GET PUBLISHED NOW! The Secret of Author Branding

Get Published Now! with Beth Barany

I’m coming out of the closet. I am an author marketer and branding specialist.

My business didn’t start out that way. I intended to help authors write their stories and their books. But one thing led to another and now, I help authors get to market. This means not only helping them write and publish, but also market their books. And developing their brand is a key component to marketing.

You may think that a brand is something only to do with products and companies. But actually, branding is now a concern for entrepreneurs and authors, alike. If you understand how to create your brand, and implement it consistently over time, you will create more value for your audience and hence more sales.

We will start the brand inquiry with this article.

What is a Brand?

A brand is a promise.

For an author and speaker, your brand is a promise to your readers and listeners.

To discover and uncover your brand, I invite you to explore you, your author self, and your book through a series of questions.

There is no right answer to creating your brand. Only what is right for you. If you fake it, we will know.

Based on information by professional branding specialist, Jenn Stark, (see resources below), I’ve created three categories: Your Core Brand, Your Functional Personal Brand, and Your Shadow Brand.

Your Core Brand

This brand is for you, and communicated to you by you. No one else dictates it, though others may influence it. However, you get to decide what this is. Knowing your core brand forms the basis for the second level of branding, Your Functional Personal Brand.

1. What do you tell yourself about yourself?

2. What is your taste in music? In food? In travel? In the kinds of places you call home?

3. What are your goals for the next 3 years? (Examples: travel to Paris, speak to a national writer’s conference, get my fantasy novel published)

Your Functional Personal Brand

As an author, you have an author brand. You may also be a speaker or run a business, or both. Each of those roles has a brand. Answer this set of questions for each aspect you’d like to brand.

1. What motivates you to bring your message to the world?

2. What is your message to the world – in this book project, and overall?

3. List 5-10 adjectives that best describe you as it pertains to your message of your book.

4. What are your strengths as a communicator/teacher/coach/speaker in your topic area?

5. How do you want to be known? What words do you want people to associate with you?

6. When you imagine yourself in front of a room talking about your message, how do you see yourself dressed? How are you relating to your listeners?

7. What do you see as your promise to your readers and listeners?

8. What kind of emotional connection do you want to create with your audience?

9. What experience do you want them to have as a result of encountering you or your message?

10. What action would you like them to take?

11. What result would you like them to have?

12. What makes you different from your competitors?

13. What value above all others do you want to communicate through your work?

14. How do you want people to remember you and your message long after you have left the room, or after they have stopped reading your book?

15. If you could have anyone you wanted write a back cover blurb, who would that be? And what would your readers feel about that person?

16. How do you want to be perceived as an author?

17. Who do you admire and want to emulate as a brand? Creat screen shots of the sites you like and don’t like. You can use them as a model as you develop your brand.

18. What are some of the messages you absolutely want your audience to know? State them as phrases or sentences.

Shadow Brand

We all have messages emanating from us all the time, some unintentional. Our shadow side is often there to keep us safe. As much as we are able, it serves us to become aware of our Shadow Brand so that we may choose differently.

What is it that you absolutely don’t want to communicate to your audience? This could be an unintended vibe, or negative trait.

Now What?

Once you have answered all these questions, let the information sit. Come back a day or two later with fresh eyes. Cull through the information, noticing themes, words, and phrases that stand out. I suggest cutting and pasting them into a different document. Now, see if you can distill you Core Brand and your Author Brand into one phrase or list of adjectives.

In my last article, Get Published Now: Sell Some D*mn Books, I gave some examples, reposted here:

• Romance author Stephanie Tyler’: “Romantic suspense starring strong military heroes.” (http://stephanietyler.com/)
  
• Childrens and YA author Michael P. Spradlin: “Action. Drama. Humor. And stuff blows up.” (http://michaelpspradlin.com/)
• Mystery author Michael Connelly: crime journalist turns crime novelist inspired by Raymond Chandler. (http://michaelconnelly.com/index.html)
• Nonfiction author Malcolm Gladwell, Outlier, Blink and The Tipping Point, and now, What the Dog Saw (2009): Outlier Canadian journalist turns his cogent eye on the world. (http://www.malcolmgladwell.com/)

Your Turn!

Post your author brand below and I’ll post my reflections, comments, and probing questions. By posting you'll be testing the market. That’s the next phase: testing the market. And the subject of another post!

