Brand Names and Mind Games

One day last week my wife Suzie held up the paperback book she was reading for me to see. "Look at this cover," she said. "The author's name is printed twice as big as the title of the book."

"That's right," I said. "The author's name is the brand, not the book title." We went on to discuss how many other books are sold by the author's name. Walk into any bricks and mortar bookstore and you'll see a lineup of bestsellers, and I guarantee, every one will have the author's name in type at least as big as the book title, many time twice as big. Many times, the author's name is at the top, where you'll instinctively read it first. (At least in the left-to-right western culture.) Think of the books that go by the author's name as brand name:

Danielle Steele

Stephen King

Dan Brown

Janet Evanovich (Who could remember all her crazy titles, anyway?)

Tom Clancy

Kim Armstrong

Jodi Picoult (Just checked two of her books, her name is three times bigger than the title)

Debbie Macomber

These author's have promoted their own names as their brand, and they're golden for the reading public. Put a book out with Jack Ryan, Stephanie Plum, or Robert Langdon on the cover and you'll some response, but not like those listed.

Of course, there's another whole side to the brand name dichotomy. That's the author who develops and promotes such a strong character that the character comes to life and becomes the brand name. James Bond is a brand name that has lived on way beyond the original author. (Who was the author? See the bottom of this post.) Mike Hammer (created by Micky Spillane). Sam Spade (created by Dashiell Hammet. Okay, I had to look that one up.)

More recently, the biggest brand name character of them all has raked in millions for his creator - Harry Potter.

So what's my brand name? I have the distinction of sharing the same name as a famous British playwright. Uh, John Osborne, if you didn't figure that out. Though he's been dead since 1994, he still hangs on to the brand name. Google my name and you'll fall asleep paging through listings looking for me among four million hits. However, search for my name on Amazon.com and I've recently become the top two hits!

My brand name, however, is not John Osborne. I'll take the J. K. Rowling approach - Willow Brown is my brand name. She's the strong character you need for that role, with a sparky personality and a powerful visual image. If I had thought of all this before I published An Ordinary Fairy, I would have titled the book Willow Brown, Ordinary Fairy. The rest of the books in the series will be titled that way: the upcoming second book is Willow Brown, American Fairy. I've toyed with idea of changing my Facebook page to "Willow Brown, Ordinary Fairy", but you can't change without creating a whole new page and enticing my 1,650 or so fans to follow. Not sure I want to do that.

So who wrote the original Jame Bond series? Ian Fleming.