Almost every author I’ve met, whether they write literary fiction for a small press or category romances for Harlequin, has considered themselves an artist of some sort, and no one wants to equate selling their art to selling Kellogg’s or Coca-Cola. They don’t view their books as commercial products. But the purpose of branding is the same whether you’re selling books or breakfast cereal: to let customers know what they’re going to get before they buy. When you pick up a Coke, you know exactly what the soda is going to taste like. You know that the Lexus will have more luxury features than the Hyundai. When you pick up the latest Nora Roberts novel at the grocery store or a James Patterson book at the airport, you know what types of stories are within those pages. Known brands are comfortable, familiar, and come with limited risk.
According to Bowker,[1] millions of books were published in 2013, and the majority of books purchased come from established bestsellers. While some readers are willing to take a chance on a new author or a book they’ve never heard of, most want a guarantee that the next book they pick up is worth their time and money. So, they go for established names (Patterson, Roberts), books that are getting tons of media attention (Gone Girl, Girl on the Train), or the current award winners (Brown Girl Dreaming, All the Light We Cannot See).
So what does that mean for new or midlist authors? How can you get readers’ attention and build an audience in such a crowded marketplace? By establishing a brand.
Through a combination of publicity and marketing efforts, you will teach people what to expect from you and your books. Your social media content, the topics you speak about at conferences or discuss in media interviews, articles you write for websites or magazines—they should all reinforce this brand. You teach people, namely readers, what sort of content to expect from you. Then, when you have a new book out, readers are more likely to buy it because the risk has been reduced.
Think about the last 10 books you’ve purchased. Why did you buy those? Chances are, you bought those books for one of two reasons:
I would bet good money that very few of you bought a book because you were browsing shelves alphabetically in a store, pulled out a book by an author you’d never heard of, read the back cover copy or the first few pages, and were sold. You wouldn’t want to risk your time and money on something that hasn’t been vetted.
Not only is branding crucial to selling books to readers, but it’s also a necessary step to getting your book published in the first place. Like readers, publishers are risk averse. They want to know there is an audience for all manuscripts they acquire and evidence the book is going to be a bestseller. Publishers will look at your social media platforms, your previous publications, your presence in the community, and any public appearances you might have made. If you build your audience and establish your brand prior to the book’s publication, you’re demonstrating that you have a following and assuring the publisher that there is a readership for your book. Having an established brand makes you a less risky, more stable investment.
If you think of it, even the most creative, famous artists had their unique brands. Jackson Pollock was the splatter paint guy. Pablo Picasso was the guy who loved blue, cubes, and young, attractive women. The Beach Boys were fun and upbeat, while Bob Dylan was edgy and brought attention to social issues. Hemingway wrote “men’s books” and loved adventure. Salinger wrote about young people and their relationships, while living as a complete recluse. Identifying and exploiting your own brand does not make you a sellout; it makes you savvy.
Gone are the days where you can be a Salinger-esque, reclusive writer, never answering fan mail and refusing to venture out to bookstores to do appearances. Authors are expected to be public figures, engage with their followers both online and offline, and provide their readers a sneak peek into their personal lives. Readers buy books because they like the author just as much as they buy books for the back cover copy or a quality review. If readers are interested in what you have to say, whether they hear you speak at an event or engage with you online, they are more likely to pick up one of your books. The digital age makes everyone more accessible, so your public persona is more important than ever for winning over readers.
The first step is to always write a good book. Without this step, your branding campaign will be worthless. Many writers are so focused on marketing and publicity that they forget this crucial step. You can have the most comprehensive publicity campaign, sink thousands of dollars into advertising and marketing, and drive around the country doing bookstore and library events, but it won’t mean anything if no one enjoys reading it. The idea is to hook readers and keep them coming back book after book, and they won’t do that if you’re not delivering a quality product. There’s a reason people buy a Snickers bar rather than a generic chocolate bar: they know it tastes good.
If you’re reading this book, but still writing your first book, then put this one down right away. Go sit in your chair, pull up your manuscript on your computer, and get to work. Write the book you need to write, without all the marketing and promotion talk clouding your process. Finish your book, then come back to this one. Without a finished product, you’ll have nothing to market, and if it isn’t high quality, readers won’t keep coming back.
