Julie Broad explains why authors need an intentional brand and walks through five steps: treat your launch like a business, separate brand from logos, define your core pillars, build for your audience, and write your brand story. Start before you finish writing.
If you're writing a book, you will have an author brand. The thing you need to consider is whether your brand is intentionally created or something that accidentally happens because you're going to have a brand either way. If you want to be intentional about your author brand for your book, marketing, positioning and success, well, good news. This video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers. My team actually asked me to prepare this video for our clients and but as I was prepping the content, I realized that this is actually something that every author needs to think strategically about to create success. So I decided to make this video one for our training library and one for you. Feel free to hit that thumbs up button if you like getting content that we create for our clients. So first, let's start with the basics. What is an author brand? Well, essentially it's what you're known for as an author. It doesn't have to be defined by just one book, but rather an overriding mission or what makes you unique. For example, Carol Sanford has written six books and her author brand is as a disruptor and contrarian thinker in the space of organizational change. Your brand, in many ways is what people know you for, and it's likely you're known for more than your book. Now, figuring out what this brand is will take a bit more work, but to help you with that, let's hit the five things you need to know about your author brand. Number one, launching a book is like launching a business. Your book has positioning, just like your business has positioning. But when you're pitching your book, a lot of it comes back to your story and what makes you the author, interesting and successful. For many authors, it helps to think of your brand as it relates to it. In this context, the founders of a business have a personal brand, just like the business has a brand. An example from someone I follow is a Spanx and Sarah Blakely. Sarah has her own brand, as does Spanx. Her personal brand is infused into Spanx, but they are not the same brand. We've talked a lot about treating your book like a business, and when it comes to your own personal brand, it is the same thing. You'll have common ground with your book brand, but you're also going to have elements that will stand on its own too. Number two, your author brand is not a logo. It might have a logo, but it's not a logo. You do need to consider elements like logos, colors, fonts, or other imagery that's important. Messaging pillars, your website, your social media and content that is around you and about your positioning. But your brand is not those things. Those are the visual cues for your brand. My own personal brand is more based on being approachable, doing what I say I'm going to do, trying to make the complex or complicated as simple as possible, telling it like it is. And I do it all in the service of authors and for the love of books. Number three, consider the pillars that will be the foundational elements of your personal brand. My personal brand and I believe the reason I had clients come to Book Launchers when I left the real estate world was because of that whole I do what I say I'm going to do. And ultimately I've always had a love of books and the fundamentals of my brand meant people trusted me when I said, hey, this is what I'm going to do. Do you want to join me? So think about the pillars of your personal brand and how that relates to your book, your personal brand and those pillars are more the feeling you want to be known for. For example, we already talked about, you know, I want to explain things directly, clearly, and that you feel like I'm a friend who has your back. So one way to think about this is to ask yourself, what is a word you want to be known for? What's your word? Smart, Savvy. Clever? Entertaining? Trustworthy. Go ahead, post your word that you want to be known for in the comments below. There are so many words it might be hard to pick. You may find yourself finding a few. Those can be your pillars. Number four. This is going to sound familiar, but your brand might be about you, but it's not for you. Just like your book, right? So who's your target audience? Why would they care about this brand? In our Author Branding Guide, this is broken out into three columns where you first must explore who the audience is. Then what are their needs or frustrations, and then what are their wants and aspirations. When you can fill this chart out in detail, you can feel pretty darn good that you know your audience and have a foundation for looking at how your brand fits into into the whole picture. Number five, your brand needs a story. So take those messaging pillars, take who you're serving, think about how you're serving them, and then tell a story about why you serve them. Why do you do what you do? This is more challenging for some. So let me share a short version of my own story. As a little girl, I always dreamed of being an author. But then somewhere along the lines I was told or got the idea that authors didn't make money and that I wasn't that good of a writer and a of lot. Ultimately I gave up on it, but after running a real estate training and education company for a while and building a platform, I got into talks with a publisher and I got the opportunity to go back and forth on a book deal. Ultimately I got rejected and I ended up self publishing and I took the original book idea that I wanted to write and I took it to number one on Amazon overall in print books. That ultimately opened the door to self publishing and the tremendous opportunities of that all authors have in this space and no gatekeeper required. I realized that through self publishing I was able to make a lot more money than if I had traditionally published. I had full control and nobody ever cared that I self published. Libraries, bookstores, event planners, media, everyone featured my book without question. The quality of the book and the message mattered, not the logo on the spine. So I'm very passionate about what I do today because I can help you write, publish and promote a nonfiction book that is as good or better than than a traditionally published book. So you get all the benefits of being an author without the need for that gatekeeper or someone else that has control, keeps rights, and keeps royalties. When we work with authors, we have this beautiful author branding guide that we use as a foundation for the early discussions and then we work with you to position yourself and your book. Getting your author brand in place is important for your book and if you do it before or while you're writing, you will be in a really strong position to write a well targeted book and write with the big picture vision for your brand and book in mind. Hint. Knowing your personal brand also gives you clarity on the voice you want to use when you write. It will also help you think about where you'll sell your book and how to reach your readers. Whew. That was a lot. But now you're probably thinking about some of the brand elements we touched on, like your author website. Well, check out this video right here to figure out all the elements you need in that website. Or if you've already got your website dialed in, then maybe you're still trying to figure out what book you should write next. That video is right here. Sometimes author brand clarity can help you figure out what book you need to write next. Anyways, either way, both videos are awesome and I'd love to be YouTube besties with you. So go ahead, click on over after you comment on this video. See you soon.
Should You Skip Amazon When You Publish Your Book? #digitalmarketing #amazonauthor
