How Important Is Branding to Being Popular?

??? Not sure I understand the point of this question.

Author branding can be deliberate or happen organically over time. In my opinion, a lot of the author-generated branding can come across as heavy handed and a bit foolish. Publishers create brand awareness with cover and font choices, teaser interviews and chapters, and media campaigns.

Quality writing should probably come before any attempts at author branding, especially for new writers. It's not a shortcut. Marketing without a foundation can be quickly exposed - and just as quickly forgotten.

Your comment about popularity shows you are still looking for shortcuts.

justlukeyou said:

Sorry I mean the title. If books like Twilight or Hunger Games featured different titles would they be as popular?

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I'm sure title has an effect. Personally, the title Twilight doesn't do a whole lot for me. The Hunger Games, on the other hand, does capture my interest.

Depends which title they ended up with. A rose by any other name is just as sweet, but a rose called skunkflower doesn't really invite people to smell it.

Nope. They would have been promptly retitled by the marketing committee. Never be married to a title, but be ready to defend good ones.

When Stephenie Meyer queried her book, it was called Forks. Her agent advised her to change it. If her agent hadn't, her publisher would have.

justlukeyou said:

But if huge hits like Twilight, Hunger Games or Maze Runner were called 'The Eagle Soaring High Above the Castle' would they be as big. Would they have even been published?

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Published? Yes. With that title? No.

The content may be the same, but - shallow as it seems - packaging has a considerable impact on sales. They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but consumers can and do. Publishers (and agents, and most authors) want as many sales as possible. So they have marketing teams whose job is coming up with attractive packaging to get their book into the hands of as many readers as possible... or, rather, as many readers as will likely enjoy it as possible, as you wouldn't market an erotic romance with the same cover style and title as you would, say, an urban fantasy parody or a brooding literary work. Part of that is coming up with a title that'll catch a potential reader's eye.

It's sometimes interesting to look at how titles translate in different countries and languages. What strikes us as silly or completely mismatched likely makes sense to a native of that culture. Even the subtle differences between America and Britain make for different titles. For instance, Naomi Novik's alt-history fantasy with dragons in the Napoleonic Wars was titled "Temeraire" in England, where the battleship Temeraire (for which the lead dragon is named) is still fairly well known, and "His Majesty's Dragon" in America, where we generally don't know about old ships in foreign wars but we do know that royalty often evokes elder-day England. And, of course, Harry Potter sought a "Sorcerer's Stone" in the States, where it was believed that the audience wouldn't be familiar with the alchemical Holy Grail of the "Philosopher's Stone," which he looked for in England.

rwm4768 said:

I'm sure title has an effect. Personally, the title Twilight doesn't do a whole lot for me. The Hunger Games, on the other hand, does capture my interest.

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Agreed on both counts. Twilight is a bland title that tells us pretty much zero about the book, so I don't believe the title has anything to do with its popularity. Though it's entirely possible that an awful title like The Sparkly Guy and I could have hurt its sales.

Really? I don't think Twilight is bland at all. It's actually what made me check out the book to begin with. I love the word Twilight and it feels a bit mysterious to me. Conjures up images of the sun fading and the sky going that weird/magical shade of purple.

IMO a name like Harry Potter (etc) is worse as far as the "hook" goes.

In the end I suppose it depends on your genre, because Killing Floor or Dead Man Walking is more likely to catch a thriller reader's eye, etc, because of the promise of danger... and so on (again, whatever's best for your particular portion of the book reading population ).

Titles are a great opportunity to hook readers, and ANY chance to hook someone isn't something you want to squander/overlook. That's why no publisher is going to (willingly) let you use a terrible title. It might be what helps you build enough momentum to stand out where other books would have sunk . I'd say it's not as important as your cover or blurb though... and as long as it doesn't actively drive people away and your cover/blurb are good it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

EDIT: I'd say it's only important until your book gains momentum, because if people start recommending it the title becomes almost a non-issue... and the weirder titles often stand out and become a brand of their own. Again, Harry Potter, or any series with a weird pattern for titling its books.

Ok so packaging, not branding

And there is a big reason why publishers have people especially for this

It's hard.

