Writers in the Storm

by Jenny Hansen

My day job involves helping businesses clearly define their brand, so they can turn their stories into money and clients. And do you want to know the most common request people approach me with? "Can you help with my marketing?" *shakes head* This is a common thread among businesspeople AND authors.

Branding and marketing are two very different things, and yet I see people mix them up all the time. Even worse, they try to put the least important of the two at the front of the line.

Before we dive into the "what, how, and why" of a strong author brand, here's a quick overview of the difference between branding and marketing.

Branding vs Marketing in a Nutshell

Branding is the foundation of your entire author platform, and marketing is the series of actions you take to express that brand. Let's break that down.

• Branding is the Why
• Marketing is the How
• Branding = Perception and Connection
• Marketing = Visibility and Conversion

The biggest takeaway for this post...

Until you clearly define your brand, your marketing won't work.

Why? Because your branding is "Who you are." Your marketing is just how you show up (e.g. social media or your newsletter). Your brand is the emotional imprint you leave on your readers. It is your identity. It's your VIBE.

Besides your actual writing, building a strong brand is the most important thing you can do for yourself as an author.

Branding is the foundation of everything else. Everything. Without a strong brand, your marketing will just sound like a bunch of noise with no purpose except "please please please buy my book."

Branding includes:

• Your voice and tone
• Your values and mission
• Your visual identity (logo, colors, design)
• Your personal story
• The emotional promise you make to your audience (aka readers)

Branding answers the question: “What do you want people to think, feel, and say about you and your books?”

The greatest strategic creative in America

The greatest strategic creative of our time (IMHO) is Dolly Parton. She's not just a singer, she's an icon. Her fans have followed her across musical genres, watched her movies, stayed in her hotels, and visited her theme park. And do you know why? She is a strategic branding guru with a clearly defined philosophy, which is...

"Find out who you are, and do it on purpose."

That's her superpower in a nutshell. Across all of her endeavors, Dolly is true to both herself and her brand.

Dolly Parton's brand:

• Her voice and tone: country, unpretentious, kind, resilient
• Her values and mission: she cares...about Tennessee (she and Dollywood donated close to $3M for Hurricane Helene victims/cleanup), about reading (she founded the Imagination Library in 1995), about health (she donated $1M to Covid research at Vanderbilt University)
• Her visual identity: big hair, bold colors (especially pink), confident femininity, glamor, sparkle, and country charm
• Her personal story: she grew up in a big Tennessee mountain family in deep poverty, before building her career in Nashville and beyond
• The emotional promise she makes to her audience: You can shine bright, lead with kindness, and rise above life's challenges with grace and grit.

Here's a timeline of Dolly Parton's good deeds, if you're interested. (Clearly, I'm a fan.)

Figuring Out Your Own Brand is a Process

Have you ever heard the following African proverb?

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

This applies to branding in a major way, because most of us can't see ourselves clearly. An example we've probably all experienced:

You know how your author friends can sell your stories effortlessly? Someone asks what you write, and your brain freezes for a moment. Typically, your friend will slide right into describing the best parts of you and your story. Meanwhile, you might be fumbling around for that elevator pitch you imprinted on your memory, so you'd be ready for this exact moment.

We can all define someone else far more easily than we can ourselves. This applies to so many authorly things: bios, blurbs, and (you guessed it!) branding.

Below are a few "how to's" to help you dive into the heart of your own brand.

Step 1: Enlist some help!

Before you give yourself anxiety trying to do all this branding business yourself, plan to enlist some help. Below are a few exercises for you to try out with other people.

If you're already established:

Established Authors, your best resource is your superfans. There are reasons why people are buying your books, joining your street team, or adding you to their auto-buy list. Find out what those reasons are!

Here's how you do it:

1. Go to your Facebook group, newsletter, or wherever you connect with your fans.
2. Tell them you are doing some research about your author brand, and you need their help. Ask any who are interested to send you a direct personal message.
3. Schedule a phone or video call with them (20-30 minutes should be more than enough time).
4. I highly recommend you offer them a free book after they've answered the bulleted questions below.

