Building my brand

I've just published my second Panthera book, Panthera : Death Song.  I had to turn my attention back to branding at the book creation stage.

Back in December 2013 I said in my blog post "Revealing the Real Me" that I was going to publish the second book as Wendy Metcalfe.  But when it came to it, I didn't.  I stuck with the J W Metcalfe I'd  used for the original book.

 

So why did I do this?  My reasoning was that I needed to build a brand, and it would look confusing if a series of books turned up under different names.  Now I wish I'd used Wendy Metcalfe for the first book, but using initials was on the advice of a best-selling writer.  She told me that I'd be trying to sell my books to teenage boys who didn't buy women's books.  I believed her, and took her advice.

Having recently been to the World Science Fiction Convention, where there were as many women as men, I'm not sure that was ever the case.  But even if it was, things have moved on a lot in the last few years.  Women are now much more visible in the genre writing under their own names, and this year's Hugo Best Novel winner was a woman.  Women's voices are now being heard in the genre, as is the call for more diversity In stories. It no longer matters that I'm a woman writing SF.

So I've stuck with my initials, but the internet knows who I am.  When I google my name images of my book covers come up straight away alongside my mug shot.  I hadn't thought through how my internet presence would work with the book branding when I started my journey, and now I don't think it makes much difference whether I use initials or not.

We have E.J. Swift and N.K. Jemisin set against Anne Leckie, Madeline Ashby, Stephanie Salter, and Naomi Foyle.  It looks like it's finally okay to be a woman on the cover of an SF novel again.

I was drawn into the genre in the late 1970s because of names like Anne McCaffrey, Katherine Kerr, Joan D. Vinge and Mary Gentle.  It looks like things have come full circle at last.  It's about time.