Branding yourself

Branding is essential to any form of marketing something. I remember the three years of business classes in high school included ad nauseam the importance of branding a business.

But how does one brand writing?

• Choosing a font, colors, and other visual based, memory provoking styles. This includes the genre you write in as well. For instance, when one thinks of Stephan King, his name evokes dark, shadowy things, or evil, sharp-toothed clowns, or foreboding hotels stock full of ghosts and madness. A romance-writer, on the other hand, might select a flourish, swirly font, or style of lips nearly touching, or something of a specific pink or purple. You know, things that reminds us the style of storytelling the author specializes.
• Titles as branding. Having memorable book titles can also brand your unique style. Chris Baty’s, No Plot? No Problem! catches the attention and promises to help with plotting a book (for the National Writer’s Month).
• Your blog or web site as branding. Jenny Lawson is a hilarious blogger known as ‘the bloggess’. Her brand? A cartoon with a woman in hair rollers. www.theblogess.com. Her graphics incorporate the quirky style of writing she posts regularly. Using graphics, color, font, and style all incorporates your brand.

What are your tips for branding yourself as a writer? Add in comments.

Branding for Authors

Creating an Author Brand to Boost Your Platform

Shaped Author Branding for Self Published Authors

WordPress Tags: author branding, marketing, publishing

Tips for Nom de Plume

Some authors choose a different name other than their own to publish books. Stephen King is also Richard Bachman. Ben Franklin originally wrote articles under the name Silence Dogood, but also Richard Saunders. Charles Dickens wrote under the single name of Boz.

Why bother with a writer’s pen name?

One reason is to change genres. Your reputation as a horror writer can be shadowed by a new name for writing something like fantasy or thriller.

Explore writing from a personae. Ben Franklin wrote under his many pen names with different styles as well as opinions. Silence Dogood wrote from the point of view of a widowed, when at the time, Ben Franklin was a teenage boy.

Your given name might not be easy to remember, spell, or doesn’t sit well with your novel. My last name is Poffinberger- lengthy, difficult to spell correctly (given that we have a Poffenberger road in our local area), and it just doesn’t roll of the tongue. If I select another name, something memorable or one that sparks curiosity in a reader, a pen name offers marketing for an author. The name itself becomes a marketing ‘brand’.

How to find your Nom de Plume? Here are some tips;

Family names. Go through your family history to find names. You can pick and choose the first and last at random, or honor ancestors in a subtle way.

History, local or world. From places to people, you can find tons of ideas by going through history. You can change letters around (as people in the past often misspelled names due to illiteracy).

Change letters or pronouncement of your current name. Stephan Colbert of the Colbert Report(pronounced col-bert, changed it to the French version to col-bare). 

Change the culture spelling or adding something to the name. The last name of Henry can become O’Henry, (which was the nom de plume of William Sydney Porter). You can add or drop syllables, such as McClaren becomes Claren. My maiden name of Ward originally was ‘werd’ meaning marsh.

What are your thoughts or experiences? Will you use your own name, pen name, or consider future incarnations of writer names for other books? Post in comments.

nom de plume,pen name,writer,authors,publish,marketing,tips

Curious video on copyright

I viewed this YouTube video on copyright, and found it quite surprising in light of copyright, piracy, and marketing via the Web.

Giving a story or poem for free doesn’t mean you ‘lose’ as much as gain marketing for your writing and other work.

Make sure you have a web site people can find you and your other work. This could be a blog or web site. I don’t recommend using a Facebook page as your site, however, because its difficult to navigate to the information you’re looking for. Link your Facebook to your blog and site instead.

Make it easy to share and get your stuff viral. Add the buttons so visitors can share on Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Twitter, and other site. Most blogs offer a widget to add this feature. Also make sure you have a graphic so people can ‘pin’ your site or post to Pinterest. They won’t pin without a graphic.

Ask for viewers to review your work. This can be harrowing, if you get a bad review, but a good review is worth its weight in gold. Another good reason to offer free reading of your fiction, non fiction or poems.

What are your thoughts? Free or not? Post in comments.

Technorati Tags: free reading,piracy,copyright,published,authors,writer,blog,viral,marketing

Writer’s New Year Plans

Well, we made it through another apocalypse. Not that I worried at all; I don’t believe in end-of-the-world fear-mongering, and already understood that the Mayan ‘prophecy’ meant a new era- not the end of the world.

That being said, this means we still need to plan for the year ahead.

My 2013 Writing Goals;

1. Write Daily. I’ll be taking the first moments of the early a.m., sipping my Hazelnut coffee, while plotting to take over the world new storylines. I’ve since given up on the idea that I need evenings to write. I can do strive for evening writing moments, but I recognize the goal is to get words to page and do whatever it takes to get there.
2. Write productively. What I mean by this goal is to focus on writing-for-publication. My writing needs to lead me somewhere, not just entertainment value. This might mean less blogging and journaling, and more writing stories and articles.
3. Less time wasting. Pinterest and Facebook are biggest time suckers in my life right now. I intend on using them in small increments, using a timer, if necessary, and to  limit my time on them (and other sites).
4. Learn and implement marketing. As authors, we need to understand marketing, whether we print publish or publish electronically. Getting oneself read should be as important as producing a book.

What are your goals for 2013? Post in comments.

Source: Google.cz via Almara Shop on Pinterest

Prompt: If you could re-do a New Year’s Eve resolution, what changes would you make? How do you suppose successful resolutions impacts our lives? Write about past versus future goals.

 

Technorati Tags: goals,writing,author,publish,new year’s eve,marketing,prompts

Marketing book link party

On my own quest to find the tips and tricks to selling books, I found these links and thought I’d share;

Help! My Book Isn’t Selling. 10 Questions You Need To Answer Honestly If You Want To Sell More Books. and

Marketing Your Way To A #1 Amazon Bestseller With Rachel Abbott by The Creative Penn

FAQs About Money by Holly Lisle

Great Ways To Market Your Indie Book by So Much to Write So Little Time.

Promoting Your Writing by Writing World (includes tons of links on the topic.

101 Web Marketing Ideas and Tips by SEOpedia

4 Steps to Making Your Own Book Trailer by Selfpublishingteam.com.

I hope these help those wanting to get the word out on marketing their writing. Feel free to post a link in comments if you wish to share your writing.

Technorati Tags: writing,authors,marketing,booksavers,publishing,promotion,tips,ideas,money

 

 

 

 

FAQs about money, by HollyIsle

I’ve found over the years, its tough to get answers in regards to making money with writing. There are many variables involved, and its tough to discern how to sort out the nitty-gritty on this topic.

Hollyisle.com offers some very nice posts on the topic of writing, and this one in particular provides some answers, which lends to the obscurity as to why its tough to figure out writer income.

I hope this helps other writers out there.

Technorati Tags: writer,authors,publish,writer income,hollyisle,novels,fictions,marketing