Your questions:

• Why do you like my books?
• Why do you like them really? (The use of "really" provokes a more thoughtful response.)
• Which of my books do you like the best, and why?
• What made you join my (fill in the blank for whatever they opted into)?
• What has made you stay in my (fill in the blank)?
• Is there anything you'd love me to do more of?

Some people really DON'T feel they can do the interview. While I recommend that you DO, it's counterproductive to force things. Just ask a variation of the questions above (only one, so people are more likely to answer), as a Facebook post. You won't get the value you'd get with the process I recommend above, but you'll at least get a tiny sliver of it.

If you're trying to become established:

You will have to research differently than someone who's already well-established. In many ways, you have the advantage here because you're doing this research before you publish.

Here's what I recommend:

1. Find established authors who are similar to you in multiple ways (ex: genre, story themes, personality, settings, background).
2. Pick two or more authors and study their brand. Minutely! (Websites, social profiles/conversations, Amazon pages, book covers, articles...all fair game.)
3. Define each author's brand using the bullet points in the "biggest takeaway" section above.
4. List how you and that author are most alike and most un-alike.
5. Pick and choose elements of each author's branding that "feel like you" and re-write them for yourself. Make a few versions of this.
6. Give those versions to several different kinds of people who know you well. (ex: family, colleague, friend, fellow writer)
   • Ask them to list up to 5 adjectives/qualities that describe you.
   • Ask them which bullet point list sounds closest to describing you.
   • Ask them to tell you which individual points "don't sound a thing like you" (and why).
   • Ask them whether there is something they feel you should add or take away from the lists you compiled (and why).

Step 2: Make several drafts.

No matter which of the above categories you're in, you've just done a heck of a lot of detective work trying to figure out your brand. It's a bit overwhelming to do all that research on yourself. Take a minute to sit with it before you do anything with what you've learned.

Note: The majority of authors are introverts. If that describes you, then all that people-ing has earned you an intermission!

Maybe go put your feet up, and sip on the beverage of your choice.

When you're ready...

Sift through everyone's answers for the things you didn't expect, or comments that don't fit how you thought about yourself. Those are some of your biggest clues on where to focus your brand strategy. Because, again, we rarely see ourselves clearly. Those people you interviewed didn't just give you their time, they gave you the gift of insight.

Remember: "Branding is what people say about you when you're not in the room." It's almost impossible to figure out your strongest author brand without some help.

The Why of Your Author Brand

We've talked a bit about how to figure out your author brand, and what defines that brand. But why is it so important for us to do this?

Your brand is what builds recognition, loyalty, and trust.

Without those three emotions, no one will be moved to spend time or money on your stories. Marketing is largely a waste of your time and money if you don't build it around a strong, consistent author brand.

Taking the time and energy to build that brand thoughtfully is a love letter to your readers.

Put the best of you in your branding.

Your brand needs to reflect YOU.

For example, if you love sewing, small towns, animals, military, libraries, scuba diving, gardening, the beach, or something else, that thing you love will absolutely be in your books. The more specific the thing you love, the more "your kind of people" will be drawn to you (and your books).

Don't be afraid to be specific.

You don't need a gajillion fans to earn a living. A thousand or more will make a significant impact on your bank account. Start by building a brand that attracts the first hundred, and expand from there.

Why must you include what you love in your branding?

Including what you love will make you happier as an author. Don't brand with "what you think will get you readers," brand with a vibe that is pure you. Plus, branding with the things you love means that there are tax write-offs for the smart authorpreneur. Those things you love become "research" and "marketing expenses."

Some examples:

I know an author who loves chocolate and travel, and has incorporated both into her newsletter and giveaways. Plus, she holds a few travel events every year. Just imagine being paid to travel by taking some superfans along!

Another author loves small towns and cooking. She makes videos of herself cooking and creating recipes. She also gives recipes away in her newsletter. Guess what is a write-off for her? Her newsletter software, any ingredients or cooking supplies she uses in her videos, and any branding elements she created as background for those videos.