I have a series comig out next year, I signed the contract a year ago

We do not yet have a title because..because title is important and we're trying to get the right one. Nothing so far is quite right...

Titles are important, so are covers and blurbs. They will pull a reader in,, or put a reader off. the trick is to get it to appeal to the people you want it to appeal to (so if you are writing Hard SF, you can probably not worry about tying to pull in the chick lit crowd, but try to appeal to the SF crowd)


As for "it needs humans" or whatever..I'm not sure what you are asking. "What is popular"? Yeeess..but ...???

Branding helps, but it isn't a requirement.

justlukeyou said:

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For example, does a science fiction book have to include humans in order to be popular?

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I've read a good bit of SF, and I can't think offhand of anything I've read that didn't have humans in it. But it might be fun to write something with no humans, even beings that have had no contact with humanity, not even seeing "I Love Lucy" on the TV transmissions that are ever-expanding into outer space.

But even aliens would have SOME characteristics in common with humans. They'd want to communicate, at least with those of their own species, if no one else.

I'll say this for 'Twilight' and 'Harry Potter' as titles: they're easy to spell, therefore easy to recommend, and easy to see if you've spelled them wrong in a search engine, and you don't stammer or blush trying to say them to a bookstore clerk.

Unless a book is shelved face out, the title and/or author's name is the first chance the publisher has to get a reader to pick that book out from among all the others on the shelf and examine it more closely. So yes, titles are important, and even an author's name makes a difference--some authors consistently get shelved on the bottom shelf where many people simply don't look.

People also make instant judgements about names, ascribing characteristics to people based on previous experience with people with the same name, or prejudice. Some readers won't pick up a book by a woman author.

But you, the author, can't control or necessarily anticipate any of these reactions. If you're commercially published, it's for the publisher to sort out. If you're self-publishing, you'll be pretty much at the whim of market forces unless you do substantial research.

On the same note, would someone pick up a Lovecraft and be surprised it wasn't a romance? I'm not going to lie, and say I didn't wonder how he would make love crafting work in his horror. So I picked it up.

Baring in mind I read Josie and romance manga at one point.

JustSarah said:

On the same note, would someone pick up a Lovecraft and be surprised it wasn't a romance? I'm not going to lie, and say I didn't wonder how he would make love crafting work in his horror. So I picked it up.

Baring in mind I read Josie and romance manga at one point.

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Bwahaha.


I never thought about that before. I always felt his name fit because it was old/distinguished and English-sounding, something I for some reason associate with good classic horror.

Same here. I suspect it's because we have the cultural/genre knowledge to easily grasp 'Lovecraft = gothic horror'. Someone from another culture - or who hadn't read much in spec fiction classics and commentary - might not get the connection.

For example, I can't recall my first introduction to Lovecraft. It would probably have been in the late seventies, either through commentary by Tolkien researcher/writer Lin Carter, an intro by Alan Dean Foster, Fritz Leiber's comments about his horror fiction, or some comment about Piers Anthony or August Derleth. (sp?) One or two of those were enough to send me to my local library to find not only Lovecraft, but Haggard and Clark Ashton Smith.

All that was done pre-internet, and required haunting bookstores and libraries.

To bring that example back to the topic of 'branding', any stylistic reference to Lovecraft-as-horror is only going to work if the connection is very clear *and* the target audience is familiar with it.

rwm4768 said:

I'm sure title has an effect. Personally, the title Twilight doesn't do a whole lot for me. The Hunger Games, on the other hand, does capture my interest.

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Funny how that works out...

Well I first associated Twilight with Twilight Zone. That's how I was almost lured into picking up a book of sparkly vampires.

A catchy title backed up by good writing never hurt anyone.

justlukeyou said:

Hi,

For a science fiction book to be popular does it have to be branded correctly? Something that is mass market? If so are there any processes to go through to determine whether something is mass market?

For example, does a science fiction book have to include humans in order to be popular?

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"Branding" is one buzzword used to refer to one approach to marketing. If it helps you, great. If not, do something else.

Branding is generally about how to position the author in the marketplace and maximizing the profit potential of the author and therefore their work.

Questions about what market to write for and what to write about are another thing entirely. Branding/marketing is the approach to selling the work after you have made it.