Branding 101: Do You Have a Tagline?
Even though I’m not a big fan of Facebook, I’ve been spending more time there lately. A major reason for that is I’ve discovered some fantastically helpful FB groups. One of the best is Facebook the WANA Way, started by Facebook guru Lisa Hall-Wilson.
Lisa’s been a guest here before, comparing Facebook’s Profiles and Pages, and she knows her stuff. Her FB group is all about how we can use Facebook in smart and non-spammy ways. As her group’s description states:
“This is a group for those who consider themselves WANAs and want to build a writing platform the WANA way on Facebook.
All are welcome. Ask to join. The skill-testing question: What does WANA stand for?”
(*psst* If you don’t know what WANA stands for, take a minute and learn from Kristen Lamb why we’re stronger together than we are apart.)
On her group, Lisa shares tips for best practices (“What should I post on my page?”), news about FB changes, advice for getting the most out of FB ads or “boosted” posts, etc. She also polls members on various issues (“What’s the most annoying/worst FB etiquette behavior you’ve seen?”).
If you’re on Facebook (and especially if you’ve struggled with how to use it in non-spammy ways), be sure to check out Lisa’s group. Then scroll through the questions and answers we’ve already gathered.
What Is a Tagline?
Yesterday, she asked people in her FB group whether they had a tagline, and the conversation reminded me that I’d intended to do a post about them. In branding, a tagline is a catchphrase or slogan.
Taglines are like the phrases you’d find on a movie poster: short, intriguing, punchy, attention-getting (“One ring to rule them all”). They’re different from loglines, which summarize a story. For more about the difference, Marcy Kennedy compared book taglines and loglines at Writers Helping Writers: The Bookshelf Muse.
Things can get complicated though. As authors, we might have several kinds of taglines:
- Book Tagline: Think of those intriguing phrases like “Secrets can’t stay buried” sometimes included on book covers. These can be different for each book. They don’t have to explain anything about the plot. Instead, they’re designed to grab attention, create an emotional response, and set the tone for the story.
- Series Tagline: The name of a series often acts as a tagline, with powerful words like “Such-and-such Legacy” or allusions to what ties the books together—location, theme, etc.—like “The Place Name Adventures” or “The Adjective-Emotion Chronicles.” In addition, book series can have an overall tagline as well, like “Where Darkness Lies…”
- Fiction vs. Non-Fiction Taglines: If we write both fiction and non-fiction, we might have different taglines for each. The fiction tagline might lean more toward entertainment and the non-fiction tagline might be more professional or promise educational information. Many authors making the rounds as workshop speakers use their non-fiction tagline with their presentations, like “So-and-So, The Plotting Perfectionist.”
- Blog Tagline: If we blog, we might have a tagline hinting at our blog’s emphasis, like “Growing as a Writer, One Rejection at a Time.” The problem with these types of taglines is that our blog’s style and emphasis might change over time. After all, the writer in the example might get an acceptance. If we have to start over with a new tagline, we can lose all our earlier branding momentum.
- Author Tagline: I’d recommend using an author tagline on our websites or blogs. Then we’re branding ourselves, and we’re less likely to change ourselves than our blogging focus. In addition, author taglines can be used everywhere to build name recognition.
Why Do We Need an Author Tagline?
Author taglines can be the hardest to come up with because it feels the most nebulous. We often feel like we know our stories better than we know ourselves. Because of that, many put off coming up with anything that fits.
However, just as we want an author website with our name, and not just a website with our book or series title, we want a tagline that applies in all situations. Our author tagline is for our name recognition.
Author taglines help make us more memorable and tell potential readers who we are and why we write what we write:
- The Who: What overall image do we want our audience to have of us and our work? What makes us, us? How do we want to relate to our audience?
- The Why: Why should our audience care? What benefits will they get out of paying attention to us? What will they feel or learn?
Brainstorming an Author Tagline
If you struggle to come up with an author tagline, take heart. Author taglines might be easier after we’ve been writing for a while because then we can pick out trends in our work:
- Maybe we write with common themes or settings or characters (love, small towns, kick*ss heroines).
- Maybe our stories involve similar obstacles or antagonists (last stand against evil).
- Maybe our work shares certain moods or tones (funny, dark).
Try to come up with 5 to 10 words to describe you and your work and then play around with them. Keep your tagline short, 3 to 7 words or so.
