Way back on Tuesday (it’s been a long week so it seems like eons ago), Toni and I decided it might be fun to play a game with you guys, to show the unifying elements of an author’s brand. We had a lot of fun pulling covers together from a wide range of popular authors and we hope you guys had fun trying to match the books that belonged to the same author. We gave out the answers yesterday and invited everyone to jump in the discussion about the ins and outs of author branding.

It was a learning process for us just like it was for you, and along the way we picked up a couple of observations we wanted to share.

1. It was hard to make this game challenging.

We purposely chose ten very commercial authors because we felt that most of our readers strive to be popular commercial authors. But that said, commercial authors have this branding thing down to a science, so trying to find two covers that weren’t obviously tied together wasn’t easy.

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A couple of weeks ago, Shannon, my husband and I were browsing Barnes & Noble looking for fun children’s books for her niece and browsing in general. After staying away from the new release/bestseller section for the majority of our visit (hey, we ARE in a recession), we passed a table of featured books on our way out. One in particular caught my eye — with its bright colors, sketched imagery and bold type.

Without even looking at the author’s name, I said to Shannon, “Carl Hiaasen has a new book out?”

As we’re discussed previously, branding is all about consistency and building an entire platform — not just an image. Build that image effectively, however, and your readers will recognize and be drawn to it subconsciously.

To better illustrate how branding can tie together (or not) an author’s work, we’ve devised a little matching game. We’ve taken twenty book covers from well-known authors and removed their name from the cover – can you still tell who each cover belongs to?Note: You can click any cover below to enlarge it and launch a gallery of all images. (more…)

Think back to when you were a teenager, prowling the malls of the suburbs on a Saturday afternoon with your friends. Remember how you felt when you stepped into certain stores that carried the “it” fashion of the moment—Nike sneakers, Bongo jeans, Gap sweaters, Member’s Only jackets, etc. Do you recall that oh-so-powerful feeling of “Gotta Have It!” taking over? Why was that? What made those sweaters, jackets, shoes and jeans so different from the ones you could have purchased in any other store for a lot less money?

It’s the brand.

When you travel, do you have a hotel preference? In general, I prefer Hampton Inns to Holiday Inns, Holiday Inns to Sleep Inns and I’d rather sleep in my car than stay at a Motel 6—even if they will leave the light on for me. But why is that? Most hotel rooms are almost exactly the same—two beds, white sheets, TV, bathroom, and a door. Who cares what’s on the marquee out front if you got a good price, right? Wrong.

It’s the brand.

Corporations spend billions of dollars every year to make sure that you want to buy their brand over the competition’s product regardless of the price difference. It’s not just about the image, it’s about the feelings, attributes, awareness and expectations that you associate with that brand. Even among companies that have powerful branding, some are simply better in our minds than others. (more…)