A few of my friends have been using mission statements for years to tell people exactly what they get from a brand. After hearing about a mission statement several times from them, and seeing how they have built strong fandoms for their fiction, I decided to try my hand at it as well for my Solo Storm brand.

What is a Mission Statement For?

Your mission statement helps in:

• Understanding your audience for product design
• Attracting your ideal audience for visibility
• Selling a creation to an audience for $$$ and business growth

Your mission statement needs to include the Ws:

• What you do
• Why you do it
• How you do it
• Who you do it for
• Where and when you do it (if applicable to that specific project)

The mission statement I wrote for Solo Storm is likely a little too long, but it came to me overnight and I had to capture it on my phone.

A Solo Storm Book Is…

Solo Storm writes luxe romantic fantasy (romantasy) and sci-fi (romansci-fi).

In a Solo Storm book, you’ll find daring and feisty princesses of all ethnicities who are trying to do the next right thing while stuck in impossible circumstances.

These books are for the daydreamers, the magicians, the enchanters. Those who grew up on both Disney Princesses and pop princesses. Those who imagined being charmed and swept away, those who wanted to see a whole new world, those who wished for so much more than their provincial lives. These books are for those who have longed to express themselves, who want to go deep, who desire to belong to the group, who know the love they seek is out there, and who want to do it all with both style and savvy.

These books are for those who have a rebellious heart and an adventurous spirit. Those who channel their inner witchy priestess and plan their weeks by the cycles of the moon and tarot decks. Those who are trying to break their habits of people-pleasing and overachieving. Those who have entered their villain era and are up to some vigilante shit. Those who can’t stop expressing, emoting, questioning, seeking, wanting. Those who have felt like too much, too feeling, too bursting with passion…And at the same time, not enough, not enough, not enough.

These books are for the misunderstood, the stuck, the bored. Those who have been told to settle, stay small, and stop dreaming bigger. Those who are strong, everyday warriors without shooting a bow or wielding a sword. Those who long for luxury instead of laundry. (Why is there always more laundry?) Those who have been told they’re too smart, too assertive, too pretty. Those who have always wanted it all–the romance, the friendships, the lavender haze, the crowns and ball gowns, the palace intrigue, the art, the music, the beauty, the adventure, the dreaminess, the happy endings, and the dancing. Oh, the dancing!

These books are for those who believe it’s possible to have it all—the attention, the spark, the love, the devotion, and eventually, the peace of the happy ending.

Pick up a Solo Storm book today!

Your Turn: What is the Mission Statement For Your Passion Project?

While you certainly don’t have to take the same approach as I did, I think this approach can work well for passions that don’t address a clear problem they are solving. At Writer MBA, we use a selling framework: Excitement, Objections, Psychological Triggers. Some people teach selling on fear or agitation—anxiety is a type of excitement and falls under that bucket! Excitement is essentially just a disruption to the nervous system, a disturbance of peace—and you could go positive or negative with your messaging to create that.

Coming from books and the entertainment industry, we usually sell on “look how awesome this thing is!” which is what I’ll always recommend for all passions. I don’t personally like the negative disruption to the nervous system for myself, and I don’t enjoy purposely doing it to others, either.

To write your mission statement, here are some questions you can ask yourself:

• Who is your ideal audience? Not your audience. Your ideal audience. Picture an actual person and what appeals to them about your offer. If you are in your ideal audience, even better!
• How can you tie things your ideal audience likes to the value of your product? In my case, I write royalty books and princess problems. So I immediately tied that to Disney princesses and pop princesses. If you enjoy Disney princesses (royalty + happy endings in love) and/or enjoy pop princesses (happy beats + fame/attention/visibility/gowns/etc.) then you’ll probably like my books, too.
• How can you use language that your audience will associate with emotions? I make references to many Disney movies of a certain era that people in their thirties would have grown up on. I refer to laundry which especially targets moms. I refer to “vigilante shit” and “lavender haze” which are both songs on the newest Taylor Swift album. I refer to cycles of the moon and tarot decks to pull in New Age, witchy, and woo-woo people…And also to push away people who will hate these books. My books are fantasy with witches and angels and more, and those can turn off some people who are at the further ends of religious or atheist.
• How can you tap into universal needs that your audience will resonate with? Universal needs (according to the Enneagram) would be things like, being good, being loved, being valued, being individual/special/unique, knowing everything/being smart, belonging to a community, being rebellious, being fun, being strong, being connected. These are things that a lot of people will resonate with and I usually use them to expand my audience a bit more and connect to the core.
• How can you mirror your audience? Your audience wants to see themselves in either you, your clients/customers (case studies), your community, or in the case of fiction, your characters. It’s better if they see themselves in all of the above and everything is aligned, but even one would be enough.

I found writing this mission statement to flow naturally, but I think some of that is because I already understand my audience from previous work/efforts I’ve done to break down my fiction style. I also think that since I am a part of my audience and my work comes from me, this tends to fit a lot of my more personal work, even under my other pen name Monica Grace (which writes about spirituality).

Don’t be surprised if it comes easily, and don’t be surprised if it comes hard. A mission statement is just a way to get to know your company or project better than you currently do. But once you get it right, it becomes one of your best magnets for connecting to the right people and pulling them in to what you do.

Good luck!