As a writer, when I’m creating characters, my favorite thing to do is build a “character profile” playlist for them. All through the drafting and editing stages, as I listen to music, I hear every song through that lens:
Could this work for my character?
At what point in their story?
What about their relationship with this other character?
It’s always been quite helpful to my writing process; just last week, while listening to a song I’d put on a particular character’s playlist, I had a revelation about a plot point I needed to set up in book one to prepare for a climactic moment in their book 2 arc. (Thank you, Florence + The Machine!)
This focus on characters — really digging into their profiles — reminds me of my days as an actor. When preparing for a role, I would often spend time pondering all sorts of questions about my character that had nothing to do with the events of the play.
What is a typical leisure evening like for this character?
Are they more introverted or extroverted?
Do they lead with their heart, their head, or their gut?
What animal best represents their essence — and does that change when they’re under stress, or extraordinarily happy?
And, yes:
What sort of music personifies their soul-story?
Again, none of this information would come up in the play; but each tidbit was a key unlocking another facet of my character’s personality. It was a way of getting inside their heads: channeling my empathy in order to tell that character’s story faithfully and truthfully.
Sanford Meisner defined acting as “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”; the same definition could be applied to writing — with the added pressure of an entire world of people to portray, instead of just one character.
Hence the importance of character profiles — and some sort of system to keep all those identities organized! CharacterHub is an excellent option, providing both inspiration (their list of character profile questions prompts you to go DEEP) and cataloguing (a platform that stores all that info for all your characters, so your brain doesn’t have to!).
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But the benefits of character profiles for authors don’t end with the writing process. Character profiles can also be a secret book marketing tool, informing and enriching authors’ promotional efforts.
Think about books you’ve loved as a reader. Remember how invested you became in certain characters? Whether you loved them or loved to hate them, weren’t you fascinated by all that lay beyond the book’s pages? Wouldn’t you have welcomed the chance to learn MORE of their story — to dig into all those juicy character profile details?
By incorporating character profiles into your book marketing, you can give your readers that gift — and attract new readers who are eager for that connection with nuanced, believable characters.
What if you already wrote the book, and didn’t create OR keep organized records of your character profiles along the way? That’s where the power of generative AI can step in to transform book marketing. That’s right . . . Realm Chef to the rescue!
Thanks to Realm Chef’s automated story bible feature, organized character profiles are just a click away.
Simply upload your book . . .
. . . and watch the Story Bible Generator rapidly extract a treasure trove of helpful goodies: chapter summaries, timeline events, location profile, back cover blurb, synopsis, and — you guessed it — character profiles!
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And that’s not all. Through the Book Consultation Chat, Realm Chef can act as your book marketing consultant, using its deep knowledge of your books to brainstorm creative promotional campaigns!
1. Character Introduction Week(s):
2. "This or That" Polls:
3. Behind-the-Scenes Character Secrets:
4. Character Challenges:
5. Character Interview OR AMA (Ask Me Anything):
BONUS: If your character profiles are particularly in-depth and juicy, you can package them nicely and use them as a reader magnet — that all-important free gift readers get when they sign up for your email list!
Let’s face it: for most authors, book marketing is a chore — tedious, if not downright painful. After writing a whole book, how can you work up the creative energy to produce MORE content? Where do you even begin?
That’s the magic of character profiles: you already have the content! Furthermore, with Realm Chef, we authors also have an AI-powered book marketing ally — always there to keep all our story bible details (including character profiles!) organized AND help us transform those details into author marketing gold.
As authors, we KNOW our characters; what we have to remember is that readers WANT to know those characters. Let’s put that character profile knowledge to good use in book marketing, building a community of engaged readers — and having FUN along the way!
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