Me, Myself and Me

“Establish your brand,” they advise.

My what?

“Brand.”

Ah, I did hear right.

So, what the heck is my brand?  Kellogg, Honda, Apple—these are brands I understand.  They sell things, specific things—food, cars, high-tech toys.  Me?  I want to see my book out there and read.  So what is my brand?

This led me back into research mode.  CreateSpace, the POD publisher of my book, offers all sorts of information on what it takes to prepare your book for publication as well as advice on marketing said book once publication has occurred.  I searched for “brand,” and this is what I found.  My brand is me.

Whoa, wait a minute.  Me?  I can’t sell me.  Or can I?

My favorite topic of conversation?  Me.  My favorite stories with which I regale my friends?  Stories about me.  My favorite obsession?  All things me.  This just might work.  I talk about myself all the time, dominate conversations to keep the focus on me, manipulate the topic of conversation back to me when it’s wandered to what my companion of the moment wants to talk about.  Ask my friends.  They’ll tell you.  Some seem to enjoy my going on and on, expounding on the plethora of trivial pursuits my brain is prone to.  Others—I have no idea.  Do I care?  Apparently not.

Alone at home, I talk to myself about…what else?  Me.  Or my book, in an imagined interview with Oprah or Ann Curry.  I think I even bore my cats.  Oh yeah.  I forgot.  They sleep all the time anyway, so snoring on their part is not necessarily an indicator of a lack of interest.

In my soul I remain sixteen.  I am now an age that begins with “six,” but it’s a long way from sixteen.  In part, my sixteen-year-old soul owes its youth to my young shero, Lisen.  Once I decided to send her to Earth for an education, I knew I had to fully reconnect with my inner teen.  I like her.  And she is a part of that brand that is me.

So, what does this mean?  Perhaps it means I can go on about me here, where people can choose whether or not to listen, and I can take the pressure off my friends.  Then again, I probably won’t let them off that easy.