Author Taglines Aren’t about Genre
Notice those examples above don’t focus on a single genre. Our author tagline isn’t about our work directly. Rather, they’re indirectly about our work and us.
Think about why we like to write what we write. Do we like finding hope in dark situations? Do we like stories of redemption? Those reasons aren’t likely to change, even if we switch genres.
For example, even though I’ve written stories in the paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and post-apocalyptic genres, my stories all have things in common. They include dark, edgy elements, touching on substantial issues, and characters who explore the gray area between good and bad. But in essence, I write for entertainment with stories that focus on themes of love, hope, and redemption.
Is my tagline, “Beach Reads with Bite,” the best ever? Absolutely not. And if I were writing one for the first time today—after knowing more about myself as an author—I’d probably come up with something different. But it alludes to the entertainment-with-an-edge approach I take with every story, no matter the genre, so it works well enough that it hasn’t been worth it for me to change.
Once we have a tagline, we can use it on our website and blog, on our business cards, and in our social media profiles. The more we use it, the more triggers we’re adding for name recognition.
Author taglines give our audience the context they need to remember us. And having a reader remember that we and our books exist is the first step to them making a purchase. *smile*
Do you have an author tagline? Do you need help brainstorming one? If so, post in the comments a bit about you and your writing: What’s your “who” and “why”? What commonalities form the core of your work? (And don’t forget to check out Lisa’s Facebook group!)
P.S. Happy New Year! And may all your 2014 dreams come true!
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I’ll admit. I’ve been trying to do this for a while and everything I come up with is awful. I really appreciate this post since I see now where I was going wrong. I write such disparate genres (YA and gay romance/erotica) that I was afraid of trying to gel it all down to a single sentence. And that was my problem, I was focusing on genre. *headdesk and repeat*
So my goal for today: new tagline.
Thanks for a wonderful, helpful post. Now for an ice pack.
Hi Davonne,
Yes, I’ve seen some authors successfully incorporate their genre (like “Bad Boy Romance”) or something, but that means they’re building their brand around that genre and not strictly around themselves. So if they changed genres, they’d be starting from scratch.
Some authors are fine with that. Maybe they have no desire or thoughts of writing in different genres. Or maybe they figure they’d use a different pen name, so each name would need its own author tagline anyway. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with including a genre…if it works. 🙂
But our author tagline certainly doesn’t have to include the genre because the tagline is about us, not the genre. And in your case, I can certainly see how it would be difficult (impossible?!?) to include the genre in your tagline. 🙂
I hope this helps with your tagline and your headache. LOL! Feel free to brainstorm here if you’d like help. Thanks for the comment!
Brainstorming by myself hasn’t resulted in much so I’ll take you up on your offer.
I know my main strength as a writer is my characters. I write rich, fully developed and deeply flawed people. I’m particularly known for not writing happy endings or sparing characters from consequences including death. At one time I had the tag line ‘Happy endings are overrated’ but that seemed a bit…well…off-putting for the majority of readers. Yet I haven’t come up with anything else that typifies my style.
Hi Davonne,
Hmm, yes, that can be tricky. You could go for something like “Expect the Unexpected,” or “Characters to Root For,” but I’m not sure either of those are quite right.
What kind of words do you think apply? Flawed, complicated, satisfying? Once you have those, you can mix and match, like “Satisfyingly Complicated” and phrases like that. 🙂
I hope that triggers more ideas for you. Feel free to bounce thoughts around here. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Well I think I got it figured out so I greatly appreciate the help. I went with ‘Let’s get complicated’ since I think it fits my style and my way with characters. ^_^
Hi Davonne,
There you go! 🙂
I Like that tagline! 🙂
Let’s Get Complicated
it’s simple, not too many words, and it promises something more than the standard happy endings… 🙂
Great blog post, Jami. Here are my taglines thus far-
Book Tagline (GABRIEL): Like Toys, Friendships can Break
Series Tagline:N/A at this time…
Fiction vs. Non-Fiction Taglines: N/A at this time…
Blog Tagline (Talking Animal Addicts): Not “Just For Preschoolers” Anymore!
Author Tagline (Taurean J. Watkins): Fantasy. Friendship. Freedom.
I agree author taglines shouldn’t be held to genre alone, but I included “Fantasy” in mine because it does. Not all (Which is my primary niche) but there are so many subgenres in Fantasy that I feel it’s open but still specific as a lot of what I write fits somewhere in Fantasy, even if it’s not an animal story or LOTR-like, you know?
