As an author (non fiction), is it better to brand your domain name around your name or around a concept?

In my opinion, I would consider your long-term goals. If your plan is to build a brand around yourself and become established as a major influencer, it certainly makes more sense to go that route. On the flip side, your low hanging fruit is to build a brand around the concept by which you intend to cover. For example, Start With Why became a household name and Simon Sinek has built an entire company around that premise. It comes down to what aligns and resonates with you and what you intend to accomplish. Hope this is helpful, all the best!

If your brand is based around your personal name, then it may be awkward for the blog to grow into a multi-author site one day. Other contributors wouldn't get credit. Conversely, anything they say on the site would reflect on you personally.

If your brand name is based on a single topic, then it may be too narrow to expand or too inflexible to pivot.

When choosing a name, you'll want to consider every direction your project might conceivably take some day.

Awesome question.

The name is actually less important than you think, for a few reasons.

One, pick something easy. Pick something you like. Pick something with an easy to remember URL that reads the way you want it to.

I, for example, had a site named viralalita.com It was supposed to be read as Vira Lalita (a name in Sanskrit), but instead, was often pronounced Viral lalita. Not the same. It didn't match my intention so I switched it.

The reason the name doesn't matter AS much is because I'm assuming that currently, you don't have a large audience or a large budget to do a lot of direct marketing (e.g. Facebook ads)? This means that a relatively low amount of people are going to see your work to begin with, which means your MESSAGE and how you ENGAGE others is the deal breaker here.

Focus on the content. Pick a name you like enough to keep it for a year. And if your name is easy enough, go with that

The main thing is to get your work out there for people to learn and benefit. Leo did multiple guest posts of original content per week to build his following. It wasn't the name that landed him his success. It was his effort and commitment.