Still another author friend is into all things gothic. She really adores black, purple, moonlight, and wine. Her books are paranormal romance (vampires), and her Amazon pages and book covers are very distinct with those four elements. She is her brand, and her brand is her.

A thriller author who contributes here at WITS has done police ride-alongs and courses on all sorts of badassery that she uses in her novels. Every bit of that is a tax write-off and it is all incorporated in her brand.

Note: Bestselling authors usually have someone branding for them. For our purposes, they don't count. We are looking for ways that newer or midlist authors can use branding to build strong brands that can grow with them and make them happy.

Final Thought

I'll say it once again: Branding is not marketing.

Branding is what authorpreneurs need to do BEFORE they start marketing. Like historical authors whose research informs the direction of their story, branding will point you to the marketing efforts are a great fit for you.

If you've never put thought into this, then today is a great day to start. Conversely, if you've branded something that doesn't feel authentic to you, today is a great day to begin giving your current brand a glow-up.

The more thought you put into your brand, the farther it will take you, and the more your marketing efforts will build into sales.

Have you worked on your author brand? If not, what's stopping you? Are you willing to share your brand, and why you chose it, down in the comments? I'm happy to brainstorm and talk branding with you!

About Jenny

By day, Jenny Hansen provides brand storytelling, LinkedIn coaching, and copywriting for accountants and financial services firms. By night, she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 20+ years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

Find Jenny here at Writers In the Storm, or online on Facebook or Instagram.

Top photo created in Canva. Dolly Parton photo from Flickr, CC License 2.0.

by Jenn Windrow

Developmental editing is one of the most important steps in your book’s journey to publication, and one that shouldn't be skipped. But many authors are unsure what to expect when they hire a developmental editor. What is an editor looking for when they open your manuscript and read that first sentence? What questions do they ask themselves about your MS to help you write the best book that you can? How deep are they going to go when scouring your words?

As a developmental editor for six years, I’ve read dozens of manuscripts, and almost every time, my clients are surprised by the things I find. Things they never noticed the gazillion times they read it before sending it to me. I always tell them that’s normal. It's easier to see the problem areas in someone else’s work than in your own.

That’s true for me as well. Just ask my critique partners.

To help you understand what I look for when I read a manuscript, I’m going to share with you the list of questions I always ask myself as I am editing a manuscript.

Let’s get started…

Story structure

Is the story’s structure clear and engaging?

When I edit, I ask myself whether the author followed the basic rules of structuring a novel. Sure, a novel’s structure can vary slightly depending on the genre, so there are exceptions, but most books follow the same structure. So, I ask myself, “Did they hit all their pinch points, plot points, and the mid-point reveal? Are the genre’s conventions being honored? If not, why, and does it still work?”.

Is the pacing effective and appropriate with buildup and resolution?

One of the comments I leave most frequently is, “Remove this section, it slows the pacing.” Usually, I note this in areas with a lot of internal thought in the middle of the action. But it can be anything that disrupts the flow of the story and makes the reader want to skim to get to the good parts. Most often, the section that slows the pacing needs to be cut, removed, or moved.

Plot

Is there conflict in every chapter?

This one is huge for me. Even a cozy book must have conflict. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a story. Conflict is the driving force of a well-written novel, but I’ve edited plenty in which there are full chapters of characters sitting around and talking. Now, if they are laying out plans to rob a bank, then you’ve got conflict (or at least the start of it), but if they are sitting around and discussing the weather, and it is not integral to the plot, you don’t have conflict.

When it comes to plot, I like to remind my clients that every word, every sentence, every paragraph has one job: Move the plot forward.

Are there plot holes or inconsistencies?

As an editor, it is my job to ensure that the main plot, and especially the subplots, are all wrapped up and topped with a pretty bow by the end of the book so the reader doesn’t tumble into a plot hole.

I also make notes when something contradicts what was previously established in the plot. Even silly things, such as a character who was wearing a blue shirt two lines ago and is now wearing a green one. Those are all considered plot holes and inconsistencies, and when I edit, I am searching for all of it.

Characters

Are your characters believable and relatable?

