Public and Private Personas & Brands

It is a common idea that people have public and private faces – gosh some of us have nearly distinct personalities! In recent controversies about notable characters within the science-fiction book world, a common defence is for a supporter to explain how nice and pleasant a controversial author is. That even extends beyond supporters. I’ve seen many anecdotes in discussion about publicly challenging people in which said person was nice, kind, friendly or charitable in some way in ‘real life’.

That’s all very nice but generally I think such arguments can miss the point. The public persona of the author is part of their brand and part of how they market themselves – perhaps unwittingly, perhaps inadvisably, perhaps counter-productively, but still very much how they present themselves.

Anybody who is intending to promote their own event or publication or whatever by associating it with another person is doing so with the PUBLIC persona in mind, not how that person is in real life. That does not mean private actions are irrelevant but clearly it is the public perception of a person that is being co-opted for marketing purposes.

A con inviting Larry Correia (to use the most recent example) is making use of his public persona – how he markets and projects himself. I’ve never met Larry Correia and he might be the kindest, most quiet spoken and generous person in the world but that’s not his brand or how he markets himself. Likewise John Ringo – much was made by Ringo himself about how he is not a character in his books and how his actual personality and interests are distinct from the general nature of his books…but that’s not really how he markets himself more broadly.

Let me put it another way. If you were a con with an audience that has very strict, conventional and normative views about burrito ingredients then John Scalzi would be a poor match EVEN IF in real life, lots of people have seen him eat very orthodox burritos. For all I know Brian Blessed may be a very quiet person in real life who dislikes talking about themselves and is humble to a fault – but if a chat show asks him on as a guest then clearly they are hoping for a very shouty man with an enormous beard.

I’ve talked many times about the Sad Puppy brand and the irony that many of the core people involved with the Sad Puppies are often hyper conscious about brands and marketing as authors. The Sad Puppy campaigns are part of the brand of many key players but I’ve yet to see any of them really engage with the fact that as a brand it is a very negative one. About the only recognition this gets is the lingering resentment that ‘puppy’ was given a bad name.

There is no simple end game to outrage marketing. There’s no easy way to cause controversy to gain name recognition and yet somehow have your name NOT associated with controversy. The nature of outrage marketing is precisely to attach your name to controversy and hence separating the too takes both work and time. Larry Correia’s strategy has been to dial back on the fisks and jabs at SJWs and concentrate on books for his fans and, I assume, hope people forget. Ironically, his defenders in the case of Origin Game Fair are ensuring that doesn’t happen.

The choice for cons, publisher and organisations becomes clearer. Never having any involvement with a given person’s personal brand is an easier option. Over at Mad Genius I note people saying that cons need people like Larry but in truth it is a buyer’s market. There are LOTS of writers and many people with dedicated groups of fans. When it comes to drawing people to a convention, the passion of the fans and their location can be more relevant than their overall number. A writer whose public persona damages your brand and puts off other attendees or guests is not necessarily a wise choice. A writer who brings possible controversy, or bitter campaigns with them (all of which create extra work and emotional labour for the organisers) is an actively bad proposition.