What do you think of my taglines? Are they specific without being too boxed in?
Hi Taurean,
Absolutely! While we don’t need to include our genre, for some authors it works, especially as some genres are very flexible.
That’s like how I’ve called myself a paranormal author rather than a paranormal romance author. Paranormal is anything “not normal,” which encompasses a lot: ghosts, vampires, mythology, superpowers, paranormal romance, contemporary fantasy romance, urban fantasy, etc. That covers everything I write and more. 🙂
So I think your approach can work well, and your taglines reflect that scope. The only one I’m not crazy about is the blog one, but I’ve mentioned that to you before. (Psychologically, statements focusing on a negative can actually emphasize the opposite.) Personally (and you know this is just my opinion), I think your niche is growing and doesn’t need to be defended like that. Especially as I’ve seen popular middle-grade animal series, like all the ones by Erin Hunter, take off in the past year.
But as always, only you can decide what works for you and your goals. 🙂 Thanks for chiming in and thanks for the comment!
Jami, The problem with your reasoning for why my feels off to you is that I’m fighting a lot of stigma and perception of theses stories being seen only for little kids or only about clan-based warfare. Yes, they exist and appeal to readers, but they’re NOT all there is, for the same reason not all romance is SOLELY about the sex, however lightly it’s portrayed, okay? The problem I have is getting more people to see that there are more areas of animal fantasy besides straight fairy tale re-tellings and “Hunters or Redwall” style battle stuff. Plus, while you may be more open based on your issues with my blog’s tagline, many people (Particularly parents) are of the mindset that OUTSIDE Erin Hunter (And you know I have issues with market comparisons…) most stories of this type are in the picture book realm, or little kid shows with a max age of 7 at best. I’m trying to build my site by bridging audiences. A simple way to show this is with examples- Guess How Much I Love (Picture Book) Elephant and Piggie Series (Early Readers) Chet Gecko Series (Chapter Books) Time Stops for No Mouse (MG-Early YA Novel) A Taste for Rabbit (YA Novel) The Bear Comes Home (Adult Novel I’m reading now and LOVING!) This is what I mean. Show it It’s like how a lot of Pixar movies speak to two audiences at once. I’m not trying to sound overly boastful. But that’s the kind of… — Read More »
Hi Taurean, Oh absolutely! You’re much closer to the issues in your genre than I am, so I speak merely as someone with a vague-ish idea. 🙂 You’re much better positioned to understand the needs and perceptions of your genre than I–an outsider–could ever be. As you point out, your marketing has to have different goals if you’re trying to reach the parents as well as the kids. My point is only that psychologically, negative statements are often interpreted by the brain as opposite to how we mean them. So to say “Not just for preschoolers” could give the impression to open-minded adults that maybe they should have the impression that animal fantasy is for preschoolers. Adults who never had that impression would then be subliminally told that the preschooler impression is the norm. In other words, I’m not saying your message is wrong for you or your brand, only that the negative wording could undermine your message and actually cause more problems than it addresses. That’s the same psychological effect they talk about with New Year’s Resolutions. Instead of thinking “I won’t do…,” reword it to a positive “I will do…” That’s certainly not the case in every situation–wording things with the negative sometimes emphasizes things just the way we want–but it is a psychological issue to be aware of. For your tagline, you could change it to a positive with something like “For More than Just Preschoolers” or “Animal Fantasy for All Ages.” Or you could add more… — Read More »
Okay, thanks for sharing, Jami, it will aid my future marketing efforts.
What you describe kind of sounds like the marketing OWN (Oprah Winfrey’s Network) is doing now in late 2013-early 2014. using the network’s name in clever ways (i.e. OWN-ly here)
So maybe I could try marketing with something like-
“Talking Animal Addicts: For the Big Kids, too!”
Or “Talking Animal Addicts: For Grown-ups who still believe…” Just playing around with the idea. Changing the adjectives may be a more positive/inclusive work around. I’d been thinking about that already and your suggestions helped the gears turn for me. I’ll keep brainstorming.
Hi Taurean,
Ooo! Speaking as a grown-up, I love that second one. LOL!
I’m not sure if that targets adults to the exclusion of middle-grade or young-adult kids though, so it might not work for you, depending on the market you’re targeting. But both of those examples were stronger (IMHO) than your current one, so you’re definitely on the right track. 😀
Or… What about “T.A.A.: For everyone who still believes…”? That would be all-inclusive.
