Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

Hello, everyone! I'm Brooklyn Ann and boy I learned a lot this weekend! For my monthly RWA meeting author  Bonnie R. Paulson  and I put on a workshop about author marketing. And the first part of it was the most important: Learning your author brand. For authors who predominately write in one genre, like our fabulous historical romance author, Shana Galen , branding is easy. When you pick up one of her books you know you're going to get some awesome regency spies, sensual and touching chemistry, and maybe even some pirates and carriage races. Her website clearly depicts historical romance with eloquent pictures of a lady's fan, a horse & carriage, and a quill with a pot of ink. And I LOVE her color scheme. But with authors who write more than one genre, figuring out our brand, much less how to advertise it, can be tricky. Bonnie R. Paulson did a fantastic job with hers. Though she write apocalyptic fiction, Zombie YA, romantic suspense, AND western romance,...

This month we’re blogging about procrastination. That word isn’t really in my vocabulary, but I do have a little delay to talk about. First, I want to gush about the cover of my September release, LORD AND LADY SPY. This is definitely a book of my heart, and I can’t wait for readers to meet Adrian and Sophia, Lord and Lady Smythe. You see, the Smythes aren’t your average viscount and viscountess. They’re actually highly specialized operatives working for a secret organization called the Barbican group. Their identities are so secret, they’re even hidden from each other. Their mission? To defeat Napoleon. But what happens when the mission is complete? Meet Lord and Lady Smythe, out of work spies. Lady Sophia Smythe will scream if she has to attend another tea party. Lord Adrian Smythe will hit someone if he's forced to while away another evening in Parliament. What are secret agents to do when the war is over? There's one chance left to get back into the game. The prime minister...

posted by Deb Werksman This month's Romance Writers Report has a fantastic article by Theresa Meyers called " The Basics of Author Branding" and I think it should be required reading for every author. (Theresa's website is www.theresameyers.com .) Here's how she defines an author brand: "building an image, perception, or identity that is used to create a loyal readership, who will auto buy an author's work." This is right on, and it's why I keep telling authors they must choose their subgenre and build from there. Once you're established in a subgenre, and are building readership there, you can branch out into other subgenres, or you can build more than one simultaneously but the key word here is "build"--you can't jump around. Naturally, I want to qualify what I just said. I meet authors all the time at conferences who've written a contemporary, a historical and are now starting on a romantic suspense (for e...