The basic equation is fairly simple: You + Your Book = Your Brand. Your brand consists of who you are and what you write. Most authors we work with have one of two problems: they either don’t see all the interesting parts of themselves that also relate to their book or they think everything about their life is interesting and is a part of their brand, even if it doesn’t tie in to their book. It’s necessary to take a step back and view yourself through an outsider’s lens. You may not think that your degree in clinical psychology is a part of your brand, but if you write psychological thrillers, it definitely is. You may breed German Shepherds for a living, but if you’re writing science fiction, that fact is not relevant to your brand.
For most of you, the “Your Book” piece of the equation will be easy, especially if this is your first book, if you write series novels, or if you’ve written multiple books in the same genre. Common denominators make the “Your Book” part a lot easier. But as I said earlier, you’re an artist. There are many things that take your attention, and chances are, over the course of your career, you will write many different types of books. That doesn’t make establishing a brand impossible, just slightly trickier.
Perhaps the best way to clearly understand what an author brand is is to look at other authors who have succeeded at establishing their own. One of the first steps is to look at how an author presents themselves in public and interacts with their audience.
One author who does this well is David Sedaris. Sedaris is more than an author; he’s a performer and storyteller. He spent years building his audience on NPR and honing his storytelling skills performing on college campuses. He can also be awkward, but that self-deprecating humor onstage is reflected in what he writes in his essays, so again, that’s part of his brand. Some books are better enjoyed in the comfort of your living room, but Sedaris brings his writing to life onstage and gives his readers a reason to come out and see him.
Another author with a highly successful brand is Lee Child. It helps that he’s a tall, charming, attractive Englishman, but his success lies in his reputation for generosity and accessibility. He reads extensively and does his best to blurb upcoming books, especially those from debut authors. He regularly attends book festivals and conventions, and doesn’t retreat to his hotel room directly after his presentation—he stays afterward to meet and talk with his readers and other authors. While he doesn’t need to make live appearances at this point in career, he is committed to supporting independent booksellers, so he tours with every book he publishes. Readers support him because he supports the community.
Having a positive public persona and a favorable reputation is only a part of your brand: your book is the other. Saying that you write romance or mysteries isn’t enough for your book to stand out on the shelves. You have to have a clear understanding of what you write and a short, concise way to convey that to your audience. Some quick examples include:
Not all books are this easy to classify and if you, like many authors, write in several genres and across many themes, you may be confused about how to classify yourself as an author. But never fear, there is always a way to create a brand that encompasses all that you write.
While authors may think they write about many different topics and themes, in my experience, there are usually particular types of stories that authors are drawn to. Even the most prolific authors who write across multiple genres, age groups, and formats tend to gravitate toward certain story mechanics.
As an example, one of our clients, Sophie Littlefield, has written a small-town mystery series, a post-apocalyptic zombie trilogy, four paranormal YA novels, and now writes a cross between women’s fiction and suspense. Most people would call her a branding nightmare; I called it a challenge.
Here are the descriptions for three of her novels:
A Bad Day for Sorry: Stella Hardesty dispatched her abusive husband with a wrench shortly before her fiftieth birthday. A few years later, she's so busy delivering home-style justice, helping other women deal with their own abusive husbands and boyfriends, that she’s barely got time to run her sewing shop. Since Stella works outside of the law, she's free to do whatever it takes to be convincing—as long as she keeps her distance from the handsome devil of a local sheriff, Goat Jones.
When young mother Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help with her no-good husband, Roy Dean, it looks like just another standard job. But then Chrissy's two-year-old son is taken, and Stella finds herself up against a much more formidable enemy.
Aftertime: The world is gone. And worse, so is her daughter.
Awakening in a bleak landscape as scarred as her body, Cass Dollar vaguely recalls surviving something terrible. Wearing unfamiliar clothes and having no idea how many days—or weeks—have passed, she slowly realizes the horrifying truth: Ruthie has vanished. And with her, nearly all of civilization. Where once-lush hills carried cars and commerce, the roads today see only cannibalistic Beaters—people turned hungry for human flesh by a government experiment gone wrong.
In a broken, barren California, Cass will undergo a harrowing quest to get her Ruthie back.
The Guilty One: Maris’s safe suburban world was shattered the day her daughter was found murdered, presumably at the hands of the young woman’s boyfriend. Her marriage crumbling, her routine shattered, Maris walks away from her pampered life as a Bay Area mom the day she receives a call from Ron, the father of her daughter’s killer. Wracked with guilt over his son’s actions (and his own possible contribution to them), he asks Maris a single question: should he jump?
