I wasn’t sure what branding meant for an author. Why would an author want to brand his or herself? It seemed somehow limiting, like an actor who ends up getting roles only as the funny guy, never the leading man.
Several excellent workshops on marketing at the Romance Writers of America conference helped me to understand what branding is. To market yourself, which means to sell more books, it’s important to develop your brand as an author, because it informs people what your books are about, and what readers will experience when they read your book. Branding is a roadmap to sales. And you want to sell more books, don’t you?
To find your brand, ask yourself
1. what is the tone or genre of your books? Is it serious or lighthearted?
2. who are your competitors?
3. what is your competitive edge – or what makes your book(s) different from the others.
4. who is your target audience? Women? Men? What kind of women? What age group? What are their hobbies? Where do they hang out?
5. what are your primary and secondary markets?
Knowing these answers will also help give you a theme based on the feeling you want your readers to have. What colors would it be? Would the feeling be best represented by a field of daisies, a city scene, a window, a barbed wire fence, or a picture of the galaxies? If you write stories about personal drama and hardship, you wouldn’t want a colorful rainbow to be the header of your website.
Knowing these things can help you with your website, your Facebook author page (yes, you should have one!), your Twitter page and whatever other social media sites you make use of. This can help articulate who you are and attract your ideal tribe of followers.
As marketing guru Cindy Ratzlaff said in her talk, your book deserves to be on the nightstand of the reader who will love it. Her three A’s of marketing are Articulate who you are, Attract your ideal tribe, Amplify your digital footprint. If you’re interested in more ideas, visit her website. Cindy also has a great recap of her talk on social marketing here. You don’t want to miss it.
In the Context of Love: a new contemporary fiction about love, lust, and family secrets.
Angelica Schirrick had always suspected there was something deeply disturbing about her family, but the truth was more than she bargained for.
“Linda K. Sienkiewicz’s powerful and richly detailed debut novel is at once a love story, a cautionary tale, and an inspirational journey.” ~ Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage, and critically acclaimed Once Upon a River, and Mothers, Tell Your Daughters
Buy now: Amazon or Barnes and Noble