Branding 101 For Authors: What you Need to Know

By Rachel Thompson | Blog

Apr 20
Branding 101 For Authors: What you Need to Know, BadRedhead Media @BadRedheadMedia
(Updated June 2019)

I want to discuss a basic concept that seems to confuse most authors: branding. Branding sounds like one of those scary, nebulous marketing terms that threaten to suck out your soul or turn you into The Borg. It’s not.

Branding really comes down to managing expectations. 

Let’s deconstruct.

**Note: This discussion does not touch on writing because it’s a book marketing discussion. If your book sucks, is unprofessional, is filled with typos, grammatical errors, horrible cover art, or you are a terrible writer, none of this applies to you because a bad book will not sell.**

Branding 101 For Authors: What You Need to Know

Keywords:

The foundation of any author platform (think of a puzzle) are your keywords. The keywords are the base of the puzzle, where you place the pieces. The puzzle pieces represent all that you do that fit together to make the whole puzzle:

When I consult with clients, I draw on my many years in sales and marketing soul-sucking Pharma. There’s A LOT wrong with that industry (which is why I left), but one thing they have right is creating a clear message for their product. They know to choose words that incite and inspire a doctor to write. The motivation is different (write my drug), but the message is the same (buy my stuff).

Make no mistake: we are products as much as our books are.

I break down keywords by major and minor, but you can call them whatever you want. There are a few things to consider when deciding on keywords:

  1. What am I instinctively drawn to? For example, I’m nuts about Nutella (though I’ve sworn it off — well, for the most part!). I’m instinctively drawn to pictures of Nutella-involved food (because, Nutella), which I then share with my followers and friends. So, Nutella is a keyword me. Not a MAJOR one, since I don’t write about it (as I’m writing about it), but a minor one. One I’ll mention occasionally in a tweet, or share a news story about.
  2. What topics do I write about? Most of us fall into a pattern of writing about topics that interest us, without even realizing we are doing so. For example, I started my blog back in 2007, writing about love, relationships, family. Ten years and five books later, I still write about those topics! I’ve expanded, of course, but the crux of my books and blog posts (and social media) still have to do with those topics, which are therefore my…keywords.
  3. Verb it. I attended the San Francisco Writer’s Conference a few years back and one of the workshops focused on creating your bio (anywhere) with a verb. What does your book (or blog) DO for people? Verb it up! This creates a sense of (or call to) action.

Most authors identify as authors — and we should. It’s a hard-won title. But, most readers already know you’re an author — they want to know why they should purchase your book with their hard-earned money. They want to know WIIFM (what’s in it for me).

Branding Your Bios

Right then and there in the class, I updated my Twitter bio to this:

Rachel Thompson, Writing Uncomfortable Truths

Verified account

@RachelintheOC

Childhood  survivor. , BROKEN PIECES, BROKEN PLACES. Advocate, founder , , .

Living my truth, not yours.
http://geni.us/BrokenPlacesE
Joined March 2009

Again, ask yourself this question: what will your book DO for people? (make them uncomfortable)

You can brand your bios anywhere: your author bio, social media bio, in your media kit, on your Amazon page…you get the idea.

Branding Your Platform  

Now that you’ve decided on keywords, this will determine what you tweet/share (for the most part — remember, it’s just a guideline) and even write blog posts about, and this just makes sense. If you write in your bio that you’re a poet, share poetry. If you write in your bio that you groom horses, share horse stories. And so on. The most important advice here is to be consistent across all channels.

Remember, you don’t need to create all the content you share on social media (or even your blog) — you can invite others to guest and you can curate content from other sources (always give attribution).

Write It All Down (aka Have A Damn Plan) 

It’s easy to imagine all this, but if you don’t write it down — if you don’t have a plan — like anything else, you won’t stick to it. I don’t care if it’s a formal document, a note in your iPhone, or a scrap of paper you tack on the wall. WRITE DOWN YOUR KEYWORDS. This serves as a wonderful reminder as to what you need to focus on in your blog posts, your writing, your tweets, and so on.

In fact, a wonderful way to keep you on task across all your various areas of content is to use the free resources CoSchedule offers. We had Ben from CoSchedule as a guest twice already on #BookMarketingChat, and in his recent guest appearance, he discussed the many ways they offer awesome free advice and tools to keep us all organized with our keywords and marketing.

And here’s a major tip: their free headline analyzer (my headline here scores an 80 — which is great! Anything over a score of 70 will get more clicks and rank higher in Google Search) is one of the best inventions known to humankind.

Why Bother? 

All this mixes together into creating your puzzle — a way to organize all these separate puzzle pieces — believe it or not, because you have created and managed the expectations of your readers, you will start to build a following. They like your consistency, that you’re easy to find (your visibility), and they are comfortable with what you present.

Listen, interact, be generous, build relationships, be consistent, do the work. 

All that works to make you shine (I know, I can’t believe I said that either. Get over it.), so instead of being part of The Collective, you stand out on your own.

Join me weekly for free #BookMarketingChat (every Wednesday, 6pm pst/9pm est) to learn how to market your books! 30Day-BadRedheadMedia-Book-Marketing-Challenge-2018-WEB

The BadRedheadMedia 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge is NOW available and selling like hotcakes! Want to energize your book sales in a month? Set up your platform for when your books are out? Are you a blogger or small business who wants to better understand basic social media marketing? This is the book for you.
Get your copy today.

