What is an author brand? Some say it’s the genre you write. But it’s really not, at least not entirely. Your brand is what makes you recognizable to readers. In short, your name is your brand.
If you are a romance reader and someone says “Hey, I’m reading the new Nora book,” you don’t need to hear the last name to know exactly who they are talking about. That’s a brand.
Since you are probably like me and haven’t been a bestselling author for thirty years and aren’t considered the Queen of Romance, you need to build your brand. One day you may be a household name, but for now, your brand is not only your name, but everything associated with who you are as an author.
There are many components of branding and marketing, but my particular expertise are the visual aspects of creating an online presence. That’s what I’m going to talk about today.
In today’s digital world it’s important to have a way for your readers to recognize you immediately, from your website and across all of your social media platforms.
Many authors confuse their current book with their brand. The pitfall with that is every time you write a new book or venture into a new genre, you have to change everything on your website, social media, and everything.
Think about every company you know. When you see or hear their name, you know what to expect, even if they sell many different types of products. The only difference between an author and a company is that instead of sending a message (like “easy to build minimalist furniture”), an author’s brand should invoke a feeling or an idea.
What does that mean? Essentially you want readers to associate certain feelings, concepts, or ideas with your name. The first thing you have to do is figure out what best represents you. It sounds hard, but it doesn’t have to be.
One thing I tell my author clients to do is to think about something all of their books have in common. Even if they write in different genres, there is usually some sort of uniting factor or theme. For example, I had a client who has both non-fiction and young adult fiction books. The uniting factor is that all of her books deal with healing from devastating pasts.
Another client writes various genres of YA and New Adult fiction, but the thing that is true about everything she writes is that she pulls the readers into the lives and worlds of her characters.
Or perhaps you have a tag-line that gives a reader an idea of what to expect, like my own “Damsels Not In Distress”. Can you guess that I write romance with strong, butt-kicking heroines?
You don’t have to have a tag-line, and really they can be detrimental if they don’t represent all of your work, but if you have one you really like, you can use it as a basis to start building your brand.
So once you know what you want readers to think about when they read or hear your name, how do you convey that feeling? I like to start with the website header. Since it is the first thing anyone sees when they go to your website, it becomes the visual basis of your brand. Your name is your brand, so how your name is written on your website and social media banners becomes a “logo” of sorts.
What is important here? Font and color. If you prefer a minimalist look, you can stick with just those elements, but many choose to also have an image. I like having an image because it helps push through that “feeling” or “idea” of you and your books. If you find an image that conveys what you want your brand to represent, you can then pull the colors for your fonts, and then your website, from that image.
Going back to the first client, we chose a breathtaking landscape picture with a sunburst that evokes a feeling of peace and hope. Then, when deciding on colors, I took into account the author’s personality and likes. She’s sweet, and very minimalist and her favorite color is purple. I pulled the website colors directly out of the image, using plum and neutral tones. Sticking with her minimalist personality, we chose a very simple, straight font.
The second client chose a vibrantly colored abstract fantasy village to invoke that feeling of being pulled into a new world. We pulled purples and blues out for the colors in her website and chose a decorative font for her name and a script for “bestselling author” underneath.
There is so much more to your author brand than font and colors. It’s every detail in your website, it’s how you utilize social media, it’s what you post, and who you are as an author. But the essential, recognizable factor is your name.
That’s why I start with the website banner. Once you have that, you can pull those colors and font (and image if you so choose) through everything you do, from your social media headers, to your business cards and even signage & banners for book signings and speaking events.
Alternatively, if you don’t want an image banner on your website, but you want one on your social media headers and other branded items, you can do that as long as you keep your fonts and color scheme consistent with your website. The key is to be as cohesive and consistent as possible.
So, with all of that in mind, what state is your author brand in? How can you improve it?
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About ABE
Author Branding Essentials is dedicated to offering comprehensive author centric branding and design services at competitive prices. As an Author, your name is your brand. Building your Author Brand is key to success. Many agents encourage authors to begin building that brand long before they are published. At Author Branding Essentials we understand the unique criteria it takes to build an author brand, versus another type of business. We can help you decide on the best options for your author brand and help you implement them.
About June
June Stevens Westerfield is author of romantic fiction. She has been in the publishing field one way or another for over decade. She has helped launch several small publishing houses, worked in acquisitions, editing, cover art, web design, as a blogger, radio host, and assisted many authors in their self-publishing journeys. Her particular expertise is in design and branding.
On a personal note, when not writing or working for Abe, she designs greeting cards. She has a wonderful husband, a brilliant stepson, 6 fur-children, purple hair, and a chronically filthy house.
Are you afraid of using the weather in your writing? If so, you're not alone. After all, if not careful, weather description can be a minefield of clichés. The sunny, cloudless afternoon at the beach. The gloomy rainstorm at a funeral. Overdone setting and weather pairings can lie flat on the page.
