This tip begins a five part series on Five Ways to Build Your Author Brand. The first tip is to use a teaser for your book. These are pictures that display a snippet or one liner about your story that you can then share on all social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. If done correctly, they can draw in a reader to learn more. Here are some things to think about when doing a teaser:

• Choose a graphic that is visually stunning and related to the theme of your book – but beware of copyright violations
  • Don’t just grab an image from the Internet – it’s best to use a stock photo site to be safe or use pictures you take yourself
• Make sure your text can be read over the picture. Choose a bold and easily readable font – Try to place it over a more solid or dark place on the photo to be easily read
• Make sure your text is short – Don’t fill up the picture with words, it’s the visual you want to draw in your readers
• If you can’t use professional software to create your teaser, hire someone. You don’t want to turn your audience away by looking like a novice (I see this a lot)
• Be sure to include a link to your book or your author website
  • If you can embed the link with the photo do so
  • If you cannot embed the link – then include your author website on the photo to drive readers to your blog or website
  • Do Not post the Amazon link on your teaser – they are too long and distracting

Here are some samples of what teasers look like:

http://www.selectografix.com/page3.php

Stay tuned for more on ways to Build Your Author Brand coming soon!

Remember – The key to successful self-publishing is to always appear professional

Books by Kelly Abell     Teaser Designs by Select-O-Grafix

Copyright 2014 by Kelly Abell