Whatever you decide, you have some great thoughts here. 🙂 Good luck and thanks for the comment!
I like
for grownups who still believe…
on some level it reminds me of the Lego slogan “or ages 8 to 80”
(there’s my 2 cents on a really old post – for what it’s worth)
Hi Robin,
Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Huzzah! I see where I have been having my troubles now! I have been trying to combine my genre into my tagline. I’ve also been trying to combine my blog tagline into my website tagline.
I need to step back and think about a tagline for ME and leave out the genre if necessary.
I do know that most of my writing tends to revolve around themes of people doing what others thought couldn’t be done… characters who reach for bigger things. Plus I am always trying to inspire people to reach for the stars (to borrow a cliche’). I enjoy the challenge of trying to come up with solutions to problems.
I have started a word web for myself but it doesn’t seem to be helping me much *facepalm*.
So I’ve answered the who… now the why… why will people care or what will they learn. Um I’m hoping people will be entertained while learning something about this universe we live in or perhaps even something about themselves.
Hi Virginia,
Yes, for some people the genre element will make sense, but for others it won’t. And it’ll just drive us crazy to fit everything into a handful of words. 🙂
I agree with you about the why. For fiction writing, this doesn’t have to be complicated. Just plain entertainment works, and in your case, it sounds like you’re including a bit of inspiration too.
Good luck and thanks for the comment! 🙂
I have a tagline, but it’s long and I don’t love it. I came up with in in like 20 minutes right before my first writers conference. An editor I talked to there liked it, so I’ve never bothered changing, LOL. But I’d actually have to look it up to see what it was. (I did: mysteries to fall in love with, romance to keep you in suspense.)
Depending on how you use your tagline, changing it doesn’t have to be a huge deal. I’ve got it on my site, and I think on my FB page, and that’s about it. I don’t think many people, even my good friends/readers, would notice if I changed it. So I should. But . . . I haven’t 😉 .
Oh, you know, it IS on my business cards, and I have a bunch of those left. Man, it’s good thing I’m so lazy 😉
Hi Jordan,
LOL! Yeah, that’s about what I did. Before my first conference, I was setting up this site and ordering business cards and I knew I needed something. 🙂
I like your tagline (and I recognized it as soon as I read it!), but you’re right that it’s a bit long. I wonder if it could be tightened and yet keep the same idea. Then any change could be gradual and not affect much.
As far as using your tagline, Lisa’s FB poll originally started out with the tip that our tagline can become a search term if we use it well, helping people find us. For me, I think the bigger issue is creating stronger memories.
As I mentioned in that “trigger” post about branding I linked to in the article, the more ways we can provide consistency for people to connect their memories of us together, the better they’ll remember us. The Jordan they hear of in this situation is the same Jordan they hear of in that situation, etc.
I’m with you on the lazy thing though. LOL! Thanks for the comment!
Aw! You recognized it? 🙂 I’ve been thinking about rebranding the tagline, though, to reflect my nonfiction as well. I’ve finally accepted that I blog about writing because I love teaching writing craft, and it’s about time I accept that as part of my brand. (Especially now that I’ve begun publishing writing craft nonfiction.) Or I may have 2 brands. Plus the whole married to the genre thing (though I have a hard time imagining anything I write without at least some romance or mystery/suspense). Sigh.
Hi Jordan,
Yep! ‘Tis true. 🙂
I know what you mean about the non-fiction thing. What I do here and in my workshops is education, and I love that. I am a teacher at heart.
If I tried to create a tagline for that aspect, I’d be more likely to have a strictly professional one, so I’d probably keep them separate. But honestly, I haven’t thought about it much before this post, so who knows. LOL! Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for the fab shout-out! I can’t take credit for how great that group’s become — WANAs are generous people all round and there’s quite a few published Indie authors in there who are very generous with their expertise as well — and a great community willing to not only offer expertise, but take the risk to ask questions too.
Just giving back.
Great post! Thanks for being an AWESOME WANA!! ((hugs))
Hi Lisa,
You’re right that the WANA attitude of service and helping others is what really makes WANA-things great. 😀 But you had the idea to bring everyone together. *hugs* Thanks for the comment!
Jami-
Thanks for this post. My website is rather new and the tagline I used for my WordPress Blog (which is officially closed after today) doesn’t really encapsulate all you mention here. It is “Success awards the pursuit of dreams.”
