B is for Building Your Author Brand #AtoZChallenge

Author brand is kind of a nebulous term. We hear of clothing brands and soft drink brands, but people as brands? It may seem odd. Are you a brand? Am I a brand? If you’re an author interesting in marketing your book, then the answers to all those questions are “yes”.

In order to build your brand, you first have to know what it is. So what is your author brand? In her book, Your Book, Your Brand, Dana Kaye states it simply. “. . . You + Your Book = Your Brand. Your brand consists of who you are and what you write.” 

Defining this can be easy if you’re a naturally interesting person and you have one gothic horror you’re marketing. But, what if you don’t know what’s interesting about you, and you’ve written a gothic horror, middle-grade humor, and a young adult romance?

Kaye recommends finding a common theme throughout your work. She encourages authors to go through all of their books, both published and in progress, and list the following:

1.  Primary themes
2.  Secondary themes
3.  One line about the protagonist
4.  Genre category

When your lists are complete, mark similar answers. From these similar answers, condense the information until you’ve determined your author brand. I recommend picking up this book, so she can walk you through the process thoroughly. Here’s a link: Your Book, Your Brand by Dana Kaye. It's well worth the money and time spent reading.

Once you’ve developed your brand, you’re ready for it to meet the world. This brand will guide every decision you make in your book marketing from the style you choose for your website and promotional materials to where you seek reviews and interviews to which conferences you attend. By knowing your brand, your marketing will be focused, and you'll waste less time on activities that are unlikely to promote you and sell your book.

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Melinda Marshall Friesen authored three books that delve into dark futures. When she's not promoting her own books, she's marketing books for other authors as the the marketing director at Rebelight Publishing Inc. 

Is Your Author Page the Place for Political Opinions?

My Facebook feed is full of political opinions and, of course, I have a few opinions of my own. In fact, there are some I feel strongly about, however when it comes to my author page, I never share political posts and rarely do so on my personal page. The reason? I don't want to alienate my audience.

Authors have a public presence. Those who read our books seek us out online and follow us on our social media channels. The last thing I want is to put someone off of reading my books because I came out strongly on one side of a debate. Whenever I consider blogging or posting about something political, I think long and hard about the repercussions. I think about my audience and how it might be construed. Not only could I potentially alienate readers, I could actually hurt them by devaluing something they feel passionate about. 

The opinions we share online are, like it or not, forever in the public eye. They are there for our readers to find and for potential publishers and employers to find. 

I'm not trying to make anyone paranoid. My hope is that you'll think it through thoroughly before you post something you may regret in the future. 

Ask yourself some key questions before you make that next political post on your author page:

• Who could I be alienating by posting this? 
• Could my post possibly hurt my audience? 
• Would I be comfortable with my future readers, publisher, or employer reading this? 
• Will this post build others up or tear them down? 

When in doubt, don't post it. Let it lie and see how you feel about it in a week or a month. It's better to err on the side of caution than to have regrets.

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Melinda Marshall Friesen writes speculative fiction for teen and adult audiences. She lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada with her family.