So I've got kind of a funny question on today's good Life project riff, and that question is, should you brand your face?
So I was at dinner recently with a couple of friends, and one friend said, I tell all people, everybody, that they should have their picture on the COVID of their books because it helps you brand your personal brand a lot faster.
At first I thought, well, yeah, I guess that makes sense.
Then I started thinking a little bit more deeply about this, and it brought up a few questions for me, and one is, do you really want to build your personal brand, or do you want to build the brand of something you're creating as a standalone entity?
It's not that there's a right or wrong answer to this.
It's just, it's a question that a lot of people often don't ask.
They start out thinking about themselves rather than is it actually better for me to focus my energy on the larger thing, that I want to exist at some point without having to be tied to me?
And then that sort of moves into another exploration, which is, even if you do want to focus more on your personal brand, does having your image, your face front and center on everything, really do what you think it'll do?
Will it really do what you're hoping it will do?
If you think about the biggest books of all times, for the most part, the authors faces were not on the COVID So I wasn't really sold on the theory.
So I did what I always did, I looked for evidence, and I started poring through the best selling books of all times, generally non fiction books of all times, because actually, most of the best selling books of all times are fiction books.
And what I discovered was that, sure, some authors with already existing massive personal brands have their faces on the covers of their books.
People like Joel Osteen or Oprah or Susie Orman, and they're just a handful of examples.
But also, what I came to believe is that the reason their faces were on the COVID of the books was largely because of the equity already built up in their personal brands, and the fact that that was already so huge by the time the books came out, that having their images on the COVID sold a lot more books.
So that was a marketing play, leveraging their existing image and personal brand as a tool to move more books.
If it had any impact on furthering their brands, it was really more secondary.
So meanwhile, equally and arguably far more famous authors do not appear on the front of their books.
People like Paulo Coelho wasn't on the alchemist Sheryl Strahd.
Was not on the COVID of Wild.
Elizabeth Gilbert not on the COVID of eat, pray, love or big magic.