Branding = Identity?

We've all been hearing about branding for authors for a few years now. Sometimes it sounds very hardcore marketing/sales, something that not everyone is comfortable embracing. But this post at Seekerville makes branding sound more like recognizing an author's identity. Having an identity--knowing who you are--might be something that can help writers with the day-to-day writing process, forget about being able to present yourself to the public and publishing world in a quick way.

My identity as a writer is something I've been toying with in those rare moments when I can toy with anything. I used to think of myself as an outsider writer, someone who wrote characters who existed outside the mainstream of the literary worlds in which they existed. Since I believe children are outsiders in that they are powerless, adults run the world and control them, I felt comfortable in what I was writing for them.

With the Hannah and Brandon Stories, however, I felt I was moving from writing about outsiders to writing about children trying to control the worlds they lived in and take control of who they will be. That was even more so the case with Becoming Greg and Emma, which has yet to find a publishing home. Again, I felt control themes were appropriate in children's books because powerless child readers could see child characters trying to exert power.

It is a shift in identity/branding for me, though, and I have occasionally wondered who I am as a writer now. On top of that, I don't know if either of my identities/brands are ones that the publishing industry can recognize or market.

Okay, the rare moment when I can think about this has passed. I must go on to work.

I found the Seekerville post through Routines for Writers.