Resources

I’m grateful to these sites and blogs, bloggers and authors. Their information aided in the writing of this article.

http://www.knowyourbrand.com : Communications and Branding for Organizations, Authors & Entrepreneurs; site and blog by Jenn Stark

“Getting Your Brand On” http://wow-womenonwriting.com/32-FE2-AuthorBranding.html : Cathy C. Hall’s interview with author, Shelli Johannes-Wells

“Pre-Natal Care for Your Book by Lynn Sarafinn: http://blog.marketingtipsforauthors.com/2009/10/pre-natal-care-for-your-book-by-lynn.html (This blog created was by Tony Eldridge: http://blog.marketingtipsforauthors.com/)

Malle Vallik's Blog about publishing, Harlequin, social media & entertainment: http://mallevallik.wordpress.com/tag/author-brand/

“How To Discover and Build Your Author Brand, article at the Creative Penn, by Joanna Penn: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2009/08/03/how-to-discover-and-build-your-author-brand/

PS. Last Note

Perhaps you don’t feel ready to consider branding. Then start with considering if publishing is right for you by reading my article, “Getting Published is Easy: 8 Things You Need to Know.

For more information, please visit Beth's TNNW Bio.

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GET PUBLISHED NOW! The Secret of Author Branding

Small Actions – Big Results

Networking Success with Dr. Ivan Misner

Ivan's section is sponsored by qAlias.com

I was recently speaking to a friend of mine who is a partner in an international consulting and training company, when we discovered that we had a mutual acquaintance who is a bestselling author and fairly well-known speaker.

In our discussion, we found out that he had contacted each of us individually to see if there were any possibilities for some type of strategic alliance with our companies. We were both open to that possibility but couldn’t see any immediate and dramatic way our companies could link up with his and do any specific projects at that time.

We were both a bit amused to then discover that we were summarily “dropped” from his radar (no response to emails or other attempts to connect) after that.

We got the sense that he was looking for that one big alliance that would help his company soar to the next level. That realization started a conversation about the difference in the relationship between the third party mentioned above and two of us.

Ironically, we had the same type of phone call with each other just 18 months earlier. We had come basically to the same conclusion. There was nothing on a grand scale that we could do together at that moment. The difference, however, was the rest of the story.

You see, we agreed to stay in touch. . . and then we did. We connected several times over the year and we met in person as well. During that time, we gradually found some simple ways to help each other and gradually enhanced the relationship. This was a sharp contrast from the third party we had talked to individually. We both felt that when this person didn’t see any big payoff, we became persona non grata with him. On the other hand, the two of us found ways to help each other gradually and even to this day continue to build on our relationship.

We came to the conclusion that most people who are successful at networking and creating strong strategic alliances view the process as a series of small actions taken with many people to create a long-term positive growth for your company. The process is more of a marathon than a sprint. Throughout the race, you form alliances and help each other in what may seem little ways over the long haul—small actions over time really can create big results!

Here’s another real-life example of this scenario relating to two companies which both reached out to me and BNI to form a strategic alliance with us:

The first company, which shall remain nameless on the grounds that they like to slam folks they don’t approve of in the media, contacted me. With them, it was a case of “glad to meet you—let’s get married!” I really got the sense that they wanted to GIVE me the privilege of sharing my entire database of contacts with them based on who they were and how amazing it would be for me to even say I had stood in their shadow! Get the picture?

When I explained our corporate philosophy and my own personal belief system that deepening a business alliance and building a relationship with a partner business took time and effort before getting to the “let’s get married” stage, they abruptly ended the call and (I’m sure) moved on down their computer-generated list of businesses to call.

By contrast, here is how a second organization in the same business approached the same issue: The owner himself contacted me and started the conversation by asking what our corporate plans were. I shared with him what our overall goal for growth was over the next five years. The next statement from him was, “We want to help you achieve that!”

From there it went from “glad to meet you” to “let’s get to know each other better!” He then shared with me that he had ideas that could help us achieve our corporate goal and help our members do better business at the same time.

When I explained, as I had with company X, that our philosophy as a networking organization was one of mutual cooperation and that our belief was that anything that would really be of value to either of us would take time, he completely got it!

Our relationship has developed organically and we now have a strong strategic alliance with the organization based on getting to know each other and work with each other over time.

I’m not sure how company “X” is faring; I don’t hear so much about their program anymore! I wonder why, hmmm?

Looking back over two decades of building an international company, I can clearly see that no one person or company brought something to the table that launched my company to the next level. Instead, it was the cumulative effect of many people, many strategic alliances, and many well-nurtured relationships that gradually, over time, catapulted my business higher than ever imagined in the early days. Each contact, each opportunity to reach out to each other and each mutually-beneficial activity served as just one more spoke in the wheel as we rolled up the hill toward success!!

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