Creating a Brand and Going Too Far

As a writer hoping to create a brand someday (Jean Oram–the author of a certain type of book) I keep my eye open for how people create their ‘brands.’ Over time I have picked up little tips on what seems to work and what doesn’t. Or to put it more aptly other words, what pisses of the potential buyer and what doesn’t.

In the past 24 hours I have discovered a method that plain and simply pisses me off.

Okay, let me back up a bit.

First of all, I live in a town of about 11,500 people. If you have even a whiff of famous on ya, I’ll hear about it. You can’t keep a whiff of fame under wraps around here. For example: OHMIGOD! Did you hear? Joe was in the same room as Wayne Gretzky!!! I know! Instant fame status for Joe.

So, you take someone who is working to build their music career and guess what, the whole town is going to know about it. Especially when you have your own charity golf tournament in town. You sing for free at the local dealership (still haven’t quite figured out why on that one–I think it may have been a fundraiser). You are in the paper every other week for something or other (no, seriously). You have your name plastered on this, that, and the other thing. For example: OHMIGOD! You donated five dollars to the library, we’d better put up a sign touting your famous support! (Okay, he hasn’t donated to the library yet. Probably because another singer has her name on the library’s coffee shop. And get this, when she popped by the other day for a latte–they made her pay! How completely and utterly wrong is that?)

Anyway, recently this guy has been popping up like he’s the mole on the hardest level of whack a mole. Which was okay. He’s got a business to run, a family to keep, no hard feelings.

Until this week. We’re talking over-the-top, annoying, spamming the town. Why? Because he wants to be voted fan’s choice or something. (I have been trying exceedingly hard to block out everything to do with him.) The town paper put out a special commemorative paper on shiny paper–sort of a collector’s item type thing–and he’s in there three times. I open my mailbox and there is a flyer asking me to vote for him. I drive into town there is a sign asking me to vote for him. I go to the grocery store, there are flyers under windshield wipers asking us to vote for him. I pay for my groceries and the cashier hands me my receipt and a flyer to… yeah, you guessed it.

I wish I was exaggerating. And while I know it makes me petty to admit this, but it is to the point where I want to go online and vote for someone who is NOT him.

So, the lesson I’ve learned by watching this guy is that there is a fine line somewhere between getting your name out there and being an annoying bother. I have seen some authors do a fabulously fine job of getting their name out there as well as the name of their book without it all being, ‘my book, mybook, mybook, ohmigoddidyoureadmybook?’ And there have been some where every tweet, blog entry, conversation and online post has been ‘my book, mybook, mybook, ohmigoddidyoureadmybook?’ Again, that fine line.

Where do you think that fine line is between just enough and too much?