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Best Ways to Build a Strong Author Brand 

Author branding is an integral part of book publishing. When done right, it can be an effective tool for self-publishing authors in pursuit of success and recognition. Author branding helps you clearly tell your readers what you can offer and how it can help or entertain them. It proves you are the perfect name for solving your readers’ problems.

Money problem? Here’s how to save your income. 

Bachelor living alone? Here’s a list of one-pot meals for office-goers.

Romantic? Here is a beautiful medieval Scotland story that kindles romance. 

Love the Indian cricket team? Here are the biographies written on Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni.

Even when choosing traditional publishing, build a strong author brand is essential to engage readers. But it is central if you are a self-publishing author. 

Since you will be doing everything independently, we are here to help you with key tips and ways to build a strong author brand. 

What is an Author Brand

Author Brand is what readers say about you when someone asks them. 

It is the association readers make when they read about your book, see your signature cover style, recognize it, or hear about your event or TED Talk. Like any other product brand, such as Nike, Lakme, Writat, or Gucci, Author Brand is the lasting impression you create on people. 

For instance, the moment you hear about Greta Thunberg, you recognize her as the teenage climate activist who raised a storm with her protests, or when you read about Writat, you instantly know that it is the leading self-publishing company in India and the USA. Or when you see the movie titles, ‘The Notebook,’ ‘A Walk to Remember,’ and ‘The Longest Ride,’ you know that these are adapted from the bestselling books of author Nicholas Sparks. 

Essentially, Author Brand forms a connection with your readers – they come to know about your work and personal life, why you write what you write, and what they can expect from you. 

How to Build an Author Brand Easily with the Best Techniques 

If you are a writer focusing on a specific genre, you already are a brand. You just need to learn how to use it to your strength, establish it with different tools and techniques, and build a loyal reader following. 

Create Your Own Website and Use It Effectively 

The world is turning digital, and a website is the foundation of any digital activity. It can showcase your books, connect you with your readers, improve reader engagement, and sell more books. 

A website can be the most powerful marketing and sales tool if used effectively. No matter what kind of book you publish or how you choose to publish it, you need a website now more than ever. However, the advantages double for self-publishing authors.

Author branding is more than just a small part of the book publishing process. 

To learn more about the importance of Websites for self-publishers, read our blog. And If you want to build an author website, connect with our team. We provide affordable marketing solutions for self-publishing authors in Writat. 

Follow these Book Publishing Trends of 2023 for more insights and ideas. 

Create a Dynamic Profile on Social Media (Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn) 

P.S. Stay Consistent!

With over 4.6 billion active social media users, Facebook or Instagram book marketing can build your strong author brand, skyrocket your book sales, and make you more successful as an author. 

Social media is a perfect tool for both personal and professional reasons. It not only helps you keep in touch with your readers but also shows them your side, a part of you that is beyond your self-published books.

  • Despite the ups and downs, Facebook is still the most popular social media platform for collaboration and communication. And unlike Instagram, which caters to a younger crowd, Facebook has users across all demographics. 

Check out our detailed blog on Social Media Marketing for Self-Publishing Authors in 2023.

Be Creative in Defining Yourself as an Author

The best way to define yourself is by creating your persona, your readers’ persona, and your writing USP. 

Your Persona: Establish your author persona to communicate your unique personality with your readers. Are you an introvert? What is your spirit animal? Are you quaint or quirky? What are you when no one is watching? 

Your Readers’ Persona: Think about your target audience. Who wants to read your book? What do they do and like? What is their ideal age and gender? Are they the same as you or the same as each other? By defining your ideal readers’ persona, you will successfully create a community of readers with similar tastes and preferences. 

Your Unique Selling Point (USP): What would make your book sell? That’s your specialty. 

You may not be the only non-fiction writer in the world, but whatever you write will bring fresh insights and perspective to the table. Maybe you have the superpower of creating well-researched content and providing real-life examples and case studies to strengthen your case. 

This will differentiate you from your competition.