At first glance, there are very few similarities between these three books. Three different genres, three different settings, and three distinct tones. But if you look closer, you can pick out a few common trends:
Her agent and I worked together to take these common themes and come up with taglines we could use to discuss the breadth of Littlefield’s work. Those included:
“Mothers doing the impossible to protect their children in the face of the unthinkable.”
“There is no cut deep enough to break the bonds of family.”
These lines give you a clear idea of what Littlefield writes and who her target audience is, without focusing on one book in particular. It encapsulates all aspects of her writing and could apply to any of her titles. These taglines serve as the “Your Book” piece of the equation and serve as a jumping off point for the “You” part of her equation. Sophie is a mother of two, divorced, and has gone through multiple reinventions. She also worked in the tech industry, has a dog, and is originally from Missouri, and while these facts are interesting, they don’t relate to the books, and therefore, aren’t a part of her author brand.
Now it’s your turn! For each of your books, list the following:
Once you have your complete list, circle or highlight similar answers. Use the answers that are consistent book to book to identify and shape your brand. Here’s an example using Sophie’s novels:
A Bad Day for Sorry
- Vigilante getting justice for abused women
- Being comfortable in one’s own skin
- Middle-aged overweight female who killed her abusive husband
- Mystery
Aftertime
- Surviving the apocalypse and rebuilding a new world
- A mother overcomes every obstacle to find her daughter
- Single mom
- Post-apocalyptic thriller
The Guilty One
- Coping with grief and moving forward
- Does revenge equal justice?
- Suburban mom trying to leave her husband
- Women’s fiction
Once you’ve identified the common trends, think about ways to combine those ideas and come up with 2–3 taglines you can use when talking about your work. These taglines don’t have to be overly sales-y or sound like commercials. The goal is to convey the essence of your work in a short amount of time. Think of it as your elevator pitch, but instead of the pitch being for an individual book, you’re pitching your body of work as a whole.
Some additional examples of author taglines include:
It takes practice and you may try out a few before you settle on one that works. Run them by your critique group, your friends and family, maybe even ask a few of your fans their thoughts. They’re the ones who have read your books and may have some insight.
These taglines serve as a jumping off point. But slapping a tagline on your website and Facebook page doesn’t establish your brand. If that’s all it took, you’d be reading a pamphlet instead of a book right now. So let’s take a look at how to make the most of it.
Congratulations! You’ve identified your author brand! The only problem is that no one knows about it. Once you have a clear outline of who you are and what you write, you must establish that brand out in the world.
The first step is what I call “getting your online house in order.” When you Google yourself, what do you find? If you’re a debut author, you’ll probably find your deal announcement in Publishers Weekly, your book listing on Amazon, and maybe even an eBay listing for one of your advance reader copies. But if you’re an established author, the first thing that should show up in your Google searches is your website.
All authors, regardless of audience, will need an author website. This serves as your online business card, a place where readers, booksellers, and media pros can find information about you and your books.
You do need to have a professional looking website, but you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a web designer to accomplish this. Thanks to companies like WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix, you can download free or affordable templates and create a high quality website without the help of a designer. If you’re more established, have a deeper backlist, and have the budget to hire a professional, you’ll be able to customize your website even more.
I’m an advocate for not doing something myself that I can hire a professional to do better, but not having the budget is no longer an excuse not to have a website. Your domain name costs around $10/year, hosting is $5–$10/month and usually includes free domain names, and thanks to those services I mentioned, you can download plenty of templates for free.
All websites should include the following:
These are the basics. If you have nothing else, you should at least have these assets.
If you do hire a designer, or are just more tech savvy than the average author, there are some more bells and whistles I recommend adding:
These are the nuts and bolts of what your website needs. Next, you must consider, based on your brand, what your website should feel like. Oftentimes, this is the trickiest part—and also where web designers come in handy. They’re the artists and can often take key words and vague descriptions and create a visual representation. But you can still do it yourself with a little creativity and the help of your tagline and branding worksheet.
Start with a color palette. If you write dark mysteries, then you should opt for darker colors. If you write light beach reads, then your site should boast pastels and lighter earth tones. Look at your latest book cover images and use them as an inspiration for your color scheme.
