Author Branding: What Is It and Why Do You Need One?

When you think of the word “brand” your mind immediately goes to a logo. Well, you are factually correct, a logo does represent a brand, but in today’s digital age, a brand means a lot more than just a mere logo. This is a statement that business owners and marketing experts stand by. However, even though everything is on the internet today, most authors do not comprehend the need to become brands to sell books and make a name for themselves in the industry. A brand is something that represents you and your writing. When you see a logo, you can touch it. But a brand cannot be touched. So, you can say that a logo is a visual representation of a brand. 

This leads to an age-old question for authors, why do you need author branding?Well, even if you think that marketing is not your cup of tea or your books would be able to sell themselves based on the plotline or quality writing, you are very wrong. In this world, where anyone can get anything on the internet, marketing, and branding are the two most necessary aspects, especially for writers. Let’s now dwell on the details of the author's brand and how can you create one. 

What is an author brand? 

At first, author brand might seem like an intimidating concept but it really is just the basics. To put it simply, marketing your book might seem hard but building your author brand does not need to be the hardest and for that, you need to know the basics. According to Google, branding means “the process of creating a distinct identity for a business or product in the minds of consumers.” 

This means you need to create a distinct mark on your readers’ minds that differentiates you from other writers in the industry. For an author, it is important to think of themselves as brands and your book as a product, which actually compels the readers enough to buy your writings. So, an author brand is much more than just the book you write, it is a combination of who you are as a writer, what you write, and the author himself, who is also the face of the brand. 

What defines an author brand? 

If you are wondering what defines an author brand, then the answer is, it is everything you do online and offline. The moment you decide to publish a book, you should start thinking about how you can build your author brand so that your book gets properly marketed. Defining what your author brand is, is a completely intuitive process. Start by fitting your book into a genre and then list other content that suits your book the best and will accompany them in the marketing journey. This might include social media posts, podcasts, videos, articles, blogs, etc. The key line is, that you need other media components to support your book as in today's competitive digital age, the book alone will not be enough. 

How to build your author brand? 

While you are creating a list of your book attributes and what kind of media you will utilize to promote, you need to know the foundation of a brand to be able to build your author brand. The foundation includes - 

➔  Company Overview 

➔  Colors 

➔  Logos or Imagery 

➔  Typography

●  Overview - 

Overview simply means your author bio. It is the summarized blurb that will be used on the back of your books and on every social media platform. Keep it short where you have to maintain an eye for the tone. While writing your bio, think of your readers and they mind find appealing. 

●  Colors - 

Colors are visually tempting and help tremendously in establishing an author’s brand. Pick one primary color and two secondary colors which would be your brand colors. These are the colors that you will use in your website and logo design. When you select a few colors that complement each other, it helps you keep things consistent. 

●  Logos or Imagery - 

After selecting a few colors, creating a logo for your author brand helps with maintaining consistency. While doing so, list some parameters for the images. This might be about certain kinds of images that you choose or notes with styles on the pictures. 

●  Typography - 

Building an author brand just does not represent who you are an as author, but it is also for your audience. It is to attract them and compel them enough that they buy your book. So, go for web-safe fonts there is a chance the font that you use for a photo is different from other authors and it can be significant as it signals that you are different from your competitors. 

While you establish your author brand, it is also important to think about brand positioning. The easiest way to do so is by hiring a reputed book marketing service.