To me, this means likable. Now, not all characters have to be likable. Not everyone you meet in the world is likable, but even if they aren’t likable, they have to be relatable. The reader must understand why they do what they do or what makes them a Grumpy Gus.

Do the characters have clear motivation and goals?

I think the main characters’ goal and motivation should be established in the first chapter (or close to it), and if you have a well-structured novel, it will be. If you do this well, then the reader can follow the character’s journey to the end, when they ultimately achieve their goal.

Dialogue

Does the dialogue sound natural?

When editing, I frequently encounter character dialogue that reads (or sounds) stilted or robotic, and I am sure you have come across it when you’re reading. This can be due to a lack of contractions or too many words used to express their thoughts. The best way to fix this problem is to read your book out loud. You’ll hear the cadence of the words and be able to detect and fix the problem in your MS.

Point of View

Is the point of view consistent?

One of the first things I identify is point of view (POV). Is the author writing in first person or third person? Past or present? Are there multiple character POVs, or only one? 

Once I’ve established this, I ask myself whether the author is consistent, or do they “head hop?” Head hopping is when the author slips into another character’s POV and back again (usually within the same paragraph/scene), or they allow a character to know information that hasn’t yet been revealed to them by another character. In the latter case, I’ll often leave the comment, “The character can’t know this.”

Head hopping is not only wrong, but it’s also jarring for the reader. A good editor will point out when you slip into a different POV.

And the biggest question I ask myself when I am editing a book…

Is the opening engaging and impactful?

IMO, an engaging opening drops the reader right into the action. It introduces the characters, their story world, and the journey they are about to embark on. It showcases your writing style. And above all else, it leaves the reader wanting more.

I could write three blog posts on this subject alone, but I am going to stop here.

I hope that seeing the questions I ask myself when I’m doing a developmental edit will help you during your own editing process. Maybe when you are plotting and planning, you can look at this list and answer these questions before you even start writing. Or while you are self-editing, you can keep this list next to you to make sure you have hit all the points. 

In the end, it will make your editor’s job easier when they begin work on your novel.

If you’ve worked with a developmental editor before, was there anything your editor did or said that surprised you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

About Jenn

Jenn Windrow is an award-winning author of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. When she isn’t editing her own books, she spends her time helping other authors shape their characters and worlds into the best books they can be.

Jenn loves characters who have a pinch of spunk, a dash of attitude, and a large dollop of sex appeal. Top it all off with a huge heaping helping of snark, and you’ve got the ingredients for the kind of fast-paced stories she loves to read and write. Home is a suburb of it’s-so-hot-my-shoes-have-melted-to-the-pavement Phoenix, where she lives with her husband, two teenagers, and a slew of animals that seem to keep following her home. At least that’s what she claims.

Website: https://jennwindrow.com/

by Janice Hardy

A hard-to-read book is a book that doesn’t get read.

My mother was a voracious reader, reading one or two books a day. We were talking about books once and she mentioned she'd stopped reading one because it was “Just too much work.” It wasn't a bad book, in fact, she said it was a great idea and well written, but it did some things that made reading it a chore, not a joy, and she'd decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

Ouch.

Not worth the trouble? That's a hard blow for a well-written book.

But it happens. I've also read books that fell into that “too much work to read” area. Series I loved early on that faltered, books by authors I admired, books with fantastic premises I really want to explore. The only thing "wrong" with them was something they'd done that made reading them more work than the story benefit of doing so.

Is Your Novel “Too Much Work” to Read? 

Before I go on, it's important to note that there's nothing inherently wrong with a complex or complicated novel, or one that does any of the things I'm about to talk about. Tastes vary and what one reader thinks is wonderfully layered another might find tedious to get through. It's all very subjective, and it's up to the writer to decide if the story is working or if it's becoming unwieldy.

If you’re getting negative feedback, though, and readers are saying they’re having trouble getting into the novel, or they skimmed a lot of it, or they never finished it, then “being too much work to read” could be a reason why. 

