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Author Branding
- Taylor Hamilton
- 27 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Growing up, I always believed that writing a book was the brunt of the work. I never thought about how books managed to get onto a shelf or how they were marketed to their various audiences.
After finishing the writing, I thought that an author’s role was completed, and perhaps, then, they could move on to the next thing. However, my younger self was sadly mistaken. What she believed was the more difficult side of the job, the writing, might perhaps be the “easiest.”
Though writing is never truly effortless, neither is the marketing and campaign work that follows the never-ending task of writing and editing a book.
Along with what some would consider the excruciating months or even years of writing a novel, come many more efforts to make a book marketable and therefore, profitable.
Marketing Yourself as an Author
According to Forbes, marketing a book is not always about the book itself. To get a fandom of readers to follow an author, readers must “know” the author themselves.
Now, this does not mean that they need to know everything about you, but you, as the author, should be vulnerable with your readers. You should give them the opportunity to know the real you. This includes why you wrote your novel, what you believe in, and elements of your life story.
As an award-winning communications expert for Forbes, Terry Stanton stated, “Your book is important to you, but your Authority makes readers want to read your book, and reporters or editors want to cover your book.”
I know what you’re thinking, easier said than done, right? As someone who dreams of working in the publishing industry and doesn’t quite know her place in it yet, I get it.
I bet that you’re also wondering what authority you could possibly have. It’s a feeling that I’m sure many authors feel while writing a story. However, if anyone has a story to write, then they have authority, even if they aren’t a CEO or Harvard graduate.
Believing in Yourself
Nevertheless, it’s easier to believe that you will never finish writing or even publishing your book. However, the most essential thing that you can do is not to lose faith in yourself.
Unfortunately, if you do not believe in your work, no one else will.
There are many ways to accomplish your goals of publishing and marketing your novel, and the first is certainly believing in yourself.
Establishing Your Audience
The second is, of course, establishing your audience, according to the self-publishing imprints company, Author Solutions. This step is crucial in identifying your target audience and how to effectively market your book to them.
For instance, if your target audience is women experiencing postpartum depression, then you wouldn’t want to market your book towards children. Now, figuring out your target audience may not always be that simple, but it is a crucial step in determining how you and your team will go about marketing your campaign.
In order to accomplish this, Author Solutions provides a helpful tip.
Think about your audience in terms of their age, gender, sexuality, occupation, passions, and more.
Thinking about these elements will help you picture the kind of person you are trying to cater your book to.
Having an image of who would pick up your book and purchase it will allow you to better connect with your consumers and help you come up with strategies to connect with them.
For example, if you’ve finished writing a book about a teenage girl struggling with her self-esteem, then perhaps you could create an uplifting social media campaign that combines a young girl’s positive self-image with your book campaign.
Creating a Narrative
In addition to the aforementioned, you also must create a narrative surrounding your book. You’ve already established a narrative within your novel, so you might as well do one to market your book! Forbes offers a helpful tip on how to implement this.
Think about why you wrote your book in the first place.
Did you write it to help someone else during a difficult time in their life?
Did you write it to inspire someone to try something new?
Did you write it to tell someone else’s story?
No matter which side of the spectrum one lands on, you must be able to answer those kinds of questions, or come up with questions of your own and answer them.
Creating a narrative and building your ideal audience will enable you to take your campaigning to new heights. These methods will allow you to use your critical thinking skills to establish the book’s purpose and who to connect that purpose to.
Getting Your Book Out There
As previously mentioned, the process of writing and finishing a book does not end once the book is written and edited.
Have no fear, as there are many ways to get your book out into the universe, even if you have no idea where to begin. The following are recommendations from Forbes and Authors Solutions.
Gather your resources.
By this time, you should have copies of your book ready to go for your upcoming events.
Implement a social media campaign and various strategies.
Before your book even comes out, you should already be posting about it on numerous social media platforms.
Yes, social media can be daunting, but it is one of the easiest ways to connect with your audience.
So, share posts about yourself and about your book, so your future readers can connect with you!
Also, create accounts on various platforms so that more people have the chance to find you and your book.
Plan your first book launch.
Along with social media strategies and other events, one of the best things an author can do is hold a book launch. This event will help you connect with some of the first people who want to read your book.
Prior to this event, you should contact someone within a public relations role or someone working for a media outlet, including a news channel. If you do this, someone may write a story about your book, which can ultimately help get your message out there and perhaps increase your book sales.
In addition to a book launch, you can provide a short reading of the book and even sign copies for your attendees. Doing this will allow you to connect with your audience further by having one-on-one time with them.
Contact a book reviewer.
You may have to do some doom-scrolling on the Internet and LinkedIn, but finding a book reviewer who can read your book and write a review for you is essential.
Their positive or negative review can influence future readers to decide whether to read your book.
So, their contribution to your success could be very helpful if they write an Amazon review that gets your name out there.
