Ep. 15: Best Practices for Building Your Author Brand with Stephen A. Hart

Welcome to the Pub Date Podcast, the show where two book broads discuss what should happen before, during, and after your book publication date. Brought to you by Broad Book Group with your host Vanessa Campos and Jen Dorsey.

Hey, hey, hey everybody, happy Friday!

Welcome to to the Pub Date podcast. Hey Vanessa, how are you doing?

I am doing great. Um, happy Friday to everyone, especially Stephen. Hi Stephen, how are you doing today?

Happy Friday. I am doing great, Vanessa.

Oh, we are so excited to have a wonderful, wonderful person on the show today who has his own podcast and does amazing work with all kinds of thought leaders and brand experts. So I'm just going to go ahead and jump right in and You too. I'm such a big fan of your work, and, you know, we connected over Twitter, right?

Yes, we're Twitter buddies.

Twitter buddies. I tell you what, I love Twitter because you just meet all kinds of people you never get to meet in real life. So we connected because of, uh, Kanika Tolver, who's a common friend of ours and a great author, and, uh, Minda Harts, who is one of your clients, I believe. And we just kind of got talking into some of the same groups and I began noticing your work and just all the cool stuff that you do to help people build their brand. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

There's Minda right there.

There's Minda, there she is.

Yeah, both, both Taneika and Minda are past guests of my podcast and dear friends today. And I appreciate you for, I'm thinking back to COVID and you giving me recommendations back when I just needed to get out the house and you're like, grab a cup of coffee and just sit, chill in the car away from the kids.

Go hide, hide from the children.

You just wanted me to talk a little bit about my background?

Yeah, we'd just love to know a little bit about what it is that you do, because I don't think that everybody, especially newer authors, I don't know that they quite understand what it means to become a brand and to brand themselves. Could you talk about that a little?

Sure. So I love to start every conversation from a place of gratitude. So just wanting to to express, you know, gratitude in a sense for being here right now. I am the proud dad to two crumb snatchers, and everything I do is centered, you know, toward them. Branding for me became important when I launched Trailblazers almost 6 years ago, focused in on— and I'm a marketer by day, I do marketing in the world of cybersecurity. But with my podcast and the side hustle, started focusing in on Trailblazers and grew it really quickly and did a fantastic job of, of that. But a couple years went by and I realized, well, I want to speak as Stephen A. Hart. I want to eventually author a book. I want to write a course. And one of the things I realized was I'd spent all my time giving my energy to trailblazers and not to speedney hearts. So I began working on what was involved in really making sure that I stood out from the crowd, and not just from a side hustle, but also in the corporate world. How was I going to separate myself from other people in my organization? And so it branched out from there like it always does, and very quickly, clients who I consulted with, I coached, were asking me for assistance. Usually people would approach me from the marketing side and say, Stephen, like a budding author would come to me and say, hey, I need a website. And I would say, well, what are we going to put on a website? What are you about? What are you— what is your message? What are we trying to share? Who is your audience? And more times than not, those people come back, Jen, and they're like, I don't know. You figure it out. And it's not about me to figure it out, right? So branding became really something that I kind of went down that rabbit hole and got into and really over time developed a course, which is now Brand in Demand. And it's exciting to be able to help people, you know, dial in on their brand. So I touched on some of that, you know, the thing to note is while your brand does involve some of the brand element pieces that many people think of when they hear the term branding, they're thinking of a logo, they're thinking of, you know, their website. Those things are involved, but at the foundation of it, right, there's so much more that we should cover, right, on, you know, what is your purpose, who are you serving, right? You've maybe heard the term of, you know, getting clear on your audience. That's a big, very important piece of your brand, uh, that allows you to clarify your message, make sure that all those elements that you develop are hitting the nail on the head, uh, with the people that you're trying to speak to. And then understanding how you craft content and engage and, and write the right kind of book. To serve that audience and their need.

Sure, absolutely. And talk a little bit about, you work with a lot of thought leaders, you see a lot of trends kind of come and go. Those are the foundational elements I think that you just mentioned, at least that's the way I'm hearing you. What are some must-do moves that you need to make beyond those foundational elements to build your brand? What are some absolute must-haves that folks need to address? —in addition to kind of the foundational stuff.

