Authors/writers try to brand many things, but the most important components of your image are your name and your face. If you brand these two, your followers will find everything linked to you–if you are consistent.
If you brand a book, you will have to brand each book you write. If you brand your name, your books will be branded as well. Think Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Oprah, etc.. There are exceptions–J. K. Rowling is a branded name, but so is Harry Potter.
Name branding is more important in fiction than non-fiction. In fiction, the author’s name is the object of the search. In non-fiction, the topic is what the reader is searching for. The exceptions–memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies.
Be consistent with your name and image. Use the same across all of your social media platforms, blog, and website. Make it easy for your followers to find you. Link everything to your website/blog/bookstore. It is much more effective if your website, blog and bookstore are together. If followers and searchers have to go to three separate addresses, you will most likely lose them in the process. At the very least–cross-linking is important. One of the reasons that malls are so popular is the ability to go to one location for multiple items.
Google your name. If you have a common name, you may have to be creative with your domain name/s. If you Google Tom Blubaugh, you will find mostly me, but there is a Tom Blubaugh in the Kansas City area who is in prison for embezzlement. YIKES! To fight this, I have nine domain names that point to my website/s:
- TomBlubaugh.com
- TomBlubaugh.net
- TomyBlu.com
- TNBlu.com
- LiteraryStrategist.com
- LiteraryStrategist.net
- LiteraryStrategist.info
- LiteraryStrategist.org
- NightOfTheCossack.com
I started doing business on the ‘net in 1995 on eBay and have been branding my name since.
I hope you learn solid principles to help you on your journey of success—whatever success means to you.
Change something today to make your tomorrow better.
Tom Blubaugh
Literary Strategist, LLC
TomBlubaugh.net
tom@tomblubaugh.net
417-812-6110
Organization and focus is the key. Take a moment to stop and plan this out a bit. Who or what do I want to brand. Think long term. It will take time to build your brand, so be sure it can stretch and grow with your future development.
Before placing your published works somewhere, stop and think for a minute. How will this fit with my branding plan? How do I want to be listed here? What do I want to list here? The end result, name recognition. Why? So, people can find your published works easily. No matter what you publish or where you publish, they will be interested.
“Link everything to your website/blog/bookstore. It is much more effective if your website, blog and bookstore are together. If followers and searchers have to go to three separate addresses, you will most likely lose them in the process. At the very least–cross-linking is important. One of the reasons that malls are so popular is the ability to go to one location for multiple items.”
My experience has been to list on different platforms using the same name or “Branding”. A good marketing plan includes trying different posts on different outlets depending on the traffic you desire for that platform. Then, have a website as the perfect place for everything to come together. It’s great to find you on Facebook, Twitter, GoodReads, Google+, Amazon, and more, but I don’t want to have to follow you on all these platforms. By linking and crosslinking all your platforms on your website, you give your followers one place to find everything. They may come to your site looking for one thing and realize there is so much more than they thought. They may find you have more books, or writing tips, or that you are available for speaking engagements or some other type of services. You just never know, so it’s a good idea to bring everything to a one-stop shop on the World Wide Web, better known as a website.
Awesome words, Tamy. Appreciate the feedback and wisdom.