You need to establish an author brand if you’re published or self-published. There’s no way around it if you want to be visible to the market and your target audience. Your branding is a vital component of marketing and a crucial aspect of reputation building. That’s right, authors must think of themselves as brands.
Taking this approach to your business pushes your career and reputation to the next level of success. Your author brand is a key element in decision-making when a prospective reader assesses your work. A well-constructed author brand could mean the difference between them buying your book or leaving it on the shelf.
Beyond closing the sale, your author brand assists with industry promotions. Publishers and agents review it to get a feel for your career and writing. Industry publications look at your author’s brand when considering publishing your work on their site, magazine, or newspaper. You create an industry reputation by branding yourself and setting yourself apart from the competition.
So, what are the elements of a successful author brand? How do you design a website that catches the reader’s attention? How do you write a bio that jumps off the page, capturing the attention of publishers, agents, industry organizations, and readers? How do you connect with your target audience and bolster your reputation in the market and industry?
Understand Your Audience
The first step in developing your author bio involves understanding your target audience and what they expect from you. You’ll need to drill down into the demographics of your readership to understand what they want to know about you and your work.
Your target reader persona includes what they find attractive about your writing style, tone, voice, and character development skills. Defining your unique selling point (USP) helps you narrow down why readers are interested in your work and your author brand.
If you write in the thriller genre, you compete with thousands of authors writing on similar topics. What separates you from the competition? Pick two or three aspects of your writing where you excel and use them to promote your bio. For instance, if you write great plot twists, include that USP when writing about why people should read your work.
Set Up a Website and Develop a Logo
Every author needs a website to connect with their audience and field interest from publishers, agents, and industry professionals. Your website forms the foundation of your brand, where people can connect with you and understand what they can expect from your work.
Craft a logo for your website to further the branding message. You want a design that’s simple but bold, attracting the reader’s attention when they land on your page. Think of the Nike “Swish.” It’s simple, but everyone remembers it; it’s marketing genius. Now try and think of a complicated logo. Chances are, nothing comes to mind. If you’re self-published, a website enables you to set up an online store to sell your work.
Build an Author Bio to Connect with Readers
Your website must include an “about me” page where you write your author bio. The bio gives you a place to showcase your accolades, achievements, and education. You’ll use the author bio to present your audience with your award-winning work and personalize it to your interests.
Every website needs a blog. You’ll use it as a branding tool to keep your target audience up to date with your projects and showcase your skillset. Use a bio box plugin for your website allowing you to place your bio in the footer of every post you write on your blog.
The website, blog, and bio give you an online presence and home. These tools give you a space that’s uniquely yours, allowing you to funnel new readers to your work.
Start an Email List and Present a Value Offer
A website does little for building your author brand if you’re not using it as a component of a marketing strategy. Research plugins for opt-in pages that capture the details of people who land on your site. If prospective readers open your site, they might not be willing to buy your books.
Adding an opt-in page turns your site into an inbound marketing machine. The reader might not shell out cash for your books, but they’ll gladly leave you their name and email address if you present them with a value offer. For instance, you could offer them a 5% discount on your book for joining your mailing list or gift them a chapter from your book or a complimentary novella.
Presenting a value exchange allows you to build your list and spread your brand message. The next time you release a book, you have a list of fans you know are interested in your work, ready to pull the buying trigger.
Promote Yourself on Social Media
Besides your website, social media presents you with the biggest brand-building tool in your marketing strategy. The digital era allowed self-published authors to sell their work through platforms like Amazon and your website.
Understanding how to work social media and push prospects to your website and Amazon listings will supercharge your sales and bolster your brand. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram give you access to built-in ad campaign tools to reach your target audience. You get to push your posts into their feed for a few bucks, promoting your work for an affordable cost.
Platforms like Twitter connect you with your target audience. They let you discuss your work and social issues with users, giving you a voice in the market. LinkedIn hosts your author bio and professional brand, giving publishers and agents a place to connect with you without using less-professional sites like Instagram and Facebook.
Network with Other Authors
Your network is your net worth; remember that saying because it’s the truth when building your author brand. Social media is a great brand-building and networking tool, but you must get to industry events to meet new people face-to-face.
Print yourself business cards to present to publishers and agents at industry gatherings. Research the biggest conventions in your market and attend them with the goal of pushing your brand deeper into the industry and into view of movers and shakers that change your publishing career.