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.

Published by THE NATIONAL NETWORKER Newsletter. All rights reserved. Subscribe Free For Your TNNW Newsletter and THE BLUE MONDAY REPORT! - Click HERE.
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GET PUBLISHED NOW! The Secret of Author Branding

WRITE TO EXCITE: What Is Your Passion?

Write to Excite with Peter Biadasz

In last months article we discussed your talent (You Have A Talent!) If you feel that your talent is writing; an article, email, blog, book, screenplay, poem, etc., then you are in the right place to learn how to write something to either excite yourself or someone else. If you feel you are alone in the desire to write something you are in big company. Studies have shown that 70% of people in the USA want to write a book, but just don’t know how to get started. Working with first time authors keeps me busy. Many times people will say they have and idea and do not know what to do next to develop the idea into a book, etc. Sometime someone will offer that they have written a piece and do not know what to do next. It in these scenarios that I thrive.

I have always heard that you should write what you know and something you have a passion for. Passion is defined by Merriam-Webster as “an intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction, and a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept.” Reflect on the things in your life that you are passionate about. Now begin to make a list of them now as you read this article. One of the mistakes that many people make it to write about something that other people are passionate about, thinking they are playing to a certain audience. When you write what you are passionate about the passion comes through in your writings, be it a blog, book or article, rather than a flat writing exercise to please another person. We are raised to write what we are required to do for a grade in school. Now you have the opportunity to write what you want for the reasons that you desire.

After you have listed your passions, rank the list in orders of passion strength and knowledge of each topic. Pick one of the top 3 on your list and start the writing process.

You may not even know what you are going to write; book, article, blog, etc. That is ok. Just start to list all the ideas you have on the topic you have chosen. No idea is too small or too big to list. After you have completed your list of ideas go to the internet, to a book store or library, to see what else on your topic may have been written. By doing this you are not only researching your passion, but identifying what unique perspective you bring to the topic.

Now that you have identified your passion, listed your ideas and performed some research; write an article, blog or book. Be careful to not write and edit at the same time. Writing involves the creative side of the brain while editing involves the other side of the brain. Write the price in its entirety and then go back and edit. By following this process you will find writing less frustrating.
After all, you should enjoy the writing experience. Enjoy the experience!

If you have any questions about this writing process feel free to contact me at the e-mail address listed below.

Peter Biadasz, author of such book as More Leads and Increase Your Sales And Lower Your Golf Score, as well as the newly released Write Your First Book, is President of Total Publishing And Media. To contact Peter about getting your book published feel free to contact him at Peter@TotalPublishingAndMedia.com

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

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WRITE TO EXCITE: What Is Your Passion?

NETWORKING FUN FOR THE INTROVERTED: Pan Historia

Networking Fun for the Introverted with Wendy Kovitz

One of the first things I did when I became active on Twitter was to seek out other creative writers. I was quickly intrigued with Pan Historia --a haven, think-tank and playground for collaborative writers and role-playing fans and got to know one of the founders who calls himself "Wyatt Earp." Over the course of my interview process, I found out that his real name is Dan Rice and he writes in the fantasy, horror and, as his pseudonym implies, western genres. I love the way information trickles down in Twitter, it's more about who the person is rather than what's on a business card.

"Wyatt Earp"

...depicting two of the central elements in my Pan fiction at the time I painted it: Wyatt Earp and Ancient Egypt. I used oil and encaustic on gessoed watercolor paper.

- by Dan Rice

Interview with Wyatt (aka Dan Rice)

Tell us a little about the founders of Pan Historia and their desire to build an online community for collaborative writing and role-playing.

My sister dragged me to a site called Ancient Sites years ago and I was bitten by the collaborative writing version of role-play to the point that I forgot all about D&D and other versions of the genre. The site had been built as forums for some online game based on Ancient Rome but had jumped off into an entirely different direction based on the whims and creativity of the users. It was that creativity that inspired me, as well as the odd fact that the investors in Ancient Sites seemed antagonistic to the fiction writers when it seemed to me that they were the sole financial supporters of the site. There was an attempt to monetize the site that failed miserably around about the dot.com crash and all that creativity disappeared into the emptiness of cyberspace limbo. Fortunately for many of the writers other options were on the horizon even before the site went belly up.

I had started working on a community for writers that would embrace the role-play aspects that had kept me excited and writing consistently almost every day. I started out with a programmer friend, my sister, and a good friend that I met on Ancient Sites. Between us we worked out a design, the software, and the site was launched in time to welcome a flood of refugees from the Ancient Sites community.

Is there a code of conduct that collaborators follow, and if so, who (and I hate to use the term) enforces it?

We have some basic guidelines about courtesy to other writers and their characters - like no killing them off without permission. In the case of our site there is definitely a unique culture in how we go about collaborating and role playing our characters in a fiction setting. It's a good idea when just getting started, for example, to talk everything through with your new writing partners and not just throw stuff at people and expect them to hit the ball back. There is, on the other hand, as many ways to go about the thing as there are collaborative novels and writers at Pan Historia.

What happens to a work once it's finished? How do you know when it's finished?