I am writing YA fantasy. I want it to be entertaining and allegorical. I lived in Narnia when I was twelve and 13 (parents were divorcing) and I know kids have it even rougher these days. I want them to have a place to escape that will nourish their souls.
I also have a fictionalization about Mary the mother of Jesus (a journal style book) on my project list as well as a non-fiction book about the importance of retreats and how to plan one. So, I’m not just going to write fiction.
Is there such a thing as a catch-all author tagline for all of this? I don’t know. It’s an important branding tool, though, and I hope I can find something that works for me.
Hi Sharon,
Ooo, I don’t know if this is helpful or not, but the first thing that came to mind was: Dreams You Want to Live In. If nothing else, hopefully that will trigger your brainstorming. 🙂
That’s a great description of your driving passions though, so you’ve got step one down well. 🙂 Good luck and thanks for the comment!
mmm “The Dreamers rule/own the future” ?
Hi Virginia,
LOL! See? Sometimes it’s easier to think of these for others than for ourselves, right? 🙂 Thanks for sharing the great suggestions!
Sharon maybe… Worlds you won’t want to leave?
Or perhaps, The dreamer of fantastical worlds?
I would also back up what you said about limiting yourself to one genre. A successful traditionally published author was told a few years ago she had to choose one genre to write in and built her brand around the tagline: Seatbelt Suspense. Now, she’s gone Indie and wants to publish women’s fiction as well as suspense — she can rebrand her website, but she put her tagline in the title of her FB page which she can’t change now. Food for thought.
Hi Lisa,
Great point! When traditional publishing drove authors’ lives, they thought too many releases or varying genres would undercut the releases the author already had. We now know that not to be true, and plenty of authors have found success in multiple genres.
If we have any thought at all of exploring other genres, avoiding those specifics in our tagline makes sense. Thanks for the meaty thought! 🙂
Never put things in your urls that you may want to change later 😛 lolol Yeah I learned that the hard way too! I ‘once’ thought I would write under an abbreviated first name. I later had to petition facebook to let me change it *facepalm*
Great point, Virginia! That goes for website/blog URLs too. 🙂
That’s why when people ask me about setting up a WordPress.com blog (the free kind), I always recommend that they spring for the custom domain to remove the “wordpress.” from the URL. Thanks for pointing that out! 🙂
Ah, the tag line. I just started thinking about these recently, and I looked at a couple of authors that I read regularly. Unfortunately, most of them weren’t that helpful (because they can just say “New York Times Bestselling Author”) or they’re Chuck Wendig, who IS his own tag line. My favorite is probably Karina Cooper’s: Award winning author. Gleefully Badass. Another is Sabrina York: she goes by Her Royal Hotness (she writes erotic romance).
So the who: my blog title is Byrne After Reading. I review books AND I write them (mostly contemporary romance these days, although I write urban fantasy, too). My female characters are all strong and snarky, and I have a weakness for caretaker alpha heroes.
The why: um, because I’m a ninja? 😀 Honestly, I have no idea. If you like strong, occasionally foul-mouthed heroines who aren’t afraid to make mistakes, you’ll probably like my books.
Note to self: come up with a cheeky tag line.
Hi Amanda,
Very true! Once authors become big enough, their name or accomplishments are recognized on their own.
Ha! at the examples of Karina Cooper and Sabrina York. Love those. 🙂
You bring up a good point about blog titles. If our blog is designed for a specific niche–like reviewing–and we’re more likely to set up a second blog than to change the one we have, a specific blog title might make sense. I know people who have a “purpose” blog and then another personal blog. In their case, the personal blog would be their tagline, and the “purpose” blog would reflect its purpose. As with most “rules,” there are always exceptions. 🙂
What came to mind when reading your description was something like “Heroines Who Walk on the Wild Side.” I don’t know if that’s helpful or not, but maybe that’s a kickstart to your brainstorming anyway. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
I’m still working on this, but these are excellent tips!
Hi CL,
I hope this helps! 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
I’ve been happy with my tagline, but was like so many others, not aware of the differences between each. Now, I am wondering, is the one I ended up with more genre-based (too much so, since I write in multiple genres), or will it be okay for me to use this as my author one… no matter my genre. My tag line is: Brace For Impact. Why? Because my intention in every story is to make an impact on the reader. For my blog/website I follow “Brace For Impact” with “A collision of heart-stopping thrills and unexpected romance”. This works fine for my romantic-suspense/thrillers, right? But what about my Young Adult stories that are more paranormal fantasy. can this tag line still work for fallen angel tales? Maybe, since a fallen angel would need to brace for impact… in more ways than one, right? But then the rest doesn’t work as well does it? Or does it? A lot to think about!
