There's that saying that you can't judge a book by its cover and while that's true, you probably can judge a book by knowing who wrote it. Stephen King will always deliver you horror, Brene Brown writes about vulnerability, and Anne Helen Petersen examines culture. These are the connective lines of their writer's work, but these are also their brand. Just in the same way Nike, McDonald's, and Evian water have conditioned us to know what their image is, authors work in the same way. "An author brand is the expectation that people have of the author's work," said Jane Freidman, author and publishing industry expert. Long gone are the days of publishing houses putting all the marketing power behind a book. Today authors are expected to have a platform and use that platform to sell books.
So, when Elizabeth Gilbert initially announced her now-canceled book, "The Snow Forest," on Instagram, one might have expected it to go a bit better than it did. "The Snow Forest," a book set in mid-20th century Russia, is based on a family's decision to move to the Siberian Taiga in an effort to flee the Soviet Union.