Sign up for my newsletter and never miss a post again! I will never share your email and that’s a promise. Follow me on Twitter @RachelintheOC or @BadRedheadMedia for social media, branding, or marketing help. Increase your blog traffic by participating in #MondayBlogs (a Twitter meme I created to share posts on Mondays — no book promo)

All content © 2018 by BadRedhead Media aka Rachel Thompson, author, unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided a link back to this page and proper attribution is given to me as the original author.


  

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About the Author

Rachel Thompson is the author of newly released BadRedhead Media 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge: How to energize your book sales in a month - created to help authors market their book. She is also the author of Broken Places (one of IndieReader's "Best of 2015" top books and 2015 Honorable Mention Winner in the San Francisco Book Festival), and the multi award-winning Broken Pieces, as well as two additional humor books, A Walk In The Snark and Mancode: Exposed. She owns BadRedhead Media, creating effective social media and book marketing campaigns for authors. Her articles appear regularly in The Huffington Post,  IndieReader.com, The San Francisco Book Review (BadRedhead Says…), 12Most.com, BookPromotion.com, and Self-Publishers Monthly. Not just an advocate for sexual abuse survivors, Rachel is the creator and founder of the hashtag phenomenon #MondayBlogs and two live Twitter chats: #BookMarketingChat (co-hosted with TheRuralVA, Emilie Rabitoy) and #SexAbuseChat, co-hosted with C. Streetlights and Judith Staff. She hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut. She lives in California with her family.

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Leave a Comment:

(28) comments

Rachel Thompson December 10, 2013

Hi Toby and thanks for the comment! Yes, I truly believe that keywords are our starting point for everything we do. I learned that way back in sales and marketing for soul-sucking Pharma and it’s still absolutely true today.

thanks for commenting

Reply
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[…] sexual abuse, date rape, suicide, and difficult relationships? It definitely wasn’t my normal ‘brand,’ that much is true, though, as a nonfiction writer already, I felt I could pull it off with some […]

Reply
MM Jaye December 17, 2013

Branding is in itself a ‘key’ keyword. As an avid reader with a Twitter account that chokes on new book links, I’ve noticed how short my concentration span is when I find myself at a writer’s blog or reading a book blurb on Amazon. If the first couple of sentences won’t give me a clear idea as to what category the book falls under, I’m gone more often than not. I’ve seen indie writers start the blurb with poetry (or something close) in an effort to show they’ve honed their craft. It doesn’t work this way, right?

Btw, I’ve started reading Broken Pieces; I admire how you open up in such a raw yet engaging way. Thank you!

Reply
    Rachel Thompson December 17, 2013

    Thank you for the feedback on the book — I’m honored — and also on branding. Sometimes I feel like I’m a one-woman ‘stop the repeated, constant links’ show — and it seems like those who get it, get it. Too many don’t.

    I so appreciate your insights about blurbs and poetry — no, it doesn’t work that way. There’s nothing wrong with sharing an excerpt, but not in a blurb! You’re right on there.

    Reply
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[…] a bit of myself through that, but soon I came to my senses. Actually, Rachel Thompson and her Branding 101 for Authors blog post helped me, so I recently revamped this site, focusing on my genre’s keywords (romance, […]

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carol hedges (@carolJhedges) April 25, 2016

Excellent as always. Will save and reread and think about the branding thing.

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Effrosyni Moschoudi May 9, 2016

A fantastic post – thank you for posting this, Rachel. As serendipity would have it, I stumbled upon it at the right time, just as I’d started to realize I needed to make changes in my brand as I’ve been emitting the wrong message. Thank you for helping me understand even better what my next steps should be 🙂

Reply
    Rachel Thompson May 9, 2016

    I’m so glad you found it helpful Effrosyni! thanks for the feedback 🙂

    Reply
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Diana January 19, 2017

How diverse can we be in our branding? I have two sites–a more personal site where my brand focus word is “eclectic.” That suits me; it’s not a cop-out. I am a right-brain and left-brain motivated, like a dual personality. Physics is my true love, but arts are my passion.

My author site reflects this as well. My last project was a science fiction action move screenplay for some folks in Hollywood, but I’m completely focused on my children’s book right now.

So… my Twitter feed combines the multiple layers of my book: nature (trees, forests, mountains, gardening, rock-climbing–yes, they are all in the book) and social emotional learning to help kids develop the strength to endure hardship and failure, because, sorry, you don’t always win just because you tried hard enough. It’s a lie we tell ourselves and kids. My ultimate goal is to reduce child suicides by helping them learn they can make it through all kinds of bad times, and they’ll be fine however they turn out, even if they feel broken. That’s a lot, huh?

So my tweets are about parenting and bonsai and peaceful mountain rivers and letting kids fail and giant trees and rock climbing as a metaphor for perseverance and how to be a friend when your friend wants to give up.

What a brand, huh? I’m throwing it against the wall to see what sticks and trying to learn the tools to be able to tell. In your professional opinion, do I have a chance?

Reply
    Rachel Thompson January 19, 2017

    I believe everyone has a chance, Diana. You clearly have a vision, so you’re already ahead of most authors who are flailing about.

    Be consistent in your posts, but also in sharing articles on those topics, snippets of your work, quotes, and anything else that addresses those keywords and topics. That’s what builds out your brand. Your branding is the foundation for EVERYTHING you do and it’s what you build your platform on. See what resonates the most with readers and if something doesn’t stick, change it up a bit. Nothing is set in stone.

    Reply
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