4 easy ways to start your successful author brand today

You’ve dreamed of writing novels since you were a nipper. You were probably the only kid who shouted ‘Hooray!’ when your teacher announced a creative writing exercise. How can that translate into a successful author brand for you?

Oh, you’d be surprised.

But seriously. A lot of authors don’t want to touch branding. It’s the kind of thing that huge corporations and popular products have to deal with.

If that’s your mindset, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But that kind of thinking is right up there with “I want to publish traditionally so I don’t have to do any of the marketing”.

Times have changed and if you want to be a successful writer, then you need to change with them.

The good news?

It’s easier than ever before to do a lot of it yourself. From taking your own author photos to creating websites, you can (and should) take control when you start to create a successful author brand.

But it can also be incredibly fun. Let’s have a look at 4 easy things that you can start today to get your author brand underway.

1) Decide on your genre.

All other aspects of your author brand are dependent on your genre. Why?

That’s one of the reasons why readers choose particular books. And genres come with certain expectations. If your brand chimes with those expectations, a reader knows instinctively that your books are for them.

Case in point. Check out Kira Butler’s website. Even if the home page didn’t tell you that she writes speculative fiction for young adults, you’d figure that out from the imagery she uses.

By contrast, Sophie Kinsella’s website screams chick-lit. I don’t even need to know who she is to know what she writes.

So decide on your genre. Romance authors will have a totally different author brand to horror writers. And so on.

Have a look at other author websites in your genre to see what they’re doing. You’re not copying – it’s called research. You can even look at book covers to get a feel for what your successful author brand might look like.

Pinterest is great for this. I put ‘romance authors‘ in the search bar and found some brilliant covers that almost made me want to write it. (NB: I won’t).

You can even create a board to store all of the cool visuals you find. I explain why that’s helpful in my free author branding email course. Sign up below to get on board.

2) Get your voice in order.

I don’t mean physically, though I guess you could get singing lessons if you wanted. So what do I mean by ‘voice’?

It’s not just what you say. It’s how you say it.

Let me give you an example. Away from writing fiction and blogging, I’m also an academic in Gothic Studies (particularly film). So I use a totally different voice when I talk about set design in contemporary haunted house narratives.

I also teach advertising to 18+ so I use another voice in my teaching resources for them. And another one for emails to my boss.

Then there’s the voice I’m using right now to speak to you. I don’t use flowery, woo-woo language because; a) I’m not that kind of person; and b) I want this to be a no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point resource.

You need to decide on the same thing. If you write fluffy stories with happy endings, you’ll have a different online ‘voice’ to someone who writes about bleak futuristic dystopias.

Readers will come to recognise your voice – and respond to it.

3) Underpin your successful author brand with a consistent headshot.

A couple of weeks ago we talked about how not to be a tool on social media. And one of the points I made was that you should try and use the same headshot on all of the social media platforms you use.

It makes you much easier to spot among the sea of faces. Humans like seeing faces. Our brains even light up when we see one, far more than when we see other objects.

That’s one of many reasons why you’re better off using an author photo instead of your book cover.

So choose a well-lit photo and make sure you smile. Unless you write horror or noir in which case you can totally do the ‘mean and moody’ thing.

If you don’t have an author photo, then check out last week’s post about creating and editing your author photo using your smartphone.

4) Pick a colour scheme and use it wherever you can.

This last option is perhaps one of the more difficult ones to implement. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Google + all make you work within their colour schemes.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a successful author brand on those platforms.

I use this specific shade of purple across all of my sites. It even appears within my email marketing, making headings stand out.

I chose it because I write Gothic horror and dark fantasy. So I didn’t want to restrict myself to black, and red is too ‘schlock horror’ for my tastes. But there’s magic in my Underground City stories so I went with purple – a nice magical colour.

So take a look at all of those awesome images that you found earlier in step 1 and identify common colours. Which do you want to use yourself?

You can head over to Paletton and enter a colour. You can use a Monochromatic colour scheme based on that one colour. The Adjacent scheme chooses three colours from the bands beside each other. The Triad scheme chooses three colours opposite each other. Edit the settings until you get a colour scheme you’re happy with.

So if you write romance, and your main colour is red, then you could end up with an adjacent colour scheme like this.

It’s another easy way to build your successful author brand through visual repetition.

Whatever you do, don’t put it off.

Some authors think they’ll wait until they have a book available before they come up with their brand. Others hope that an agent or a publisher might help them figure it out.

You don’t have to wait that long. You can start it today using these four simple steps.

At least that way, if you get it wrong, you can make your mistakes before you’re a megastar.

But you won’t make mistakes. I have faith in you! Go get ’em.

Tell me below where you’re up to with your author brand!

If you want more help creating a successful author brand, sign up for my free 5-day email course. You’ll end up with your own style guide including colours and fonts!