So we get through the foundational stuff, and I think the important thing for us to understand is not to think that you're just going to come to the market with your book and it's just going to go off the shelves and you're going to have a bestseller, right? We need to be able to get clear about that audience again so that we can craft content that serves them. And it's not just one and done. It's consistently showing up for your audience and providing value. And the thing that's separating the thought leaders that I work with right now is that many of them are focused on what I call new media, new media content. So podcasts, videos— videos are key right now. I believe that COVID kind of shifted things, right? We, we are now accustomed to doing conversations over Zoom all day, every day. And we're accustomed to talk— this talking head type scenario. Jump on Instagram or any other platform, we're seeing video. And so I believe that establishing yourself as a thought leader, as an expert, you've got to get comfortable with video. And I think we are all on Zoom every day. Whether we know it or not, we've gotten comfortable with video. Sure, we just need to put that content out there and get out of our own heads on, on, you know, and letting imposter syndrome set in. We need to be doing videos both short and long form. I do quite a bit of livestream content several times a week that allows my audience to dial in on the things that matter to me both professionally and personally, allowing them to come into, uh, you know, experience both my expertise as a brand strategist and a marketer, but also, as I touched on earlier, on the other side that's important to me as a husband and a dad and allows them to build that know, like, and trust. And so when the opportunity arises, they're primed and ready to do business.

Absolutely. I've got to say, I'm a big fan of your dad jokes. I love them. They are hilarious. Maybe it's because I'm a mom, so I'm like, oh yeah, that's a good one. But I love it when you kind of throw a little bit of that sauce into the mix there and, you know, talk about the crumb snatchers a little bit because yeah, I think that humanizes the person. It makes you realize that, you know, you're not just your business, you're not just what you do. You're a full, capable, amazing person. And that's part of your brand too, right?

It absolutely is. And it's important for you to understand, you know, when we talk about branding, we talk about standing out from the crowd. These are the things that will help you to separate yourself, right? There are many other brand strategists out there. But I'm Jamaican, I'm a Christian, I'm a husband, I'm a dad. As more I open up about my own experiences and allow you to connect to that, you're now lured in, right? And you want to understand more about other things that I'm involved with. And I think that's key to building a personal brand.

I love that. I really do. Um, and I think that this is really important when you're looking to work with someone on something that is so time-intensive, like building a brand, writing a book, editing a book, doing the production of a book, is learning who you're going to be involved with for the long haul, because it's not one and done. None of this is one and done. And I think, you know, I heard the other day from a colleague, getting involved with an author is like realizing who, who you want to be married to for the next 2 years. And, you know, knowing that you have similar likes and interests makes makes the process just that much more fun.

You know, you touch on this too, Vanessa Campos Campos Campos Campos. That book might be a focused energy for a 2-year campaign, but what happens when the next book and the next book, right? So I think branding starts— key point to make right here is that the branding process starts immediately. It's the cheat code leading into all the things you're going to want to do, right? When a budding author is going to reach out to you or reach out to other people in the process, it helps to already have some of what I talked about established and in place, right? And thinking over the long term, 20 years from, from now, what do you want your life to look like? This book is just a part of that journey, right, from A to B. But think of your, your brand and all that's involved with it, um, again, specific to you The book is just one of many products that you're going to have over time.

So that brings me to a really quick question for you, Stephen, is I think a lot of the times when we work with authors in their book launch release, they say, when should I start? And they think that everything is— starting point is that book launch. And I think that's a big mistake. What are your thoughts on that?