If you write in multiple genres or for different age groups, consider creating different color representations for each section of your website. This will subconsciously tell readers which books are lighter and darker, which are for an older audience, and which are for a younger one.
Depending on the template you choose, you’ll most likely include some type of imagery on your page, whether it’s in the header or blended into the background. Consider images carefully; think about what each image conveys. A cup of tea or coffee indicates something peaceful and safe, while a broken window or door left open conveys something menacing. Avoid anything too literal (guns for your thriller series, shopping bags for your chick-lit novels) and feel free to obscure or darken your selected images into the background. You can also opt for designs rather than photography or other literal images. But no matter what you decide, always pay for your images through stock photo companies; never pull images from the web.
If you’re feeling stuck or not sure which direction to go, check out some of your favorite authors’ websites and see what choices they’ve made. Write down what you like and dislike, and take note of the general feeling their website exudes. This will serve as inspiration and help you refine your choices to create a website that accurately reflects you and your work.
In addition to your website, you also want to make sure your other online platforms are up to date. It’s helpful to do a Google search to see what is coming up first and what’s getting lost.
If your book is already up on Amazon, then you want to make sure your Amazon author page is updated with an official bio, headshot, and latest books. If the Twitter account you opened years ago and never did anything with shows up, then you need to log in and make sure your avatar, bio, and website are up to date. Whatever is out there and coming up in Google searches should be the most accurate and up-to-date information available.
We will outline your social media strategy in a later chapter and help you to identify the platforms that are most crucial to your brand. However, just because you don’t need to use the platform now doesn’t mean you won’t need it in the future. That’s why I recommend securing your handle and login for all social media platforms as soon as they become available. You wouldn’t believe how many other Dana Kayes are out there; it’s a good thing I secured my Twitter handle early.
Take a minute and create accounts for the following:
You don’t need to do anything with them yet, just secure a straightforward username or handle. For example, if your author name is John Smith, ideally, all your handles should be JohnSmith. Since it’s a common name and probably taken, other options include John_Smith, JohnSmithBooks, JSmithBooks, and so on. On LinkedIn and Facebook, your name can be the same, but the unique link to your profile should match your other usernames. If your Twitter handle is @JohnSmithBooks, then your Facebook name can still be John Smith, but your unique link should be facebook.com/johnsmithbooks. No matter what you choose, your handles for all platforms should be the same, so readers can easily find you across all platforms.
Most likely, you will only use a handful of these platforms, but having the online real estate is key for search engine optimization and discoverability.
Next, you have to gain a clear understanding of who your audience is and the best ways to position your book to appear on their radar. You reach teen girls in a very different way from middle aged men. But understanding your audience is more than identifying their age and gender. You need to put yourself in their shoes to understand what they’re looking for and how they get their information about what’s happening in the world.
Let’s go back to the Sophie Littlefield example. As we discovered in the previous chapter, she writes a variety of different books, but there are quite a few similarities. Not everyone who enjoys The Guilty One will enjoy Aftertime, but there is a large cross-section that will.
That cross-section is women ages 35–55. The majority of romance novel buyers are women ages 30–54,[2] but since her novels all have strong familial ties and domestic themes, it stands to reason that her readership would skew slightly older. Also, mothers with young children (most likely ages 30–35) will have less time to read and purchase books. Many of her readers are probably housewives and/or empty-nesters, ranging from upper-middle class to affluent. They have disposable income to buy books and the time to read them. The women at the younger end of the spectrum probably also read celeb magazines like Us Weekly[3] and People; the women on the other end still flip through Redbook[4] and Better Homes & Gardens.[5] They listen to NPR midday shows in the car while they run errands and occasionally have the local news on in the background while they get ready in the morning. They’re on Facebook to keep up with their kids and friends from college; they occasionally browse Pinterest, but they don’t use or understand Twitter. They’re in book clubs, involved in philanthropic organizations, and if their kids are out of the house, they enjoy going out, even during the week.
Can you clearly see this reader? By having a well-defined understanding of who your audience is, you’re able to successfully tailor your marketing efforts to reach that audience. This will be extra important when we move into the publicity and social media portions of the book. Many authors are so focused on covering everything that they forget they only have to cover the places where their audience is likely to be. Your local radio station may have you on, but if your target audience doesn’t listen to the radio, you’re not going to sell books.
