Images and brands and websites, oh my!

I've been working with a designer on a website this past week and struggling with a bit of an identity crisis. The designer went way above and beyond the call of duty creating about 3 times as many preliminary designs for me to consider than we'd originally agreed on... And yet, none of them seem to be quite right. I'm torn between two choices and they're very different from each other.

And I know I picked a good designer. And I know she "gets" me. But we're both having a terrible time finding some kind of graphic image or photograph (at a reasonable cost) that really represents me. It's like every commercial graphic artist over the past ten years has drawn images of women in the same style, and to me that style's not only boring and overdone but also "too cute" or "too silly" for what I write.

I guess my identity crisis stems from the fact that if I know what I want and can't find an image to represent it... Is what I want too out there?

One issue is that I don't write in a super-distinct genre. Yes, I write commercial women's fiction, which is certainly a genre, but a pretty broad and loosely defined one. And what does "commercial women's fiction" mean, anyway? To me it means books for women that hopefully will have a wide appeal, because they're fun, easy to read and have happy endings. Hmmm... Is that the definition of commercial vs literary women's fiction? Might be. But obviously romance meets that description and so does chick lit... So it has to be refined to also say "where the main plot is not a romance". And maybe "where the heroine isn't a twenty-something woman trying to find herself". But that's where the definition becomes trickier... because I think the chick lit genre is really defined by voice more than plot and frankly has also been defined by the graphic images put on the authors' books and websites...

So where I have trouble with an exact definition of what I do write... I do know what I don't write. I don't write literary fiction. I don't write thrillers. I don't write romance. I don't write chick lit. Although what I write is much closer to chick lit than it is to romance... I've heard the term up-scale chick lit bandied about and I guess I wouldn't hate it if someone used that to describe my work. But all that said, I don't want my website to look like a stereotypical chick lit writer's website. I want something different. I want my website to say, hey! Here's someone coloring outside the lines a little. Someone who might make me think as well as laugh. But I also want to appeal to a wide audience...

What's a kind of artsy writer-chick to do?

How do I create an image that represents "me", "my writing", "my brand", when I still haven't sold a book and am miles away from having an actual book cover?

Some may ask, "Why bother trying?" Or at least, "Why stress about it so much?" But I disagree. I have a suspicion that this may be the only point in my entire writing career where I have any real control over my image. Once I do sell a book, people in the publishing house's marketing and art departments, who'll probably only read little snippets of my book, will start making these decisions for me. And I know I'm probably naive about this next bit... but if I've already created a strong image or brand, my eventual publisher may use that as a base or inspiration for my book covers. (Okay, maybe that's delusional... but possible? It's certainly not possible if I haven't done it.)

One way or another, I do think it my website is important even though I don't have any books yet.

Am I putting too much pressure on myself? Sometimes I wish all I had to do was write.