeping up with social media and more cleaning because kids are messy little things. Which is why most of my blogs come out on the weekend, because I have so many thoughts.

Yesterday I wrote about my search for publishers and agents and finding that of the small group who I would be a good fit for, they do not offer me more support than what I am giving myself right now. So while I could say I am published as opposed to self-published, I am also giving someone a cut of my royalties when I could keep those precious few dollars for myself.

The other thing I have been considering is names. So far, I have been publishing everything under my legal name. The reason for this is simple. I want people to know I wrote that thing. I also like my name, so of course it never really occurred to me to use a different one.L I once considered just writing under J. R. Kenny, but it felt too much like J. K. Rowling, and I didn't want that comparison. She is a great author; I was more concerned with people thinking I was trying to emulate her when that isn't true.

So this search for what name to add to my work lead me on a quest to communicate with other authors on their experience. I messaged quite a few, but only a small number replied. Which is fine, life happens, but with my small collection of data, there were two main points. Either they wrote erotic fiction and were hiding their real identity, or they wrote across many genres, and each genre needs their own name. As one person said, it is all about creating a brand, and it is better when you stick to a single genre.

I'm not very good at sticking to a genre. I have three publications, and they are all different. Cracked Valor is a sci-fi romance. Analogue is urban fantasy. Finally, Extol of Agnatic Dreams is traditional fantasy. Guess which one has performed the best. Extol. This is an image of my monthly sales on Amazon.

This is the image with only targeting Extol.

So the extra bump on May 13th and 15th? I wouldn't blame you. Those images are basically identical. I wouldn't mind if people were reading Extol and then looking at what else I have written and read Analogue and Cracked Valor as well, but this isn't happening. The reviews I have received for Extol suggest that the writing is quite good, and people are reading the book to the end on Kindle Unlimited. But they aren't looking at my other work. Is Fantasy that big of a draw? Do people never read outside their preferred genre? I began to think there might be something to this whole building a brand based on a genre.

I am still very new at this, and it is hard for me to be patient. You hear of overnight success stories, and I wanted to be part of that. Instead, it seems I might be heading on the Angry Birds quote. Angry Birds was their 60th game released and the only one who caught the world by storm. Flappy Bird was made in 6 hrs as a laugh and the guy quit programming forever and has millions to his name. I really wanted to be Flappy Bird. I need to remember I haven't even been at this for a year, and that is such a small amount of time if you think about it.

These statistics, together with the anecdotal evidence and conversations with other authors is making me lean towards the idea of concentrating on only Extol for a while and build a fantasy genre following before I look at branching out. I do not think I can keep up with the workload demanded of me if I had three other authors to deal with. I just need to focus down on this one world. The good news for me is that the legends and lore of my Extol world are easy to expand. The story of Evangeline and Glais' mentions a war, an ancient curse, and supernatural elements like vampires and tree spirits.

Something to ponder today while I get housework done and see the new xmen.

#publishing #writing #problems