Hi DM,
The short version of your tagline (Brace for Impact) works great for multiple genres! On your website, you could easily have multiple “Book” pages, each with a different longer version in the header. On the romantic suspense page, the current longer version works well. On the YA page, you could have “Brace for Impact: A collision of…” Whatever else would work there. 🙂
I think that could work really well in fact. Your homepage and business cards and social media profiles would all have the short version, and only the specific books pages would have the longer versions. They’d share the “Brace for Impact,” reinforcing that idea, and have a subtitle with more info. Does that make sense? 🙂
In fact, I like that subtitle idea so much I do something similar in the future. LOL! Thanks for the comment!
You’re awesome! Thank you! I know exactly where to go with this now. I wanted to re-vamp some things for the new year. Yes, now I know just what to do! THANK YOU!!!
Hi DM,
Yay! *happy dance* I’m so glad you found something that will work for you. 🙂
I love my tagline. It’s on my author website and my blog. But it is longer than your 7 word max.
‘I write about strong people and the challenges they face.’
Hi Leanne,
The reason for the length suggestion is that longer taglines can make it harder for people to remember and/or for it to feel punchy and make an impact. But if you love your tagline, you don’t have to change it. 🙂
You could tighten the ideas of your tagline into something punchier if you wanted, like “Stories of strong people overcoming challenges” or something. Or even “Stories of strong people and the challenges they face” would feel more tagline-ish than the “I write…”
But again, if you’re happy with your tagline, no one will force you to change it. 🙂 (My suggestions are more like an editor sharing ideas for how to make your writing stronger without messing with your voice. LOL!) Thanks for the comment!
Well, I didn’t know it was possible but I love ‘Stories of strong people and the challenges they face” even more. Off to change blog and website. Thank you, Jami, you’ve been very helpful.
Hi Leanne,
LOL! I’m happy to help. 🙂
When I started blogging, I really didn’t have a focus – I was everywhere. But I knew exactly what to call my blog: Suddenly they all died. The end. (This was the ending from the first collaborative story I ever finished.) The tagline was something I struggled with, though. At first, I had two blogs, one for personal stuff and one for short stories and poems. It only took me a couple of weeks to just combine the two. The resulting subtitle/tagline was, “Or, mostly romantic nonsense.” I love classic literature, and those sorts of subtitles always appealed to me.
The thing was, I wasn’t wild about it. That’s when my geeky side came out to play, and I came up with, “Write or write not – there is no try.” I like it, but I’m not sure I like it enough.
Hi Kay,
LOL! I love the voice of those first two. As a fellow geek, I like the message of the last one, but it feels it’s missing your voice (that “what makes you, you” element).
This isn’t easy, that’s for sure. 🙂 Good luck and thanks for the comment!
Hi, Jami!
I’ve been thinking about taglines since I read the FB thread that Lisa started. My blog is “Mermaids Don’t Do Window” (thanks to Kristen Lamb for that), but I don’t have an author tagline yet.
I write science fiction and fantasy for adults, middle grade, and soon YA (not all at the same time). Yes, I’m catering to the three age groups in my home. 😀
One other thing Kristen wrote for me was similar to “My stories aren’t for boring pod people.” (I tweaked it to seven words.) *shrug* I’m not sure it works, but I kinda like it.
Happy New Year!
Hi Diana,
LOL! at the “pod people.” If I think of any suggestions, I’ll let you know, but it’s definitely memorable as is. 🙂 Thanks for the comment! And Happy New Year!
Another great post, Jami. I’ve been trying to come up with an author tagline for a while now…or rather a new one that’s broader. My publisher just sent me an email requiring one. Yikes!
I’ve read several articles/posts and attended workshops discussing author taglines. I find it interesting how some people think you should include your genre and others not. CJ Lions’ tagline “Thrillers with Heart” has always caught my attention.
Anyway, with your post fresh in my mind, I will keep writing author taglines and hope I like one of them!
Hi Haley,
Yes, for some people, including the genre works, but I don’t want people to think they have to include the genre. Are you spreading out from historical fiction? If not, something like “Historical Fiction with a Twist” would have a similar vibe to CJ Lyon’s tagline.