Then there's the danger that comes with using weather to mirror a character’s inner emotional landscape. Mishandling this technique can quickly create melodrama. We've all read a battle scene where lightning crackles as our protagonist leaps forward to hack down his foe in desperation. And how about that turbulent teen breakup where the character's tears mix with falling rain? Unfortunately these have been used so much that most readers tilt their head and think, Really? when they read a description like this.
Agents and editors on first page panels never fail to reject a few openings that start with the weather, either. Why? Because done poorly, it comes across like a weather report, and delays the introduction of the hero. Readers are not always patient and we should strive to introduce our characters and what they are up against as soon as possible.
Wow, weather sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it? It’s no wonder that some writers are so nervous about using it they cut it from their manuscript. But here’s the thing…avoiding weather in fiction can be a fatal mistake.
Make Weather Your Friend
Weather is rich. Powerful. It is infused with symbolism and meaning. And most of all, weather is important to us aspeople. We interact with it each day. It affects us in many subtle ways. In fact, let’s test this by walking in a character’s shoes.
Think about walking down a street. It’s late afternoon, crystal bright, and a hot breeze blows against you. School’s out and kids run willy-nilly down the sidewalk, laughter ringing the air as they race to the corner store for a grape slush. Your sandals click against the pavement as you turn down between two brick buildings. The side door to an Italian restaurant is just past a rusty dumpster, and your fiancée’s shift is about to end. You smile, feeling light. You can’t wait to see him.
Now, let’s change the scene.
It’s sunset, and the weather has soured. Dark clouds pack the sky, creating a churning knot of cement above you. The sidewalk is deserted, and the wind is edged in cold, slapping your dress against your legs as you walk. You wish you’d worn pants, wish you’d brought a sweater. In the alley, garbage scrapes against the greasy pavement and the restaurant’s dumpster has been swallowed by thick shadow. The side door is only a few steps away. You can’t quite see it, and while all you have to do is cross the distance and knock, you hesitate, eyeing the darkness.
The same setting, the same event. Yet, the mood and tone shifted, all because of the weather I included in the backdrop. What was safe and bright and clean became dark and alien. This the power of weather--changing how people feel about their surroundings.
Steering Your Reader's Emotions
Readers bring the real world with them when they enter a story. Avoiding weather description will be noticed as it's such a natural part of the everyday, and it becomes a missed opportunity to steer how our readers feel.
Weather is a tool to evoke mood, guiding the character toward the emotions we want them to feel, and by extension, the reader as well. By tuning into specific weather conditions, a character may feel safe, or off balance. Weather can work for or against the character, creating conflict, tension, and be used to foreshadow, hinting that something is about to happen.
Because we have all experienced different types of weather ourselves, when we read about it within a scene, it reminds us of our own past, and the emotions we felt at the time. So, not only does weather add a large element of mood to the setting, it also encourages readers to identify with the character’s experience on a personal level.
So how do we write weather in a clear way, and stay away from the pitfalls?
Use Fresh, Sensory Images. In each passage, I utilized several senses to describe the effects of the weather. A hot breeze. Garbage scraping against the greasy pavement. A wind edged in cold, slapping against the legs. By describing weather by sound, touch and sight, I was able to make the scene feel real.
Avoid Direct Emotion-to-Weather Clichés.There are some pairings we should avoid as I mentioned above, and with so many different types of weather elements we really need to think past the usual ones. Avoid mirroring and instead show the character’s reaction to the weather. This is a stronger way to indicate their emotions without being too direct.
Choose Each Setting With Care.Setting and Weather should work together, either through contrast or comparison. In the first scene, we have beautiful weather and an alley as a final destination. These two are contrasts—one desirable, one not, but I chose to show enthusiasm and anticipation for the meeting to win out. In the second, the weather becomes a storm. Now we have two undesirable elements, and as such, they work together to build unease.
Weather can have a positive or negative effect on setting and change the character’s reaction to it, so don’t be afraid to use it! Just remember that with something this powerful, a light touch is all that is needed.
If you'd like some help brainstorming description for different types of weather, check out our comprehensive Weather Thesaurus at One Stop For Writers (registration is always free). There you can access all sorts of weather phenomenon, and the sights, smells, sounds, tastes and textures that will help you show, not tell, building in the exact emotional mood you want for each scene.
Fog Image: Pixabay
Do you use weather in your stories? How do you go about it?
"Disneyland! That's the answer." (Fiction 101 -- Drop your reader into the action immediately.)
My wife and I went to Disneyland recently. The trip was fun, of course, but it was also a revelation. Suddenly, Nancy turned to me and said, "The essay you are working on for Writers in the Storm! This is it! Disneyland!" It was winter; the heat couldn't have addled her brain, so I said, "Yes, of course. Um, go with that thought, darling." (Marriage 101).