100%. I think, again, allow you to take two steps back and understand with Clarity, what you're looking to do and why. It has to live at the foundation of, you know, what you're looking to accomplish, right? So from a foundation standpoint, you have to understand your purpose. What do you love doing? What are you really good at? What does the world need? And what you can get paid for. Your purpose lives at a cross-section of those 4 things. Right? And I have several purposes in life, but I make sure that at the core of it, right, I love to sing. I can't sing to save my life, and ain't nobody paying me for that, right? Um, so it's important for us to understand whether it's a book, whether it's, uh, an offering that you're going to leverage to monetize on the back end of it, is it something you love? Is it something that, you know, you are good at doing that people really need and that you can get paid for. You know, 4 of those don't need to be the same size, right, or the same, but you need to have clarity on that. And that leads to what's that vision that you have for your book as well as for you as an author and all the many things that you're going to do over the long term. And that begins when you have clarity on the purpose and clarity on the vision on that long-term play. 20 years from now, I hope to be sitting on a beach chair somewhere drinking a Red Stripe there, right? I'm from Jamaica. And, um, that's my vision once these crumb snatchers are off on their own. But I want to be able to look back and see that, you know what, I've interviewed 1,000 people on my podcast and been able to impact so many people through my course. Those are, you know, and there are a million other things I want to accomplish long term. But by getting clear on the long term and why that is important, right? I'm able to, to work through times like last year when COVID hit and everything went wrong at the same time. And you are, you know, hit with a wall. You're hitting the wall and you're like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. I was there last year and it took me having clarity on that vision, clarity on my purpose to say, you know what, no, I do want to continue on. And just like me driving from, from, you know, Maryland to New York and hitting an accident in the path, right along the path. I have a choice. You know, I can continue on, it's going to maybe take you longer. There's things that are going to come up, right? I know both of you have worked with many budding authors before. Things come up, the timeline gets pushed out, and somebody gets, you know, down on themselves. Do I still want to do this? If you're clear on your why, right, maybe you have to change directions to get to the, the destination. The direction changed, the destination is the same. Get clear on that. Get clear on your why. Get clear on that long-term vision of yours. Understand who it is you're serving. And then the last piece here is to make sure you can prioritize what's important. Many of us who have the entrepreneurial bug. Today we're warm and fuzzy about the book, and, you know, midstream things get hard and we want to shift focus to the next shiny light, um, in our path. And we need to get very clear on listing all the things that are important to us, but prioritizing what gets our focus first and not shifting away from that until it can stand on its own, right? You still have the list of all the things. I have a long laundry list of many, many things. I'm Jamaican, I have 10 different titles, and I always have, you know, a dozen different burners going. But I'm very clear on, hey, you know what, if Trailblazers is the focus right now, Trailblazers is the focus until we get to a particular goal. Then, you know, I'm going to focus on the book, or then I'm going to focus on the course, or, you know, some of these other monetization items. But I think it's really important that we get clear on that and do that early and continue to work at that long before we get to the book launch phase.

I agree with that. And, you know, when I'm listening to you talk, I'm thinking a lot about the book proposal and when we, when we decide if we're even going to work with an author. I mean, that purpose and that clarity has to be clear from the jump, just from that very first moment of, hey, I have a book, do you want to read it? And I think those, those branding elements come into play so early in the process that not only does it help you set yourself up for success with your book project or your course project or whatever it may be, but it helps people like us who work with you, um, meet you where you are and really help you kind of continue to craft that brand and to, to help expand it. Because I don't know that every author comes in with the clarity that you're talking about. So sometimes it takes a little bit of noodling with us as a team to kind of help them expand that and get it to the next level. But I always like to see that kernel of it right from the get-go in that proposal. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think, you know, that you have that baseline clear, it helps you so much with being, being able to articulate your message, being able to make sure that The other things you develop, right, your logo and, and colors and fonts and all of the, you know, amazing things that are really important, they're hidden on all cylinders, right?

So what are some key tells that authors or even brands need to keep in mind as they're developing their, their author platform or their, you know, their brand platform that may indicate like, this is not working, it's time to shift the course?

And again, you know, it's a process of branding is dynamic and it's not one and done. And it's, it's, you know, you're, you're always working at the process of branding yourself. So, um, you're gonna work on some campaigns are gonna be much longer, uh, in terms of the timeline. One of the things I love to do and encourage my my own students and clients to do is create, you know, content consistently, right? And engage. Reach and engagement are important and they work, uh, together, right? So, um, if you're creating content of value to serve the problem that you know your audience has, right, and you're speaking to them frequently they're going to engage with you, right? And over some of these platforms, like I'm talking about livestream or going live on like Instagram, if you're putting something out there and absolutely no one's responding to you, it's probably not serving, you know, uh, people in the way you might have thought. And that's a telltale metric. Listen, that doesn't just— you don't just launch a podcast today and you see 1,000 downloads, right? That won't happen either. So this, this takes time and it takes work. Uh, but what I love to do is to be able to get clarity on, hey, am I hitting on, you know, the, the, the problem I thought is out there, right? And the audience I thought I wanted to serve, is that who this is connecting with? So when somebody starts connecting with the content you're creating, whether that's a social post, a video, a podcast, whatever the case may be, engage with them. If it's in social media, I love to send Jen a DM and say, hey Jen, I noticed that you responded to, um, you know, my, my post, my video. Would love to chat with you, right? Uh, or just engage for a little bit in a DM and try to see if you can get on a, on a quick phone call and just get to know the person mentally as a marketer. I am always trying to understand why it is that you tune into my content or why you're continuing to consume my content and understand what's keeping you up at night. And the more I begin to unpack exactly what Jen needs and Vanessa Campos Campos and Paul needs, and if the three of you keep showing up in my feed over time, you're parts of my audience. Now, when you go to the theater and you're positioning yourself from the perspective on stage looking out on the audience. I don't see a thousand Vanessa Campos. I see a thousand attendees watching a show. What you need to think about is who are the thousand attendees that are going to be watching, reading your book, listening to your book, consuming your content? It's not going to be the same person. There are different people out there. What we need to understand is who are these different people, and then what are the common threads that connect them, both the things they like and the things that they're struggling through. When you start to understand that, then you can really hit the nail on the head with your messaging for your book, right? Like Minda Harts is doing right now with her books. She's speaking to her audience in a way, you know, if you're a woman of color, you're like, oh my gosh, this woman is speaking to my soul right now, right? Because Minda did the work to understand those thousand people, sitting in her audience, right, while she's on stage. So I think we all need to take a note from that end, right, and get to know the people in our audience.

