You can write the best book on the planet but if no one hears about it, no one will read it. That’s logic, but we all know creatives that refuse to market themselves and then complain when they have no sales. Like life, creativity will return what you put in to it.
What exactly is branding? The official definition: the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design. Branding helps us sell something. What are we selling as authors—books or ourselves? As writers, we are the product we are selling.
My Top 5 core principles of brand marketing:
- Manage yourself, not your products. No Facebook page for your books. If you are a prolific writer no one will be able to keep up with all that, including you.
- Don’t put “author” in your name social media. Reading John Doe, author only tells me you are brand new. Just like with writing, show, don’t tell. Stop telling people you are a writer and show them by doing writer things.
- And while we are on this, the word “writer” is a little outdated. We are content creators. Books are one aspect of that content. We turn our books into movies and games and every word we produce becomes content. At the center of everything is a person creating it all with words.
- Because you are the product, your books should match you. Let your books be aspects of who you are, not the other way around.
- The most important part of branding: be authentic.
3 reasons to brand:
- Branding builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. People have to see a name 3x before they recognize it. Recognition is getting over that awkward first date phase.
- Branding is language. Based on the colors, fonts and imagery you choose, you can communicate who you are and all the things your readers can expect from you at a glance.
- Branding is efficient. It’s like an elevator speech for the eyes. At a glance someone can tell if they want to know you more. This saves you both time. You can try to sell horror to romance readers, but why not sell it to the horror readers?
3 tools for your branding toolkit:
- Communicate with colors. Read “Color psychology for business branding:” https://tinyurl.com/yc4rcz6d
- Easy consistancy with Canva: https://tinyurl.com/2p8r468n
- Show off your covers with this 3D book cover creator: http://diybookcovers.com/3Dmockups/#