She had me look around. The streets are spotless. The cast is uniformly courteous and friendly. People who work there care about the park. Everybody takes what they do seriously. She's right. So should you.
I want to tell you a story, the story of the very first time I was invited to speak to a women's book club. I walked in -- not sure what to expect, just hoping they'd read the books -- and the very first question was (spoiler alert) "What would T. R. Macdonald have done about his girlfriend Kandi if his wife Diana had still been available?"
Of all the things I might have been asked, this was one I hadn't expected. My temptation was to say, "Ladies, these are characters, constructs that are in the book because I put them there. They have no life outside of the pages you read."
I didn't say that and I'm glad, because they deserved a better answer. And because I would have been wrong.
That was my first lesson in how important what we do is and why we need to take it seriously.
We'll come back to the Mac-Kandi-Diana love triangle later, I promise, but for now I want to talk about why you need to believe, why you need to invest the effort.
One: Your fictional characters deserve it.
I think I was in the fourth grade when I wrote my first story, about a little boy who rescues a stray puppy that has become trapped in a drainpipe just as a rainstorm begins. I cared about that puppy; I wanted to know if he survived. In modern terms I invested emotional capital in him.
I write genre fiction, like most of you, but it's about something, people and relations, always. That book club didn't care about the details of sinking a supertanker off the Orange County coast; they cared about the people.
Two: Your readers deserve it.
At Disneyland you will never see trash littering the ground. Disney felt that his guests deserved a clean place. You are asking readers for several hours of their lives as they find out who did it or if true love will conquer all. They deserve your best shot.
Three: You deserve it.
This is the flip side of reason number one. When you are finally done, you have invested a lot of time in your work. Not quitting, going the distance, is good for you after its done. To remove any doubts, watch the opening of "Romancing the Stone" as the Kathleen Turner character finished her novel. You will be happier, and more likely to step up to the plate for the next work, if you have given it your all. Okay, okay, I hear you out there and you are right. I have never looked at any of my stories in print without thinking that I could have done something better. That doesn't mean I haven't given it my all.
So, there are at least three reasons why, like any cast member at Disneyland, you never walk past a piece of trash, why you give every piece of work your best effort.
-- your characters deserve it
-- your readers deserve it
-- you deserve it
I want to close with examples from two different art forms, and from extreme ends in terms of popularity or fame. First, one most of you know -- the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon. If you haven't read it, do so. Just don't read it late at night by yourself. Heh heh. This is from the Introduction to the electronic edition of Red Dragon. And if you want to see how a really, really good writer goes about this craft, read it.
Harris talks about working on the novel late at night in a remote farmhouse, alone, except for one of his creations, or maybe not. I'll let him tell it:
I was enjoying my usual immunity while working, my invisibility to Chilton and Graham and the staff, but I was not comfortable in the presence of Dr. Lecter, not sure at all that the doctor could not see me.
-- Thomas Harris, Red Dragon
Harris has made Hannibal Lecter real to million of readers; this makes it clear that the good doctor was real to Harris as well, God help him. Harris invested in learning about the man; and it shows in the work.
And from the other end of the spectrum, we have "The Hideous Sun Demon." It's a 1950's b&w movie about a scientist who is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. He survives but the bad news is when he goes out in the sun he turns into a lizard creature and kills people. I think it's a documentary. In the essay that comes with the DVD the director talks about wearing a wetsuit and how hot and uncomfortable it was. There is a still picture of the actor wearing the Sun Demon costume where so much sweat has run down into his pants that he says it looks like he uh, had an accident. Again, he put out the effort.
Both of these people -- one a famous author creating a novel with a lock on the NY Times bestseller list, the other a little-known actor making a movie to fill a drive-in screen while teenagers drank beer and necked, cared about their work, and it shows. You should, too. Never be afraid to, like Rocky Balboa, "Go the distance."
Oh, my book club appearance. Well, like Hannibal Lecter watched Harris, T. R. Macdonald and Kandi, and yes, Diana, were watching me and whispering in my ear, and they allowed me to explain what probably would have happened.
A couple of weeks ago I went to a dinner with high school classmates. One of the women who organizes these things told me she had heard from one of us who is living out of state. In his email he said he was sorry he couldn't attend. He also said he was reading my first novel, the one the book club read, and that it meant a lot to him.
He lost his wife not so long ago.
I almost didn't include that. It's personal, cuts close to the bone.
So I am writing this to say if you are at a rough spot in your WIP, take heart. Invest the effort. You're in good company.
Now, please tell us how you have invested in your work, and how it has paid off. I need to hear it, and so does everybody else.
James R. Preston is the author of the award-winning Surf City Mysteries. His books have been selected for inclusion in the California Detective Fiction Collection at the Bancroft Library, one of the libraries at UC Berkeley. James’ novella, Crashpad, will be published soon by Stark Raving Group. See bookxy.com for more information.
James recently appeared at Men of Mystery in November at the Irvine Marriot.
