Tina Boscha

As a new indie author, I’ve been reading a lot about marketing and promotion and have stumbled many times onto the phrase “author brand.” Essentially, it seems that you should be a lot like your books - the way you write should sound like your book, even the look & feel of your site should mimic your books.

I see two problems with this, for me personally:

1) I have one book and unless I hit it big, won’t be putting out several books a year (job/life stuff)

2) I don’t always want to write literary/historical/coming-of-age (how’s that for a clear genre?!)

Right now, my blog does resemble my book somewhat, as much as it can without me learning extensive HTML or hiring an outside designer. (Indie, hello, I used a Tumblr theme.) But this might change, as my writing grows and follows a new direction. When I first started writing River in the Sea, I was in my MFA program, and that was ten years ago. I was much more wedded to writing literary, at least I thought I was. I really just wanted to write my mother’s story, and that’s what propelled me to publish it now. It’s the book I always knew I would write. But now, I feel drawn to many genres - YA, paranormal, another historical family saga but with male protagonists.

And to sound like my book? Huh. My writing will always sound like me to some degree, but um, it’s 2011 and my book is set in 1944/45. Der.

My tastes are varied. I am a hard person to categorize or pigeonhole (aren’t we all?). People try. Interesting story: Years ago I was mingling at a holiday party. An older gentleman struck up a conversation and I told him I was a writer. He then asked me, no pause, “So you write romance?” I was awestruck at this. He made an assumption about me based on so few criteria. I have nothing against romance (more on that in a sec), I just really don’t like people assuming ANYTHING about me based on 1.2 seconds of sizing up.

I love Edith Wharton. I love Charlaine Harris. I love watching Talladega Nights as well as American Beauty. I love Top Gear and Dexter and True Blood and Deadwood (RIP, sigh) and… I just love a lot of different things. I love pinot noir and I love to drink beer and burp loudly after doing a lot of yard work. I am … me.

And you know what? I really, really, REALLY want to write a novella about a vampire falling in love. (ROMANCE!) There. I said it. Yes, I want to write another vampire book after years of everyone saying vampires are OVAH. Well, maybe. I don’t know. I just know that I have always liked vampires. I’m fascinated by the idea, the mythology, the push/pull, and sometimes when I sew I’ll put on an episode of Buffy in the background and say the dialogue with the characters over the hum of my machine.

(My author description says I am writing a good old-fashioned ghost story. I want to write that too - my YA paranormal. Have a number of pages. But then this novella came to me and WHAM! That’s all I can think about.)

I know I’ll probably write the novella under a pen name. That’s the conventional wisdom. But then that’s another Twitter account, another blog, another web site… That seems exhausting.

The saving part of all of this? I can really make whatever choice I want. It may work, it may not, but I’m not beholden to a contract. So we’ll see. I’ve been watching the success of Deb Reed/Audrey Braun and love how she designed her web site. Yet I wonder, if I can clearly see it’s the same person, why not just write under one name?

People, I tell you, this is what keeps me up at night.

What do you think of all this? If you’re new, what is your strategy?