Quick Branding Tip for Authors Who Write Multiple Genres

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message, create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelley Hitz.

Are you an author who writes multiple genres or do you have multiple interests and things that you either write or sell or do and are wondering how to keep keep it under one brand or how to keep it from being too confusing? If so, I have a branding tip for you in this training. Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz. I'm the owner of Author Audience Academy and I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. And just last week I was having a one on one coaching session with one of my Author Audience Academy members and we were talking about this whole topic of branding because she writes multiple genres and she's like, Shelly, I just, just don't know what to do. It gets confusing. So we were talking through the different branding things and I am also in the middle of doing a little bit of tweaking to my brand. Not completely rebranding, but a tweak and a change to my branding here in the next few months. And so I shared with her something that I plan on doing and she was like, oh, I never thought of that before. So I wanted to share it really quick with you here today. What is going on for me right now is I am an author coach. I have Authorities Academy, that's my main business. I also just launched my book Broken Crayons Still Color at the end of last year, 2016. I also launched a podcast that goes along with the book. And so I have that as well as some other Christian books I've written. And then I have just blossomed and developed this whole side where I'm now creating art. Every day. I'm teaching art classes on Skillshare. As of today I have eight classes, but I already have probably 10 more ideas and actually making money doing it. And I want to do in person classes and it's just something that is just coming out of me. So I've been thinking about how do I integrate all these things into my personal brand, shellyhits.com and what I plan on doing. And my quick tip for you today is to create a landing page for, for your site. So I really tend to lean towards personal brands now. There are occasions where you'll need to have separate websites, but if you have a personal brand like I do@shellyhits.com, then you can house whatever you're doing. Under that personal brand. And if your branding ever changes, if what you do ever changes, you still have your personal brand. It's your name. So what I plan on doing is having a landing page. When anyone goes to shellyhits.com and it's going to say something like, are you an author? Click here. And then you're going to go to all my author stuff looking for broken crayons still color. Click here. You know, are you wanting to learn art? Click here. You know, and so I'll have like three different places they can go on my website. Those are the three main things I'm doing, but they're all integrated. So I was brainstorming, and this is just the first draft, but you guys know I always am real transparent up front with you and share what I'm doing in the trenches. But I have my trusty little notebook here that I keep my goals in. And I was brainstorming the other day some ideas for how to integrate my art and the Broken Crayons Still Color, how to integrate all of that into my branding. Well, with my art, I am now hosting a lettering challenge on Instagram and I really encourage people. It's called hope Filled Lettering. The main thing I wanted to share in my book, Broken Crayons Still Color, is hope that there is, no matter what's been done to you, what you've done, there is hope. And so my lettering challenge is also all about hope. It's about sharing your story too, like in the caption of whatever you letter, the word that day or the phrase that day that you share, part of your testimony, your story. And it's really been amazing to see what's happening as people are interacting with my testimonies and they're sharing their own and they're being empowered to share their stories. So anyways, that's the backstory. So this was the first draft of what my rebrand might look like. It says, shelly Hitz is an author, coach, and artist. I'm an artist now. Isn't that crazy? But I am an author, coach and artist, empowering you to share your story in creative ways by publishing books, creating art, and letting your light shine for Jesus. So my target audience are Christians. So I do that through all the different ways that I have going on. And so it doesn't have to be complicated. You don't have to have a million different websites. You don't have to try to keep up with a million different things, stay focused, and with a personal brand, typically, that's gonna be what many authors are going to operate under your name, you know, personal brand. But with my coaching client, there was a very good reason for her to create a second brand, a second website, because she could potentially get a ton of search engine traffic for the topic that she's wanting to do do. And so I really gave her some things to research to think about. And she's still going to make that decision on which way to go. But whatever she does, she can still have that landing page that could lead people to that book series and then, you know, to her current book series and then to something else that she's doing. So you can have a landing page where you can tell people where to go, tell people what to do. It's marketing calls to action. Tell them the next step to take, tell them what, what it is you want them to do next, where to find it. Try to make it as simple as possible. Now, I'm sharing this with you before I actually have done it myself. I have not done it myself because I've had other things that have taken priority in my action list. So that's something I still want to do. I still want to set that up. But it's also giving me time to really marinate on the idea, to pray about it more, to ask God about it more. I felt like God had given me that quick little like phrase and byline, but I'm not sure that that's the final one yet. That's just the first draft. And so I'm still thinking on it, I'm still praying about it, and it may end up looking completely different for me. But I at least wanted to share the idea for you that you could have a landing page that sends them to the different things that you do. And that way you're not having a million different websites, a million different URLs. Send them to your name. Shellyhits.com is where you can find me. So so I hope you found this helpful. If you did, please share it with your author friends and I will see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Author Audience. I would like to invite you to attend one of my free trainings on three proven book writing formulas Every nonfiction author needs to know. This is a fun and fast way to write a nonfiction book, but also a book that you're proud of. Plus, I will give you two free gifts just for attending. No credit card required. First, you'll get my 10 nonfiction book title templates and you'll also get my ebook titled Brilliant brainstorming. It's a 28 page ebook and both of these bonuses are yours at no charge. Just for joining us for the training, you can sign up for my free training by going to shellyhits.com formulas. That's Shellyhitz S H E L L E Y h I t z.com formulas. This training and the two bonuses are free and I would love to help you write your next nonfiction book.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.