I hope something in here helps your brainstorming. 🙂 Good luck and thanks for the comment!
History with a Twist maybe?
Hi Robyn,
Yep, that would definitely be snappy. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
I’ve always enjoyed taglines. Being able to sum something up that way lets you present it in a whole new gear, for all the times you can’t give them anything more– or want to hook them into the next level of detail. Plus the tag itself shows off your writing skill and attitude as well as your content.
My paranormal thriller’s gotten a lot of mileage out of “He can hear a whisper a block away, and can’t remember why.” I don’t want to think about how many conversations, emails, posts, and so on would have been so much harder without knowing I could always start with that.
For tagging myself, I’m not as certain yet. I’m trying to build on the contemporary and supernatural tools I use (yes, maybe more genre-tied than I really want) and the idea that I build up moment-to-moment tension to make reading pull people in. The result is the rather cluttered “On the mean streets of magic, try not to read too fast.”
Hi Ken,
Ooo, I like that hook for your story. Very intriguing. 🙂
Heh, yeah, I often get so pulled into the story that I read too fast. That’s a good-thing/bad-thing, isn’t it? LOL!
I don’t know if you’re looking for suggestions or not, but would something like “Don’t Read Too Fast or You’ll Miss the Magic” work? It’s still long, but it seems (to me anyway) to read cleaner and makes the genre allusion less direct. You definitely have some good ideas to play around with. 🙂 Good luck and thanks for the comment!
My tagline is “the story of people and how they scare me”. I put a lot of emphasis on analyzing people and my own relations with them. To me people (in fiction, characters) are the most important parts of life but also the hardest to understand.
Hi Gry,
Interesting! I agree. My love of analyzing people and psychology comes from that desire to understand.
My only suggestion would be to change “the story” to “stories.” The first version sounds like there might be only a single book, whereas changing it to the plural makes it clear that you’re speaking in general. But your mileage may vary. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Saving this to my favorites so I can browse it later also. Thanks for the writing advice Jami.
Have a happy new year!
…..dhole
Hi Donna,
I hope it helps. 🙂 Thanks for the comment and Happy New Year to you too!
Well it looks as if I’m going to have to rethink my tagline – Sherry Gloag writes to The Heart of Romance I chose this because both my blog and my web site are called The Heart of Romance, and I write ‘sweet’ contemporary and Regency romances. It took ages to come up with this 🙂 *sigh*. Back to the drawing board, methinks.
Thanks for a great post and best wishes for 2014.
Hi Sherry,
Not necessarily. If you don’t think you’d ever write something that didn’t have romance at the heart of the story, then your tagline works just fine. 🙂 It’s not that we can’t include genre, but that we don’t need to. I hope that helps! Thanks for the comment!
Thank you for a great article! I’ve been trying to come up with a tagline but my writing and my ideas are rather eclectic. I’ve written two YA fantasy novels that I’m currently revising and I’m working on a third but its more of a fairy tale and the other two are more epic. I don’t want my tagline to focus on YA fantasy because I have some MG and NA ideas (one of them is contemporary). The commanalities I have noticed are that my main characters are always stronger than they think they are and my stories have a lot of focus on atmosphere/setting. Being true to yourself seems to be a common theme of mine as well. I would love any advice!
Hi Sarah,
Yes, in your case, you wouldn’t want to include genre, that’s for sure. 🙂
Hmm, do your settings/atmosphere have common moods/tones? If so, you could do something like: (Adjective: Eerie, Dreamy, Adventurous, etc.) Stories of Characters Discovering Their (maybe True?/Inner?) Strength. That probably needs a bit more zing, but hopefully that gives you a place to start. 🙂
Good luck and thanks for the comment!
Cool! But if you gave yourself an author tagline, wouldn’t that be a problem too, like with the blog tagline? Because people’s attitudes, philosophies, interests can change over time. At least mine certainly did, lol. Wouldn’t a tagline limit you and force you to not change? I would prefer to give my stories the freedom to be what they are, rather than making myself stick to what I always was. Like you might have liberal views before, but then become more sympathetic towards the conservatives, or vice versa. Also you could be agnostic before, but then converted to Christianity (or any other example of religious conversion.) Wouldn’t the core values of what you most care about and thus write about change? For instance, I know that converting to Christianity made me care TONS more about altruism, helping others, love and compassion. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about these before, but I just cared about these much less (I didn’t put them as my tip top priority). And consequently my stories now feature lots of main characters who are or strive to be kind and steadfastly loyal to their friends. In the past, my main characters tended to be a lot more self-centered–always about me me me and “I’m gonna be the very best like no one ever was!” that kind of thing. Not that stories about protagonists striving to be the best (e.g. in martial arts or sword fighting) are bad, but that my stories are centered around compassionate… — Read More »
Hi Serena,
Yes, if an author completely changed their outlook and worldview, their tagline might need to be changed. However, the example I can think of off the top of my head for an author who made these huge changes is Anne Rice–from vampire horror to Christian to demons to ??? She’s big enough that she didn’t need a tagline other than bestselling author, and yet she lost and gained many fans along the way because her stories changed so much.
