Unpacking the Forest Archetype

The defining traits of a Forest

• Superpowers: Injecting their personalities into their books, high competency and skill stacking, nurturing every project consistently

• Challenges: Watering things long past when their should have quit, Getting one Mother Tree to flower and bear fruit before moving on to the next, writing to market, letting go of aspects of their business

• Motivations: Exploring their interests, connecting with readers who have shared interests

Every healthy business needs a way to produce new offers, a way to grow an audience, and a way to bring in sales. Here’s what might work best for those identifying as a Forest:

What Would Likely Work Best For Production

Market research and trends -

Forests are competent at doing the market research about what is selling and what is not, but may find it a struggle to execute on a trend in order to catch the wave. A big part of why trend-chasing doesn’t work well for this type is because they inject so much of themselves into their books. A Forest might think: “well obviously—doesn’t everyone do that?” and may be surprised to learn that the answer to that is no! Several other types are able to remove themselves from the creative process, which creates a ton of success for them. When Forests try to do this, however, it doesn’t work for them at all.

What does work? Forests are good at injecting trends that already align well to their viewpoint and personality into their books. When they try to add a trend for trend’s sake, it tends to backfire on them. Their readers may not like it, or they may compromise their story to add something that doesn’t actually resonate with them on a personal level. That makes it less appealing to share and market the book.

Finding the trends is easy for Forests—and Forests are usually fantastic researchers—but the issue for this type lies in executing the trend in the traditional “write-to-market” ways that most beginner and intermediate writers are taught. Because trends are challenging to execute on, this usually means that a Forest is among the top of their class, due to their high competency and consistent efforts, but may struggle to become best in class.

Put another way, Forests see success by contributing to a conversation rather than owning a conversation. Their perspective on a trope or a topic is the currency that becomes the most valuable to them. And although this is a superpower, many Forests who are high Achievers or Enneagram 3’s can feel frustrated that they never seem to “win the entire game.”

To be clear—contributing a unique perspective to an ongoing conversation is an extremely successful and financially profitable place to be! Forests run into trouble when they attempt to be something they are not to find success, believing that they are following all the rules and best practices along with stacking all their numerous skills to create a hit.

Forests do best when they research the trends, use as many as make sense for their brand, and focus on what’s evergreen. They don’t need to execute on trends perfectly (and this is typically a disservice to them when they do), but placing some of those marketing hooks can help the book do well.

Creating content and products -

Forests tend to be consistent creators who often have multiple pen names or major projects going at once. Other types are unable to juggle these, but Forests are natural gardeners, watering each project in the same amounts over time. This means that a Forest can explore several different genres or niches competently and all at once.

Usually, one product line or pen name will stand tall above the rest. We often find Forests who have one pen name that pays almost all the bills, while the other pen names keep getting watered regardless of whether they make any money. Forests seem to prioritize their interests above all in terms of writing projects. They have a natural flow to their work and can balance many different things at once.

When they create content, it’s frequently based on them. A Forest’s motto is not, “if you like this, then you’ll like this.” Save that line for the Desert! Instead, it’s “if you like ME, then you’ll like this.” Forests do best when they lead with personality, and every pen name or product line is a way for them to express a different aspect of their personality.

Readers really enjoy getting to know and hang out with authors who are Forests. They are the types of authors who develop a devoted following (even if that following seems slower to form). People like Forests, and people form parasocial relationships with Forests easily.

Forests should trust who they are and trust that they can translate that through any medium, genre, or niche.

Pacing and scheduling production -

When a Forest is able to focus on their author career full-time, consistency is a Forest’s middle name, and competency is their game. Forests hum along in production and rarely struggle to work, which is both a superpower and the thing that could undo them. They can also tend to become work horses, potentially burning themselves out by taking on too much, too quickly.

Forests are also often excellent systemizers. They are usually good at simplification, automation, and delegation within a product line or pen name.

Even though a Forest can handle a different production schedule than most, eventually a Forest does get overwhelmed. As a Forest’s catalog grows, they need to find a caretaker to help them tend the grounds. This type, however, is also the most resistant to getting help. They are hands-on creators with a deep connection to their audience. They may go through several iterations of trying to find people who can perform at their level, but because they are good at many things, it may frustrate them to work with people who can’t do it as well as they could.

Not all Forests have necessarily built to this level, as sometimes work or personal life gets in the way of the hours that they can spend on their creative life.

What Would Likely Work Best For Audience

Finding audience -

Forests are good at creating regularly, and even when they don’t, they are good at communicating to their readers about what can be expected next. Forests will find a lot of support by reaching out to their current network about their books, as they are the types to have friends and family who are interested in what they do.

Forests are also great at getting their base of readers to excite others to try the books. Word-of-mouth is a great source of sales for them because their books are unique and recommendable. They are the types of books that make people think of other people who might like them.

Finally, Forests do surprisingly well with advertising. Their natural ability to stack multiple skill sets makes it easier for them to learn advertising, and their ability to compartmentalize and level up each piece of a project makes it easier for them to optimize their ads across every platform. As with many things, Forests might be resistant to advertising at first, but once they commit to making them work, this becomes one of their best ways for finding new readers. They will do best when serving ads based less on genre/niche and more on interests. Facebook advertising works particularly well for them because of this.

Nurturing audience -

Forests have great success when they bring their readers together into a community that’s united around common interests (usually related to the books). Communities serve several purposes for a Forest:

• They help readers of one series find additional books and series that they will like (even across pen names)

• They help readers meet and talk to each other—which is a foundational element of getting great word-of-mouth for the community and for the books

• They give Forests a place to chat with people who like the same things they like—it’s a fantastic place for everyone to nerd out together

• They help readers become superfans—Forests love to chat about their interests and stay present, while readers love spending time with the author in this way. Superfans further help spread the word about the books.

The good news for Forests is that they probably only really need one group. While they may have multiple pen names, all of those names can co-exist in the group because the crossover between the pen names is higher than it would be for other types.

Scaling audience -

Apple has been said to have a simple company strategy: “All roads lead to the iPhone.” And this is a strategy Forests could consider as well. Forests have stronger crossover between pen names and product lines than other types do, so finding more ways to connect and create conversion between the silos in their book catalog will go a long way in scaling their audience.

For example, Forests could get away with writing both cozy mysteries and romance under the same worldbuilding, and could even get away with crossing characters between the two series! This doesn’t necessarily mean they should combine pen names—usually their pen names are not a secret. It does mean that they have a way to capture both romance readers and cozy mystery readers and have a much higher chance of crossing them over to their entire catalog.

If you look at a Forest’s book reviews, one of the things of note is that many of their readers write that they don’t typically read in their genre, but they just liked the character or the setting or the voice. This is valuable context for advertising, as some of the things that work well for ads are targeting based on interests rather than genre and using a passage from the books to share unique aspects of the book, like world-building and voice.

Genre targeting can work really well for a Forest also if they have a big and proven tree that hits genre tropes well enough. Usually a Forest doesn’t love this pen name, but they were able to create it when they acted like a Desert, and it worked, so they are able to milk it for a long time and bring those readers back through to their less popular trees.

Famous Forest Authors

Stephen King, Brandon Sanderson, JK Rowling, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dean Koontz, Colleen Hoover