Duffield unveils author branding agency

Pan Macmillan's former creative director Geoff Duffield has unveiled his one-man branding agency for authors, Geoff Duffield Stories. The agency offers a “bespoke” service helping to hone writers’ brands, through intensive research and engagement with readers, publishers and the authors themselves.

Duffield concedes that when he left his role at Pan Mac in July in order to "work more closely with authors", the move was “counter-intuitive” in some ways, coming with the publisher on a high, following Publisher of the Year wins at the Nibbies in 2015 and 2017. But, he believes, “It is better to leave when you are really happy”.

"I wanted a new challenge because I’d been working at Pan Mac for 16 years," he told The Bookseller.

The new company is a brand agency for authors, rather than a creative agency, he emphasised. “It’s obvious that strong brands help boost the sales of the author," Duffield said. “The idea of ‘brand’ can seem quite nebulous or conceptual. I don’t think it is but often people seem to. Authors just want to be read as much as possible...Ultimately a strong brand means more readers and more sales.”

Geoff Duffield Stories will focus mostly on adult fiction, and he expects to hear directly from authors as well as agents and publishers who are concerned that their authors need greater brand management.

He believes it is important to engage with the readers’ perspectives and look at how the author is being read and interpreted by the public, rather than how they are marketed or sold. “In a relatively short space of time, social media has changed how we can aggregate this information."

(© Richard Jenkins Photography)

He revealed a three-step approach. “The first thing I’d do is meet an author and work out what they want to achieve… Then I will read their entire backlist and come back with my personal impression of what the writing does in achieving those brand objectives. My reading and analysis of the backlist will enable me to go back to the author with my own interpretation of the brand, a creative summary as I see it, as a discussion point. I will integrate this into a comprehensive analysis of the reader’s view to identify the gap between the author’s vision and the current reality.”

Then Duffield works with the author, agent and publisher to create the “brand story… the narrative to create a shared brand approach in practice across every touch-point with every stakeholder worldwide”.

Often the difference between an author’s perceived market and their actual readership can be significant, he said, but he follows a “an author-centric as opposed to a reader- centric approach”.

“I did this for a prospective client and it was really interesting,” he said. “I met her and read her backlist and she told me what she thought her brand was and I did an analysis about what her readings were saying on social media and there was a huge gap between how the publisher was publishing her and what she was saying and what her readers were saying.”

“I can understand a publisher [reading this] and saying, ‘Hang on, are you saying that I am doing all this wrong?’… But I would go out of my way to make sure that I am an added bonus. I would always collaborate with them [the publisher] and bring a lot of experience. I am confident of how to make a brand and how to flex them.”

Essex-based Duffield will kick off his new venture with three projects for his old employer, Pan Macmillan, involving a number of high profile authors although he won't disclose which. He wants to ensure that the service is “very bespoke” so will not take on any other clients for the rest of the year.

For more information, visit geoffduffieldstories.com.