Very few collaborative novels get finished at Pan. That's going to be a new evolution for me and my fellow writers. When it comes to story telling our 'novels' are much more like TV shows with a new episode every week and when one story arch ends another is starting up. Characters come and go, but the story remains. Eventually many stories just dry up, but I'm looking forward to creating 'season finales' to some of mine to give both readers and writers that satisfying sense of completion - as well as enable print versions of some of the stories.

What are the demographics for Pan Historia?

It's about two-thirds women to men with many people being college educated, interested in arts and everyone loves to read. Most people tend to either have no kids or the chicks have flown the nest - because let's face it, you need some private time to write. I used to believe that a lot of D&D and gamer types would be drawn to Pan, but it's really a very different crowd and most of our members do not readily flock to other kinds of social media. We also have a large number of college students, and I would say most of the members come from the US but we do have some people from the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

How about the sister site Pan Erotica (adults only)?

It's much smaller - more like a nightclub for the kind of people that want to let their hair down, but it's not as risqué as its title implies. It's just intimate.

Tell us about the free membership and activities...

There is no need to subscribe to Pan Historia to enjoy almost all of the activities. Boards are viewable by all once you register, and you can join in and start reading and writing right away. Everyone gets their home and instant messaging for free (just make Pan a safe site when it comes to popups). We don't allow any outside advertising either, though I have been an Amazon affiliate forever, but that's worth about $25 a year.

The site is entirely member supported, however, by the people that do subscribe. Those subscriptions pay for my time as administrator and programmer, as well as all the server costs. Of course it doesn't pay well enough for me to stay home and work full time on Pan. It's really most a labor of love for me at this point considering the amount of time I put in.

Tell us about Pandemoney?...

Pandemoney is more like a game then anything. It's our form of site currency. When a member subscribes they receive a certain amount of panickels that they can use to purchase site features such as more characters per username, their own novel to run, attractive new icons, reserved names for added uniqueness, and character banners that show up on the main pages of the community.

What are the goals for Pan Historia? Who are the people you need to connect with to make them happen?

I really would like Pan Historia to be more successful as a community in terms of membership. I have no aspirations to be the new Facebook or MySpace, but it would be nice to see the community grow and embrace writers and readers of all varieties who are willing to get into a social activity instead of lonely writing. I think if we were maybe four times the size we are now it would be more self-sustaining too. Too big though and we would lose what makes us great.

I'm still searching for how to make that happen. It's been an ongoing project to try and get such a small backwater of the internet into a more prominent locale for people. So far I have focused on getting people to the front door and then hoping the site will sell itself.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Pan Historia is not a 3-D driven Second Life experience. There is plenty of room for imagination and creativity which technology will never be able to fully master--good news for writers and artists alike. After meandering through the current issue of The Pan Historian and the archives I got a further glimpse into the writers, characters and the fun they have in the within the "walls" of the community. I've connected with many of the writers on Twitter and enjoy the camaraderie and subliminal reminders to write everyday, ponder what it means to be human and, yes, clean the house.

While the solitude of writing may seem the ideal refuge for an introvert, I can assure you that utter dread of networking and abhorrence of shameless self-promotion will, in no small way, hamper your success. (Trust me on that one.) Therefore, I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to thank my Twitter pals (who ever they may be in real life) for taking time to visit my "fictional blog epic," especially for feedback like "it made my head hurt." While I've assured DiamondSharp that it was not my intent to cause emotional or bodily harm through my writing, I am constantly looking for ways to be more reader-friendly -- or possibly a connection to someone in psychological warfare in the Pentagon.

Writing can be a very lonely hobby or profession, but thanks to Wyatt and Pan Historia it's easy to see the beauty, necessity and practicality of networking and collaboration.

Wyatt's contact info:

Social media:
http://www.twitter.com/panhistoria
http://www.facebook.com/panhistoria
http://www.myspace.com/panhistoria

Collaborative writing and blogs:
http://www.panhistoria.com/
http://www.panhistoria.wordpress.com/
http://wyattswriting.wordpress.com/
http://www.panerotica.us/

Other sites of interest:
http://www.ancientworlds.net/
http://www.bardicweb.com/

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Next month: "Millennial Kingdom and Generation Y"

- Wendy Kovitz
The Great National Kiss-In for Equality-Philadelphia! http://www.facebook.com/wendy.kovitz#/event.php?eid=122955264512&ref=mf

email
http://bookofara.blogspot.com/2009/07/introduction-by-roarke.html
http://www.twitter.com/wlkovitz
http://www.facebook.com/wendy.kovitz


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

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In memory of my father-in-law Joel H. Kovitz

Pragmatic yet warm and approachable,
He remains an inspiration to all who knew him
and left big shoes to fill.

*******
Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER (TNNW). All rights reserved.

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NETWORKING FUN FOR THE INTROVERTED: Pan Historia

Welcome to Novlet!

Novlet is a web application designed to support collaborative writing of non-linear stories in any language. With Novlet you will be able to read stories written by other users, create your own ones, and choose the plot you like most from several alternatives.

Novlet stories are divided in passages, text sections usually made of a few paragraphs: users can continue stories or add alternative storylines by creating their passages after existing ones. The only limit is your fantasy.

***Anyone out there like to comment on this site?
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Welcome to Novlet!