For instance, when we read the titles of Nicholas Spark’s books, we know that they reflect the stories of courage, family, heartbreak, love, and all the realities of life, like old age, sickness, wedding problems, lost jobs, divorce, childbirth, and so on. This is his point of difference. 

You need to create your special style and skill. 

Come Up with a Unique Tagline that Describes You Best

Our tagline is Self-publishing Simplified

Every brand must have a tagline. And you, as an author, are no different. Your tagline is an idea or concept that describes you the best. It shouldn’t be more than a sentence and a line. 

Write a short description about yourself and optimize it with a perfect headline. This could be your original tagline. 

For example, Brad Meltzer’s Twitter Tagline reads, “the greatest criminal mind of our time. Best-selling author. Host of Lost #History #Books. #Thrillers #Comics #XavierRiddle. But really, greatest criminal mind.” 

While Gary Thomas’ tagline proves, he’s a popular American writer famous for his Christian literature.

Establish Your Visual Identity

This is the most important part of build a strong author brand for self-publishing authors. 

Human brain associates with visual elements better than text. For instance, if someone says Coca-Cola, you will instantly remember the red background and white cursive letters of the Logo first and then the taste, price, and other things. 

Therefore, try to accentuate the essential points of your work with beautiful design components. 

If you are a cookbook writer, choose appetize-enhancing colors like orange, yellow, and red in your cover designs and website. Use elements like a fork, spatula, or apron in your Logo. Select cheerful colors and animal illustrations if you self-publish children’s books or a dark theme and font, and blood and thorn if you write supernatural thrillers. 

Choose colors, fonts, and themes that define your brand, mission, goal, voice, and products. 

Components that Elevate Visual Identity Include:

  • A brand logo that defines you, your books, and your audience persona.
  • Two or more colors and two font styles (primary and accent) to create contrast. 
  • A tagline we talked about in the previous section. 
  • Unique icons, graphics, or illustrations. 
  • Professional headshots of you. 

Develop Your Unique Brand Voice 

How do you want readers to think about you when they see or hear your name? Creating a Unique Brand Voice is different from identifying your USP. 

Your brand voice is the communication style, body language, and accent you use in social media, live events, webinars, interviews, email, author websites, and other places. 

You need to set your tone, accent, habits, hand gestures, and facial expressions to create your individuality. 

For instance, Twinkle Khanna, the author of Mrs. Funnybones and Padman, is indeed funny. Her communication style is witty, sassy, straightforward, and humorous. Here’s adding a small clip of her interview that affirms her sass and wit. 

Establish Your Author Brand Awareness Plan and Implement it Everywhere 

You ought to be consistent and present everywhere when it comes to elevating your author brand. 

You are developing a brand that people will remember for decades, even after you have stopped writing. 

Therefore, in this competitive digital world, make sure you show your author brand everywhere possible so that people see it, identify it, and associate with it. 

This includes your Author Website, Promotional Emails, and Social Media Posts. 

Use the same tone and writing style in your other writings. 

Use images and videos from your personal and professional lives to engage fans. Honestly, they love it. 

The visuals you create for your social media posts must relate to your brand personality. 

Finally, a Branding Awareness Plan must be implemented to make your Author’s Branding Ideas and Strategies work. 

This must comprise the following steps:

  • Goal: Your ultimate goals, such as your desired objectives, like more followers or global book sales. 
  • Promotion: An all-inclusive promotional strategy, such as social media marketing, SEO, collaborations with other authors, email marketing, giveaways and contests, and events.
  • Growth strategy: Take feedback, conduct surveys, and adjust your current plan to build a better brand. For example, introducing a new subgenre

Don’t Forget Your Biggest Key to Success…

But the most obvious is good books and great writing. What you self-publish will inevitably attract your authors to you. 

But a strong author brand will ensure you build an original brand as a writer. 

Self-publishing writers may find all of this overwhelming and complicated. Writat knows this and encourages writers to use our blogs and articles for support and guidance. 

Hope these Author Branding ways and tips help you in your book publishing journey this year. For self-publishing assistance, check our Knowledge Base

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