Author-as-Brand: When a book is a product to be consumed….

Branding is all about creating Perceptions through imagery that appeals to a specific target audience. To revert to the classic Lux soap example (see part 1 of this article), the brand perception created is: a soap for filmstars. Never mind that the movie stars who are roped in as brand ambassadors of Lux would personally not be caught dead using it. So, the marketer is basically selling an aspirational promise to lure consumers to buy the brand.

With authors-as-brands the same concept comes...