Many authors new to the published scene are astonished at how overwhelming the marketing piece to our industry is. Believe me, I’m still learning! In this blog post, I’m going to post a few tips that are necessary to begin to building an author brand.

Branding Tip #1
Get a Logo to represent you as an author. Use it on everything you present to both the digital community and in person. Just like a business uses their logo to represent who they are and what they stand for so should you. After all you’re a hot commodity.

Branding Tip #2

Have a FB and Twitter Cover photo that speaks to your brand. A custom designed banner can incorporate your logo, your books, and other elements that speak to your brand. It can be for your current release, or a statement about you as an author. Keep it consistent though.

Branding Tip #3

Now that you have a logo and a banner, you need either a website or a blog. Somewhere your readers can find out about you as an author, learn about new releases, book signings, and other appearances. They also want to hear about your characters, how you write, and you can throw in some personal stuff if you feel comfortable doing so.

Branding Tip #4

Begin building a social media presence. Start a FB page, Twitter page, and/or post on Instagram or Pinterest. There are lots of other social media sites that are specific to book lovers, such as Goodreads.com.  You also don’t want to neglect to have an Amazon author page fully filled out so when your readers want to learn more about you and your books, you’ve got lots of data all in one place.

Branding Tip #5

Don’t forget about your print media. Have bookmarks, business cards, or some type of printed material to hand out to readers. I recently went on a cruise and handed out tons of business cards to people reading e-readers. No…I didn’t walk up to them and just hand them a card. I wasn’t that obnoxious, although it’s not a terrible idea. I just didn’t want to get tossed into the waves for soliciting. BUT if I’m having a conversation with someone about what they’re reading, and it just happens to come up that I’m a writer…well…then I’ve got something to hand them. My cards have the amazon link to my author page on the back so people can scan it with their cell phones and see all my fabulous books. 🙂

That’s probably overwhelming enough for now. If you don’t have a clue as to how to get any of these items, of course I can help with my company Selectografix, or there are lots of great places to have banners and logos done. A lot of people have success with Fiver.com or are adventurous enough to try and design their own. Wherever you go, just make sure it it looks professional. It’s your brand and you want people to remember you.