To stay focused, answer the following questions:
There is a lot of information in the subsequent chapters about specific publicity and social media efforts, so keep this list handy so that it doesn’t seem overwhelming. Just remind yourself that you only have to reach your target audience and that many publicity and marketing initiatives may not apply to you, which will make the task at hand seem less daunting.
Once you understand your brand and your target audience, it’s important to align yourself—and your brand—with like-minded people. Think of it like tables at a high school cafeteria: if you’re selling to the popular kids, you shouldn’t sit with the geeks. And not only do you need to sit with the popular kids, but you need to connect with them, too. And just like in real life, you can develop some topics of conversation to break the ice.
You know your brand, you know your target audience, and you’re starting to learn where they get their information. The next step is to figure out what you’re going to say.
Open a new document or take out a sheet of paper and write out your tagline or author brand description you created earlier. Then, start listing types of content you could post to social media that would fall in line with you and your brand.
If you’re having trouble, start by using some of these prompts:
Continue listing topics and types of contents you could post about until you have a list of 15–20. Now, go through and highlight the topics that meet the following criteria:
Hopefully, you end up with a list of at least 10 topics you could potentially write about. To ensure you’re on the right track, here is a list using Sophie Littlefield as an example:
Brand taglines:
- “Mothers doing the impossible to protect their children in the face of the unthinkable.”
- “There is no cut deep enough to break the bonds of family.”
Topics:
- Being a mother, life as a single mother, and other familial topics
- Books, movies, and TV shows with strong female characters
- Feminist topics
- Living in the Bay Area, Oakland in particular
- Notes about reinvention after divorce
- Living life after 50
- Writing and publishing
- Real-life vigilante justice
- Amazing mothers and their children
Each of these topics directly relates to Sophie’s author brand and people who are interested in such topics would also be interested in her books.
This list of topics will later become your content strategy for social media, the talking points you send out with your media pitches, and the basis for talks and workshops you sign on for. We’ll explain the different ways they’ll be used in subsequent chapters.
As you get deeper into the publicity process, you may be asked to give a talk on a certain subject or weigh in on a news item for a newspaper or radio show, but should you accept if the topic doesn’t appear on this list? Or if you have a strong opinion on a trending Twitter topic that’s not on this list, is it okay for you engage in the conversation? We as people are more than our brands and have ideas and opinions that expand outside this seemingly limited scope. But once you signed that book deal or published your first book on your own, in that moment, you became a public figure. And as a public figure, going outside your author brand can have a negative impact.
I once had a client who earned a reputation of getting into altercations and heated discussions on Twitter. He wasn’t an argumentative person, but when he saw internet trolls bullying authors or people from the Westboro Baptist Church bullying, well, everyone, he felt the need to step in and intervene. As a person, I completely understand that temptation, but as a public figure, it’s not his place and it’s not a part of his brand. His online altercations with these types of people—even though most would agree that he was on the side of angels—resulted in him losing followers and other authors distancing themselves from him. Which is a shame, because he is a terrific guy and a supremely talented author. He just needed to stay on brand.
Whether you’re writing a blog post, giving an interview, or appearing at a bookstore, know your content strategy and stick do it. And most importantly, don’t be afraid to turn down any interviews or appearances that aren’t a part of your brand. It may be tempting to say yes to every opportunity, but despite popular opinion, not all publicity is good publicity.
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[1] “Traditional Print Book Production Dipped Slightly in 2013,” Bowker, Last modified August 5, 2014, http://www.bowker.com/news/2014/Traditional-Print-Book-Production-Dipped-Slightly-in-2013.html. See also the Digital Book World and Writer’s Digest 2014 Survey of Authors.
[2] Nielsen Romance Buyer Survey, 2014: “Romance Reader Statistics,” Romance Writers of America, Last modified 2014, https://www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=582.
[3] Us Weekly 2015 Media Kit: “US Weekly Reader Profile – MRI Fall 2015,” SRDS.com, Last modified December 16, 2015, http://srds.com/mediakits/UsWeekly-print/Demographics.html.
[4] Redbook 2015 Media Kit: “Key Audience,” RedbookMediaKit.com, Last modified Spring 2015, http://www.redbookmediakit.com/r5/showkiosk.asp?listing_id=4912229&category_id=18969.
[5] Better Homes & Gardens 2016 Media Kit: “Women Readers,” BHGMarketing.com, Last modified Fall 2015, http://bhgmarketing.com/research/research-women-mri.