Let’s talk about our mindset…

The fact that you’re here, you’ve signed up for the blog series, and you’re reading this right now, means that you’re ready to become an Author. You’re ready to make your hobby of writing into a business, get published some day and, well…make some money. 😉

Basics of author brand…

This was one of the most confusing things to figure out for me, and I STILL don’t fully understand it. But what little I know, I will offer to you. 😉

What is author brand?

Your author brand is how people see you. It’s your personality, fonts and colors you use, your writing, how you interact on social media, and how people feel when they interact with you. Some excerpts from a post on author branding on The Creative Penn:

A brand is a consistent promise to a customer about what they are going to get, in terms of product quality, customer service and more, and how what they get will be different from the competition.

Consistency brings cohesiveness and develops your brand.

A brand is like a person in that you can recognise it by a name, but it is made up of all sorts of different attributes. Some of these are physical, such as the style of clothes or haircut someone chooses, but others are less tangible, such as personality or sense of humour, the way a person makes you feel when you’re with them.

How to start building/formulating your author brand

In next week’s post, about setting up your author website, I suggest deciding on a color combination you will always use across everything, so that’s one step. Here’s an article to help you strategically pick your brand colors.

You also need to identify your target reader/audience. Knowing this will help you figure out how exactly to reach your ideal reader and interact with, and what they want to see from you and your writing.

Develop your author brand voice. Just like your writing voice, this will take time. How do you want to come across to people while still being yourself?

Now, how will you stand out against other authors doing the same thing? No, it’s not a competition, but as a business, you want to present a USP, or unique selling point. What makes you different? Think about your values, WHY you write and want to share your stories, and what type of stories you create.

Be consistent everywhere. Once you’ve figured out your author brand (this may take some time and experimenting), be consistent with it and use it everywhere. Once you start sticking to your author brand, people will expect this from you, so you need to keep being consistent.

A different approach to social media

It’s not all fun and games, ya know. 😉 Business-minded people approach social media, a crucial marketing area, with a more strategic approach. When we talk about getting started on Instagram in the coming weeks, you’ll see how much goes into strategic social media management. Posting times, schedules, apps and tools, studying insights and statistics, increasing reach. Everything has a reason.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t post what you want though. People love hearing about what you’re passionate about and how you can share that with them. We’ll be going more in depth about this author strategy when we look at the different platforms: Instagram, Pinterest, and your website.

Don’t let this short-ish post fool you. The posts coming are longer…much. longer. 😛 I hope you’re looking forward to it because I can wait to share and discuss with you these different things about the writing business I’ve learned.

Share your favorite part of this post in the comments, ask questions, discuss with others, etc. Let’s connect and learn from each other!

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