“I’m not a brand, I’m an author!” True, but the purpose of branding is the same whether you’re selling books or bran flakes: to let customers know what they’re going to get before they buy.

Almost every author I’ve met, whether they write literary fiction for a small press or category romances for Harlequin, has considered themselves an artist of some sort, and no one wants to equate selling their art to selling Kellogg’s cereal or Coca-Cola. They don’t view their books as commercial products. But the purpose of branding is the same whether you’re selling books or bran flakes: to let customers know what they’re going to get before they buy.

When you pick up a Coke, you know exactly what the soda is going to taste like. You know that the Lexus will have more luxury features than the Hyundai. When you pick up the latest Nora Roberts novel at the grocery store or a James Patterson book at the airport, you know what types of stories are within those pages. Known brands are comfortable, familiar, and come with limited risk.

Your brand consists of who you are and what you write. For most of you, the “your book” piece of the equation will be easy, especially if this is your first book, you write series novels, or you’ve written multiple books in the same genre.