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.
She was a thought leader, we were her "Dear Ones," her brand was compassion, and through her tours and internet presence, we were connected to her.
The commenting began. "Such a tone-deaf move. Really disappointed in you Elizabeth. You must know that most of your books are translated into Ukrainian, and you have a huge fan base here. How do you think we should take this 'big, wonderful news' considering we are now going through Russian-made war, genocide, ecocide?" one commenter wrote with another saying, "Imagine if during the Second World War, someone in the USA wrote a book about 'cozy Berlin' . . . totally disappointed." Goodreads was flooded with 1-star reviews, and after fierce internet backlash, Gilbert headed back to Instagram to announce she was canceling the book.
"It is not the time for this book to be published. And I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and who are continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm," said Gilbert as she shared about the cancellation of her book that was set to be published in February 2024 – another complex layer as February is the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Previously, Gilbert had masterfully used the internet to her advantage. Once an author of a short story collection, novel, and nonfiction book, in 2006, Gilbert propelled to another literary stratosphere with "Eat, Pray, Love." It came with criticism of course – a white woman co-opting other cultures to find herself – but the memoir climbed the New York Times Bestseller list and then stayed there for 187 weeks. This type of literary success is uncommon, almost an anomaly in the publishing industry. Suddenly, an author who described herself simply as a "writer" in her 2014 TED Talk became much more than that. She was a thought leader, we were her "Dear Ones," her brand was compassion, and through her tours and internet presence, we were connected to her.
Not every author has moved toward thought leadership as a core tenet of their brand, and not everyone has to. One can exist on the internet and not be dolling out advice. "You know, I think of somebody like [romance author] Emily Henry, her latest novel, 'Happy Place,'" said literary agent, Carly Watters, "She is really beloved by readers. She has an incredible fan base, and she writes another great book then there's a lot of content on the Internet, not in a way of like I'm a thought leader, but, here I am, as an author on the Internet in a way that I think people just really want to celebrate."
Gilbert much like, Cheryl Strayed with her "Dear Sugar" column and "Wild" memoir, has drifted more into life advice territory. This decision – authentic or not to their interests – has resulted in massive commercial success for both authors which is typically unheard of. Even though Gilbert has continued to write fiction, her brand has adjusted itself into the spiritual adviser, finding a kinship to Glennon Doyle's work more so than to novelists like Ann Patchett or Barbara Kingsolver who produce comparable fiction work. If Gilbert hadn't kept churning out novels, one might have started wondering from her internet presence if she had a life coaching system or crystal pack she was trying to hawk. She wasn't saying "hey hon" in our DMs, but it felt pretty close.
"The Snow Forest," a historical fiction book centering on a female heroine seemed to align with Gilbert's past novels only Gilbert wasn't just the author of historical fiction. She was our "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Big Magic" authority. Her brand – the extension of her – was focused on social justice and authenticity. This misalignment seemed to be the issue with the book. It wasn't the book itself; perhaps, it was simply who wrote it.
In the same way McDonald's would have a hard time convincing anyone to try a fine dining concept, authors can get pigeonholed in the author brand of their own making.
"It's absolutely true that timing and things that are happening politically in our country and abroad do impact what books publishers acquire. I'm not going to lie and say that there's no correlation. So yeah, you should think about the timing of your novel because you are going to make an argument for why this novel needs to be out now, meaning now and in the next two years. It's complicated, this kind of math. But the backlash to this novel in particular, I think, is like the backlash to Elizabeth Gilbert saying she's writing a sequel to 'Eat, Pray, Love,' where she prays and loves all over Russia," said Stein.
In the same way McDonald's would have a hard time convincing anyone to try a fine dining concept, authors can get pigeonholed in the author brand of their own making when their readership is showing up for one thing and suddenly getting another. "I think every author kind of has, especially the longer you sit around and the more works you're producing, there's kind of a Venn diagram of audiences, and some of them overlap, and some don't," said Friedman. Gilbert's cross-genre work almost illustrates that perfectly. For a reader of her historical fiction, "The Snow Forest" announcement seems like the perfect addition to Gilbert's literary canon but for "Big Magic" and "Eat, Pray, Love," the book doesn't align. We don't know what "The Snow Forest" really was ultimately about. Gilbert canceled it before we got a chance to determine if the plot and themes glorified Russia, as some online commenters lamented.
"Some people saw this [cancellation] as in alignment with Elizabeth Gilbert's brand. If you see Elizabeth Gilbert as someone who is an empathic listener, a compassionate writer with a big heart, then this I could see would be in alignment with that," said Stein, "When I think of Elizabeth Gilbert's brand, I not only think of 'Eat, Pray, Love,' but I think of her other bestselling nonfiction book, 'Big Magic.' The subtitle is 'Creative Living Beyond Fear.' And part of her message in that book is that if you want to be a creative person, whether you want to be a professional, creative person like I am or just to live a creative life, you have to have the courage to do so. And you also have to have a sense of entitlement that you have the right to live creatively. To me, her choice to postpone her own book is not an example of courage. I think it's an example of reacting to a large amount of simultaneous criticism on the Internet."
Author Brand Expert, Andrea Guevara thinks differently. "I can say that this move does appear to align with a foundational aspect of her brand which is to prioritize the display of approachability, truth-telling and thoughtfulness," Guevara said.
Branding is in the eye of the beholder and to be an author in 2023 is to live and die by the internet. That's just the reality of the industry. With publishers putting more pressure on authors to move copies and connect with their audience – to build a platform – there is only going to be continued pressure on authors to not only produce good work but to be able to market it on an almost expert level. So for a seasoned author like Gilbert, with literary stature and prominence in the field, pulling a book is not going to hold the same consequences as it does for other authors that might not have built the kind of brand power yet as Gilbert.
To be an author in 2023 is to live and die by the internet. That's just the reality of the industry.
"As a literary agent, I think a lot about the ecosystem of the industry as a whole, and I think about the repercussions of decisions like that and how they kind of reverberate across the industry," said literary agent Carly Watters. "Not everybody is in an economic position to be able just to pull something off the shelf and lose that potential revenue, and that's obviously just a privilege that she has."
It's hard to say if another author would have had quite the same reaction and outcry to an announcement of a book set in Russia. There is a danger to the idea that we can't set books in places of societal problems. If anything, as Stein wrote, we would have to stop writing about America if that were the case. There is a larger failure on the publishing house and marketing team for not approaching a publication with sensitivity and helping craft a digestible book announcement or marketing plan – not a failure on the author for producing the work. There is a missed moment in this announcement – a chance for Gilbert to discuss the similarities of her character's plights to those today living under Russian oppression, to engage in a larger conversation of oppression that she commonly does on her social media. While it's hard to imagine that another author would have had a similar backlash maybe they would have, or perhaps the connectedness to her audience that Gilbert has cultivated has shown the dangers that parasocial connections that readers can have towards authors.
We buy their books, we follow them online, but we don't actually know them or their intentions. We just know what they show us through their brands and it's hard to imagine how Gilbert, an author who has put so much energy towards social justice would have written a book glorifying an oppressive regime without pausing once in the years of her crafting it to say, "Hey, this narrative isn't working." This, however, is conjecture because beyond the publishing house and probably a few of Gilbert's trusted readers, no one knows what "The Snow Forest" was really going to be. This was a marketing and branding failure, not a literary one, and what readers need to remember is that before she was eating and praying and loving, Gilbert was a fiction writer – and she is still trying to be.