In other words, I’d say that if we change so drastically that our entire worldview is different, the tagline is a pretty minor thing. It’s quite likely that most of our fanbase would need to change as well. So we could easily change our tagline at that time to let our old readers know who we are now (so they’d know what to expect from our new work and they could decide whether to stick around and check it out) and to reach out to new readers.
In other words, the tagline isn’t meant to be limiting, but reflective. If we’re chafing at our tagline (and it was good and accurate to begin with), then we can change it without worry of “confusing” our brand because it’s likely that our “brand” needs to change along with our new worldview.
Does that make sense? 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Ah, I see. That’s a lot better then. 😀
Though I think I change too frequently that I would frustrate my readers. XD. But maybe it’s just me. Or maybe it’s my age. I heard it’s around this age–late teens to twenties that the most belief changes happen. I don’t know.
Hi Serena,
LOL! Yep, that late teens-early 20s “discovering yourself” phase really does exist. 🙂
But I’d challenge you to look deeper into what remains the same. Speaking as someone on the other side of that phase, I reinvented myself every couple of years but much didn’t change. (I’m thinking also of those who get divorced because they think that will solve all their problems, but they continue having problems afterward because they were 50% of the problem and their issues followed them. 🙂 )
Yep, more psychology. 😉 Thanks for the comment!
Yup, SOME things might have stayed the same, like how art (writing and drawing) is still my favorite thing in the world, lol. It’d be fun to brainstorm what has indeed stayed unchanged. There are plenty of things about myself that I would like to keep forever too.
On an unrelated topic, remember how we were talking about our cover preferences? Here’s a prime example of a cover I really love:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/037587271X
That’s my idea of a pretty cover. 😀
Hi Serena,
Yes, that would be interesting to brainstorm, wouldn’t it? 🙂 And that is a pretty cover–intriguing! Thanks for the comment!
Wow Great post. I have a tagline on my website/blog Cynthia Stacey – Young Adult Author – Imagination is everything! My business card says Young Adult Paranormal Author – I don’t care if you are dead…stop kissing my boyfriend. (it is a quote from my latest book).but I don’t have a tag line for anything else. My goal for this week is now to get an all encompassing tagline. Any suggestions appreciated.
Hi Cynthia,
The first question is, how much do you feel “Imagination is everything” encompasses you and your worldview? If you feel like that sums up you, that works fine for a tagline. 🙂
Like for me, my “Beach Reads with Bite” doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with worldview, but if we generalize the idea behind it–entertainment with more–we see that it does reflect worldview. I try to make my blog entertaining and educational/insightful/etc. Again, my tagline isn’t perfect by any means, and if I were to come up with one now (knowing what I now know), I might come up with something different, but it works well enough to not bother changing it. 🙂
Anyway, my point is that what you’re really looking for in an author tagline is something that encompasses you and your worldview–and you might already have that. 🙂 And if not, maybe some of those tips will trigger ideas for you.
I hope that helps! 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
I’ve been working on this for two weeks now. Argh. 🙂 The common elements are leaving the reader with a sense of hope (even if the ending isn’t happy), Characters discovering themselves and their strengths, and (so far) things are not as they seem. I was thinking about Characters on the Cusp, but it doesn’t fit a series I have planned, and not every story has a supernatural element. Am a bit stumped.
I LOVED reading the tag lines in the comments. So creative!
Hi Robyn,
You have a lot of really good strong themes and ideas for yourself: characters, discovery, hope, strength, etc. I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with something.
By the way, “cusp” doesn’t make me think supernatural. A character can be on the cusp of a lot of things–reaching their potential, success, love, etc. So maybe that tagline would work for you after all?
I hope that helps. Let me know if you have other thoughts you want to bounce around. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
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