In this article we’ll give you the tips and tricks to create your own author brand cocktail that will help you stand out in a crowded bookstore, plus explanations on:
- What is an author brand?
- The types of author brands.
- Why it’s important to have an author brand in today’s digital world?
- How to create an author brand cocktail to stand out in a crowded bookstore.
- An example of an author brand used in an author platform
WHAT IS AN AUTHOR BRAND?
An author brand is what an author creates to help their readers recognise them, especially in a crowded bookstore—or in a marketplace like social media.
A well-crafted author brand helps readers to choose you over all other authors out there.
Here are a few more ways to explain:
- An author brand is your reputation.
- Building an author brand is about building trust with your readers.
- Your author brand is the promise you are making to your readers.
- When creating an author brand, it’s all about creating an emotional trigger to help readers remember you.
Makes sense now? But wait, we dive even deeper on this topic…
THE TYPES OF REAL-WORLD BRANDS:
In the real world, we can break brands down into three categories:
- The company brand, like Apple or Facebook.
- A product brand like a McDonald’s Mc Muffin, and Mc-whatever else is on their menu.
- Personal brands are for individuals like the Kardashian brand and each member of that family.
THE TYPES OF AUTHOR BRANDS:
According to our research, and from the results of the continuous creation of author brands, we can split them into two categories:
- Fiction author brands
- And non-fiction author brands
Then we split them into genre categories of where your book sits on the bookshelf in the store.
Such as for fiction:
- Thrillers & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Literary
- Romance
You can niche down your author brand the easy way… Click To Tweet
And then niche it down into the sub-category of each genre, like for mystery as set by Amazon:
- Amateur Sleuths
- Mystery Anthologies
- Black & African American Mystery, Thriller and Suspense
- Cozy Mysteries
- Hard-Boiled Mystery
- Historical Mystery
- International Mystery & Crime
- Police Procedurals
- Private Investigator Mysteries
- Supernatural Mysteries
- Traditional Detective Mysteries
- Women Sleuths
THE PURPOSE OF AN AUTHOR BRAND:
The purpose for all author brands is the same: it’s to create a taste of what’s coming, to build excitement around your next book.
Your author brand helps boost your author platform that is purposely built to connect with your readers. It’s a powerful combination when done right.
The purpose for all author brands is the same: it’s to build excitement around your next book. Click To Tweet
DO YOU NEED AN AUTHOR BRAND AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:
With over a billion books on the market, and over a million books being published every year, that’s the equivalent of ten packed Superbowl’s full of authors screaming out ‘BUY MY BOOK’.
Read that again. Go on.
Having an author brand helps you stand out in the crowd because an author brand is all about recognition.
Readers have shorter attention spans, and with so many books to choose from, having an author brand helps you draw attention to yourself. So by creating an author brand, it can give you that competitive edge over other authors. If you make it unique. And about you. Because it’s your unique qualities that your readers are searching for.
CREATE AN AUTHOR BRAND COCKTAIL
So let’s get this party started by gathering the ingredients for the author brand cocktail.
The author brand’s clever cocktail combination is:
Then you mix the above into a magical cocktail that has the power to create an emotion within your reader.
You can blend your own author brand cocktail to suit your story, even if your main character is a head-banging cockatoo for children’s books! You can brand that. Big. Time.
@shininglunette #parrotworld #umbrellacockatoo #pet #parrot #cockatoo #bird #animals #goviral #cockatoosoftiktok #🐥 #dancing #dancinganimal ♬ Crazy in Love – Beyoncé,Jay-Z
THE COCKTAIL SECRET SAUCE:
Creating that awesome author brand can give you that competitive edge over others, but it also requires some secret sauce to the mix.
You could easily just whip up some colours and flavours—that could create a ghastly effect, sending your readers to flee, instead of beating a path to the cash register with your book in hand. Or you can use some secret sauce to really make it pop.
The secret sauce to blending a good brand is:
- Knowing your reader.
- Know where your book sits on that bookshelf in the bookstore.
- Consider how you’ll share your author brand (which is another term for brand positioning):
- on your website
- in your author emails
- across social media
The above list is all part of your author brand’s strategies.
Or you can save time and skip to the good stuff found in our book, Your Author Brand to help you connect instantly with your readers.
AN AUTHOR BRAND EXAMPLE USED TO BUILD AN AUTHOR PLATFORM.
If you have just shown up to this blog, I’m currently blogging about creating an author platform for this site. Following the principles of our well-tested Laundry List outline, we’re creating an author platform to publish our books. We already discussed our author goals, now we’re moving on to nailing our author brand. So we’re gonna be the test dummy for you in this author brand example…
THE AUTHOR PLATFORM’S AUTHOR BRAND:
As part of creating our author platform, we’re pulling back the covers and giving you an insider’s peek at what we did to create this website’s brand:
NAME:
We chose a business brand name, as discussed here, to make it easier for you to find the information you might need.
THE COLOURS:
The colours are black and white, then the colour orange. We even dove into the traits for the orange colour meanings of joy, warmth, heat, sunshine, enthusiasm, creativity, success. It almost glows in the dark. And no other word rhymes with orange, making it unique. Oh, and it also has that comical feel to it as we’re trying to make it a fun space to build an author platform.
THE FONTS:
The fonts chosen for our author brand were with the obvious intention of making it as easy as possible for people to read our stuff. No matter the platform Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest…
IMAGERY:
They can break this down into symbols and graphic styles. We’re currently experimenting with animated images for people and animals (like the housekeeping ostriches found in our newsletter) and putting them on a corporate background as a twist. As authors, we want our readers (aspiring authors) to have fun when it comes to building their author platform.
PRODUCT:
At the Author Platform, we have the following FREE tools: Author Brand Cocktail List, the Author’s Master List, and the Author Platform’s Laundry List that describes the basic outline of an author platform. The use of the word author is for readers to easily recognise that this product is for them!
GOAL:
Our goal is to help aspiring authors create their AUTHOR PLATFORM, which we broke down into smaller sections such as:
Your author:
Each subject, above, is part of The Author Platform Series, all working together to help you create a solid foundation for your author platform. We want you to build something that will grow as your author career grows and we’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines.
VOICE:
Our use of grammar gets mixed up so badly it’s enough to make any editor cringe. But it’s for a reason.
We’re aiming for a light and fun voice, while still conveying the message without using boring corporate terms that’ll put you to sleep like brand recognition, brand positioning, KPI’s retention… snooze.
CREATE YOUR OWN AUTHOR BRAND COCKTAIL BLEND:
Like any author, we’re aiming for a freaking awesome author brand. You know I’m paying myself to say this, right?
But the overall emotional message we’re trying to convey to you about The Author Platform is fun because we want you to have fun building your author platform.
The same can be said for when you create your own author brand—unless it’s about a serious subject like brain surgery. Creating your author brand doesn’t have to be set in stone, because it will grow and change as your author career grows with each book you have on the market.
But the process of creating your own author brand should be fun. And it is.
So now it’s your turn to create your author brand. And to help you, download the Author Brand Cocktail list to keep track of your ideas.
Then dig deeper on nailing your perfect author brand by taking your author brand out on a date! I’m not kidding.
