I currently work for a publishing company. (You may have heard of it, WMG Publishing. Hi!) And we have many (MANY) titles and series. Most published before I came to work for the company. And here I am looking at a set of titles for a year and, because of their covers, I thought yeah I would probably like those as I think they are kinda comic bookie, superhero story.

And I didn’t realize a couple of key things.

• 1) I was confused by the cover – and that is a HUGE marketing sin. (See last week’s post because it’s about this and also The Terminator. Click here!)
• 2) I usually do backflips when I see a book that is a comic bookie, superhero type story. So that I wasn’t doing arial gymnastics on my way to immediate transport of said book to my bedside table should have been VERY suspect to me. (Alert, alert – marketing error. Lack of Excitement Does Not Compute!!)
• 3) When we decided to rebrand the series and I started to read the first book in the series, just to get an idea of what it should look like…and I kept reading. And reading. And found myself whining and justifying to myself internally, “Just five more minutes! I’m doing it for research,” when I knew exactly what the book was about and was loving it!

It was a freaking Ghost Romance, Romantasy, paranormal adventure fun fest!!

I was finally doing backflips!

AND there was a superhero-ish thing to it as well. Which was spice. But not the core of the book.

The CORE of the book was the Romantasy, the Ghost Romance adventure.

And we needed to shout that to the world!

Hello! Here this is and if you like X, you will loooooove this.

Rebranding so someone can see the book and know exactly if they will likely love it or not.

And the message is clear!

Arnold in leather, sunglasses and a big gun – The Terminator! Not a G-rated sugar-coated morality story animated with googly eyes and impossible hair.

A glowy couple in a very real embrace with a dark background, a moon and sparkles (and the word GHOST in huge) says Romantasy! Not possible superhero, team, cop, detective-like something in a city that just leaves the curious reader to skim over the top as there is nothing there.

Nothing there to grab on to and hook attention.

Vague in marketing is NOT your friend. For sellers or buyers.

So what the heck do I do to SEE? Says the desperate reader.

Well, let me put on some good book tinted sunglasses on for you.

I lied.

I said I would tell you how to see the vague books this blog, but I just realized there are three steps to this.

Step 1: Identify the problem. (Last Blog)

Step 2: Understand the Problem. (This Blog)

Step 3: Solve the Problem (Next Blog)

So my dears, next week we shall Solve the Problem.

And it will be fun.

As I always hope it is.

I WILL BE BACK—next week.

Take care!

And if you didn’t see this last week, then check out this video. It is the process that the series took, three different rebrandings until we got it right. Wahoo!!