Oh yeah, and, and I think there's so many ways to do that, right? I think some authors who maybe are new to this or, or just ramping up their branding, they don't necessarily know how to do that. But we know that social listening is a very big part of that, for one thing, right? Um, what are some other ways that they can go out there and do some research on who those 1,000 people are.

Yeah, I love LinkedIn and I love Facebook. You know, I think you can leverage social media in ways that you don't even necessarily need to get in the DMs. If somebody's engaged with you and you know, you know that they're consuming your content, go look at their LinkedIn profile and you can do some, some surface level intel, right? And gauge whether or not you want to have that conversation from there.

That makes a lot of sense. I love that. You know, really quick before we go, I wanna have a little fun here. Can you tell us what are some of your branding no-nos? What are some like, oh, please don't ever do that? What are those kind of things that you see pop up that you just, ugh, they're a little cringeworthy? What can we avoid?

Number one pet peeve of mine is not making sure that your domain name and your social handles are consistent, right? So I have people on my show all the time And at the end of the show, I'm like, hey, how can my listeners listen to you? And they're reeling off, you know, a different domain name, a different social handle for Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter. And it's like, how do you expect somebody to remember? I am stevenehart.com and @stevenehart everywhere. And it makes it easy for somebody to connect with me wherever they want to consume my content. I think that is huge when it comes to branding, is making sure that people can find you. 'Cause if they're consuming you while they're on the go, you wanna make sure something sticks. If you have a name that's, you know, could be going both ways, I'm Stephen with a PH, I just make sure that I purchased stephenahart.com with a V as well and forwarded it back to my website, right? So—

Wow, that's smart. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it drives me crazy when I see that laundry list on people's websites of all their different places and it's, yeah, none of them line up. That's never good.

Yeah, never have your, your potential audience, potential client second-guess which is the right Instagram account that they need to be following and where it is that you are delivering that information. So going back to your whole conversation about clarity, which I'm loving this theme of clarity.

Yes, clarity is, is the key, right? If you confuse, you lose. We need to make sure that we allow our customers to digest that content that we're putting out there. So yeah, 100%, all about the clarity.

Always, yes. Really quick before we go, are there any good analytics programs that you would recommend, you know, just to kind of keep track of all of this?

What do you like to use? Yeah, I am big on— right now I'm doing a lot with video. Mm-hmm. And I'm learning quite a bit from YouTube, even though I'm elsewhere. YouTube Studio is really great. And there's a plugin, a website called vidIQ.com, and you're able to download an extension for Google Chrome. And what I love about that, it gives you so much intel beyond what YouTube gives you. And YouTube gives you really great analytics, but vidIQ starts to let you know if your title's too long or what keyword tags you might want to use. And you can actually use it for research on other people's video. So people who you're wanting to be more like, you can go snoop in, you know, get a little behind the scenes and look at what it is that they're doing that's working to get their videos to be optimized and get that reach and engagement.

I love a good insider back look at people's metadata and what works and what doesn't. So I am definitely writing that down because We, in addition to the podcast, are launching a YouTube channel, so watch out for that.

Yes, look out world. Well, Stephen, we have loved having you here. It's just always such a pleasure to see you, whether it's on Twitter or on Zoom, and catch up a little bit, my friend. So thank you for taking the time. And even though you've mentioned it already, I'm going to have to do it again. How can people find you?

You can find me at stephenahart.com and I'm @StephenAhart on Twitter, on the Gram. And on LinkedIn. All right, sounds great.

I will be looking for the next dad joke. I cannot wait. All right, well, thank you so much to our guest, Stephen Maynard. Thanks to our producer, Paul Roberts, and thanks to our executive producer, Emily Carpenter-Polskamp of Little Red Communications. We will see you next time. Have a great weekend.

Thanks. See, we hope you got some valuable insights into the world of book publishing. Head over to broadbookgroup.com to learn more about us and all our services. And be sure to check out all our social media @BroadBookGroup. Until then, keep publishing!