Horse-less

Seems there is such a thing as too many horses.  Who knew!

I’ve been horse crazy since I could first point at anything vaguely equine and drool. I wanted to be Velvet Brown, having so many horses I could ride a different one every day, or Jill Crewe having adventures with Danny boy. As I grew up many of my horses (and dogs) took their names from characters in books of the Pullien-Thompson sisters. 

As a writer it was only natural that I would write about horses. But actually, I don’t. Recently I’ve been talking to people who know about this kind of thing about  re-branding my books and website. My website features some stunning horse images. My book covers are the same, fabulous images of horses. Ughhhh, was the general consensus. The site and book covers, I was curtly informed were fine if I was writing books about horses.  But I don’t.

Actually I wasn’t upset by the comments, they were from people who understood a very lot more about branding than I ever will. You don’t go to a trainer for a coaching session with your horse and then row with the because they can see what is wrong.

My books aren’t about horses, yes they feature horses, but they are actually about the lives of horse and country people. Some of my books are Jilly Cooper-esque romances, set in the racing world, my more recent ones feature eventing.  My crime novels (a soon to be released series) all feature people who are involved with horses – and are a very bad lot!  Even the historical series I’m slowly working on feature people who have horses in their lives. But none of the books is actually about horses. They are all about strong women, privilaged lives, fractured by circumstance. (And the odd horse thrown in there for good measure!)

My other writing self, Jacqui Broderick, writes pony stories, so that web site and books are fine being filled with horse images because they are aimed at the right audience.

It is hard to stop writing, re-writing and editing and get to work on rebranding me. I find once I get out of the routine of working on a book it is hard to get back into the right space, but this has to be done. I’m going to replace my beloved horse images with ones that are more relevant to my audience, who don’t want to read about horses, but rather about about the lives of people who have horses, regardless of whether they are loving, or killing one another! Re-branding is going to be my major job for August.