Analyzing the Data
Once you’ve done all of that, you might be asking yourself, “Well, are all of my efforts working?” and “Am I actually making any sales?”
There are numerous ways to see if an author is making sales or not. Some might recommend using various platforms to figure that out, or even going to your social media metrics to see if your marketing strategies are producing good engagement.
Nevertheless, one of the best ways to collect your sales data and keep it up-to-date is to do it the “old-fashioned way,” according to bilingual publishing company, Barker Books.
By the “old-fashioned way,” I mean collecting the data and inputting it into your own Excel spreadsheet. Now, perhaps if you’re a trained author, you might hire people to keep track of your sales for you. For the rest of us, please read the following.
The Old-Fashioned Way
In an Excel spreadsheet of your choice, create various columns for the date of the sale, how many units were sold, what kind of platform it was sold on, and the revenue itself.
As a new or inexperienced author, this will help you keep track of your sales and see which platforms are producing the most revenue for you. Once you find a platform that works well, you can put more of your efforts into publishing your books on that site.
Organization
Once you collect the aforementioned data, create folders or something that will keep your information organized.
According to Barker Books, it is best to create folders for each book that you write and sell.
So, for each project that you write, create a folder for each book and make it clear which folder is named for each project. Avoid labeling a folder with a title that is outside of the name of the novel; otherwise, you may struggle to find it in the future.
The Easy Way
Now, if you are an author who does not have the time to commit to the old-fashioned way, there are other methods to organize your data.
For example, there are numerous platforms that can report your sales for you. This includes Amazon KDP, Apple Books, and Google Play Books.
Each of these platforms gives authors the opportunity to see their weekly, if not daily, sales through the platform.
Additional Elements to be Aware Of
In addition to monitoring your daily sales, it is also beneficial to review your royalties, pre-orders, page reads, and sell-through rates.
All of these elements, in addition to the ones previously mentioned, will allow you, as the author, to know which areas you are weak or strong in.
External Factors
When you’ve just put your book on the shelf, it seems to be doing well, only to slowly decline in sales, it’s easy to feel like you’ve done something wrong. However, that isn’t always the case.
As the aforementioned article from Barker Books states, “I once noticed a dip in sales for one of my thrillers during the summer. I was stumped. Then it hit me: a bunch of other big thriller releases had dropped around the same time. It wasn’t my book failing, it was the market.”
Stories like these are important for any author to keep in mind after their book gets published. It’s easy to feel like your book isn’t doing well and that maybe you won’t be a successful writer, but in reality, it could just mean that your books get overshadowed by other releases.
This doesn’t mean that you stop trying for success; it just means that you might need to create new strategies for yourself and your books.
Gaining and Losing Momentum
In the moments when you are questioning yourself and your novel, it is best to recognize the difference between a slow and steady increase and a drop in sales.
As a new author, you might feel as though you are destined for immediate success. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unless you’re a celebrity writing a memoir or biography, that’s most likely not going to happen.
If anything, it’s important for you to recognize that a slow and steady increase is key to your success. Perhaps, you’re one of the chosen ones, and you immediately get millions of book sales. Maybe in our dreams, but perhaps it happens for you.
For the rest of us, a slow and steady growth is key. Yes, it might be slow and take a while, but anything good in life takes time. And if you want to succeed in one of the most grueling industries, you need to be patient.
So, take the little wins. If one day, your book sales increase by 10 to 20 units, or even 1, take the win.
It’s also important to recognize that when your book hits a halt, or a sharp decline, in sales, it’s time to rethink your strategies. Perhaps you could start a new social media campaign or find other ways to connect your book with your audience.
No matter what you choose, the possibilities are endless.
Social Media
The best way for anyone to connect with anyone nowadays is through social media platforms. Though they have many problems, these platforms do serve as ways to connect with people and stay in touch, even after years of not seeing someone.
Getting to know someone and understanding their passions is even easier through social media apps, making them great places for upcoming and current authors to thrive.
Before your book even gets onto the shelves, you should have some sort of platform on social media. If you do, this will be the easiest way for your future readers to connect with you, even if you don’t respond to all of their comments.
So, create engaging content! You can do this by showing them potential book covers (as long as your agent or editor gives you the go-ahead), taking them behind the scenes of the writing process, and completing polls where your fans can ask you personal questions or even questions about your book.
There are numerous opportunities available through social media, and it’s crucial for businesses and individuals to leverage them to get their message out there.
In Summary
Believe in yourself!
Establish a narrative
Figure out your target audience
Create engaging content
Talk to your readers! Get to know them
Plan events
Organization is key
No matter what writing path you are on, I wish you nothing but the best in your writing endeavours. Hopefully, I can read some of your books one day!
Sources:
About the author: Hello, everyone! My name is Taylor Hamilton, and I am a Digital Advertising student at Louisiana State University. I dream of working for a publishing house, so being offered a spot to be a judge in the upcoming writing competitions is a dream come true.
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