Here are five red flags your story might be pushing the limits and scaring away your readers: 

1. It frequently requires readers to do extra "research."

This includes having to read inserted newspaper articles, poems, songs, etc. that aren't part of the narrative, but contain valuable information the reader needs to understand the story or plot.

The key phrase here is: “Contain valuable information the reader needs to understand the story or plot.” If the extra pieces are more for flavor or setting, and the reader can skip them and still understand the story, it’s probably fine. But if they need to read all those bits to get the story, then it might be a problem.  

It's the writer's job to convey that information through the narrative, not to make the reader do all the work and feel like they're doing background research for a report. A short bit here and there is usually no problem, but the more these extra pieces appear, the more likely it is the story is asking too much of the reader. 

Books such as epistolary novels, where the whole point is to read the letters or articles don't count here, of course.

2. It has way too many characters.

I stopped reading a favorite fantasy series because the author had introduced at least 50 characters by chapter three and I couldn't remember who was who by then. If readers can't remember who people are, they can't connect to them or even understand why what someone says or does is even important. If it requires a cast of characters list before page one, that's typically not a good sign.

Look for ways to combine or cut some of those characters. Who has to be there?

3. It has way too many points of view.

In the same vein, readers can only remember so much before it all starts to gloss together. If the scenes are constantly changing from character to character, and it's multiple chapters before the same character or plotline comes around again, salient details can and will get lost. Even worse, too many points of view usually go hand-in-hand with too many characters, especially if every point of view has its own cast. It's not long before all those secondary and minor characters are overwhelming.

Frequent point of view switches is also a tension killer, since whatever felt tense and immediate five chapters ago probably doesn’t any more. You might do a fabulous job at building tension, then it cuts to a new character in a new location and all that tension plummets. By the time the reader gets back to it, they barely remember what was going on.

Look for the points of view that are critical to the story, and cut the rest. You can also take critical elements from one point of view and add it to another (with some tweaks so it now fits that point of view, of course).

4. The names are all too similar, or too hard to pronounce.

Names that start with the same letter (Anna, Andrew, Arianna), names that are all the same size (Joe, Ted, Ann), names that look similar, (Lawrence, Terrance, Vance) all make it hard for the reader to remember who's who. Different names with the same ending also feel similar (Jessie, Marie, Ronnie).

It's not a bad idea to list all the names in alphabetical order and see how they look together. It's an easy way to catch potential confusion and change names that might be too similar. 

Genre names can really be a problem here, with names that are unpronounceable or impossible to tell if they're a person, place, title, or item. “After the fall of Drelekomor, when Silith bound the Thay’ne’mahi at Calvenrock, even the Ashen dared not awaken Nyrr.” Did a city fall, a nation, a single leader? Who or what are Thay’ne’mahi? Could be a group, a magic sword, or even the name of a creature. 

Look at your names out of context and see if they all work together. Is there a variety of letters, sounds, syllables?  

5. There's not enough backstory or reminders of key details in the later books in a series.

Think about the critical elements a reader needs to know to understand a scene, and treat it like it’s the first book in the series. Remind them of what they might have forgotten in the year since the book came out.

The more accessible your story is, the better the chance that readers will be drawn into that story.

The more complicated the story, the harder it can be, but if you take a little extra time to consider how the reader is going to move through the story, you can make that journey as easy as possible.

Have you ever stopped reading a book because it was too much work? What made you stop? Have you read any good examples of books that did anything on this list?  

About Janice

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author and founder of the popular writing site Fiction University, where she helps writers improve their craft and navigate the crazy world of publishing. Not only does she write about writing, she teaches workshops across the country, and her blog has been recognized as a Top Writing Blog by Writer’s Digest. She also spins tales of adventure for both teens and adults, and firmly believes that doing terrible things to her characters makes them more interesting (in a good way). She loves talking with writers and readers, and encourages questions of all types—even the weird ones. 

Find out more about writing at www.Fiction-University.com, or visit her author’s site at www.JaniceHardy.com. Subscribe to her newsletter to stay updated on future books, workshops, and events and receive her ebook, 25 Ways to Strengthen Your Writing Right Now, free.

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