Here I am a part-time writer who is trying to sell her self-published books and making a bit of a name for herself. Accomplishing this is hard and after doing loads of research on the net, I discovered that branding myself is just as important as marketing my books.
Branding myself means attaching a certain product (books in my case) to my name, so that people who are interested in the books in my genre and who see my name, immediately know what to expect.
I must admit that I don’t like branding myself. It’s really weird to see yourself as a sellable product. However, I have started to apply a few things.
- I have given myself a tagline, which I hope will tell people in an instant what I do. My tag line is ‘Author, Geek and Part-time Employed’, and I have used it in several different spots, most importantly the header of this website, my facebook page and twitter profile. I have also added it to my email signatures, together with a link to my website.
- I am using the same picture of myself everywhere (me in the blue hat, which was taken by my friend Michelle in a park in Toronto while I was still suffering from jetlag…). I am hoping that seeing the same picture everywhere will make it clear to people that they are following the same person.
- I am hanging around other peoples (preferably relevant) blogs - travel blogs in my case, as my new book is a travel book, and self-publishing author blogs, because I am one of those myself. With hanging around other peoples blogs I mean reading their blog posts and leaving relevant comments.
- I am writing a blog myself. Writing this blog gives readers an insight in what I am doing and believe it or not, lets new visitors find my website via Google.
- I am making myself more visible on Amazon by writing reviews about books I have read. Visibility seems to be the key to branding myself. By writing, hopefully interesting, reviews in my own name, people might, after a while, get curious about the person behind the name and visit my author-site on Amazon or maybe even my website. All this is not done to sell my new book, but just to have my name (and eventually the brand behind it) become a bit more known.
All this takes time. A lot of time, especially to keep it up, but I believe it’s worth it. I have found that patience is the most important thing when branding yourself.
Branding myself is still very much a learning process for me and I am wondering if I am on the right track. I have a few questions to people who read this blog and visit my site. Is my new tagline any good? Does it make clear who I am and what I do? And if not, what could I do about it? I would dearly love some feedback. :)
Related post: Branding, marketing: my head is swimming!
8 Responses to “My First Attempts At Branding Myself”
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makes sense to me! your article is well written and easy to read, continue blogging and i think people will naturally become attracted to your writing, posting comments in your same writing style cant hurt either! i am no writer myself, no really aspire to be but the steps you listed all make sense, good luck
greg urbano´s last [type] ..The Brooksville Raid Reenactment – Soldiers Camps
Thank you for your kind words Greg! I am glad the post is making sense. :)
Sorry about my late reply, by the way, but for some weird reason my spam catcher had filtered your comment out as spam.
Hi Maria
I think you’re moving in the right direction by branding yourself and taking steps to both achieve a consistency of message and awareness of what your brand is about.
Since you asked for suggestions, I have a few:
1. Give yourself a promotion: Instead of “Author, Geek, and Part time Employed”, think bigger, like “Author, World Traveler, and Part-time Historian”…..not that being a geek isn’t impressive – it is to me since I am one also – but think about how you want the rest of the world to perceive you….remember the old cliche “dress for the job you want, not the job you have”? Same is true with your tagline – it’s what people will remember and once they do it will be hard to change down the road, so think ahead of yourself now to what you want to become and start positioning yourself for that.
2. I really like your photo – it’s lovely – but it makes me a little dizzy since it’s tipped on an angle…..think about the author photos that you see on book jackets and consider something that is more close-up and professional, maybe even have a ‘glamour’ photographer do a professional shot of you. You’re a professional book author and should have a nice professional head-shot for your future book jackets.
3. Great job on increasing visibility by engaging more with other blogs – a few others to consider would be blogs and forums for writers and authors, such as http://www.writingforums.com/ or http://forum.writersdigest.com/ BUT be careful, all this can get very time-consuming so you may want to consider setting a time limit to your online engagement efforts and spend some time on traditional efforts.
4. If you can spare a few copies of your book, ask a few book reviewers to read and review it – some get paid to do so, but if they do they generally guarantee some high-level placement of their reviews – this can be well worth it as long as the price is reasonable. (I do plan to do a review for TWE as sooon as I’ve finished your book, which I’m really enjoying!).
5. Just because you’ve self-published doesn’t mean that a publishing company won’t pick up the rights to publish – they still might once you have some positive reviews and are showing some sales…..so don’t give up on that angle.
Good luck! I’m a big fan and hope to follow your progress all the way to your next best-seller!
Trisha´s last [type] ..How I Got Back to Writing
Wow, Trisha! Thanks for your very detailed reply. I love your suggestions!
What you say about my tagline is true. I should think bigger and I will give it some serious thought in the next few days.
Same goes for the picture. The picts you see on book jackets are indeed different from the one I have used. I will see what I can do about that in the future. :)
Thanks for the links to the forums. You’re right about them being time consuming. It so easy to get caught, but they are fun.
I have been thinking about asking people for reviews. Specially now that the book is also an ebook, it’s even easier to ‘give them away’.
And thank you for planning to do a review for TWE. That’s so exciting! Can’t wait to read it. :)
You might be interested to hear that I have started writing a ‘sequel’. It will be a book with short stories, mostly anecdotes, about things that happened on the ship. I had to leave so much out and it seemed a shame not to share them with my readers.
Plan is for the book to come out as ebook in March/April. Might do a POD as well – don’t know yet for sure.
And thanks for being my fan! :) I love having a fan!
Good luck with the branding. I like your tag line. I think you are right, it seems that making yourself visible is the key. The more people see you, the more they take notice. It is a lot of work, but worth it.
Thanks, guys. I think if there are any people who know how important branding is, it would be you guys. You have done such a great job with branding yourself and setting up your website.
I wll keep at it diligently, and who knows, maybe I will became famous one day, like you! :)
Hi Maria,
I just came across your post. It will be good ig you gave some feedback of how things have changed after the branding.
Cheers
Hey Muz,
Thanks for commenting.
In the blog posts that followed this one in the last 9 months, I have actually in general been talking about what the branding has done for me. But you are right, maybe it is a good idea to post a more specific follow-up.
Thanks for letting me know. :)
Maria