YOU are Your Brand

Missy Tippens

Writers, have you ever thought about your brand? If you’re a seasoned published author, then you probably have. If you’re new to writing but plan to publish down the road, you may not realize YOU are your brand.

I recently attended a 1-Day workshop, Your Author Brand,hosted by my local ACFW chapter, ACFW North Georgia. The presenters were Lindsey Brackett, Brandy Heineman, Kristi Ann Hunter and Hope Welborn. They shared their knowledge and experience and have generously allowed me to summarize for you what I learned and want to focus on to improve my own branding.

I learned that branding is a lot more than a tag line and logo. One quote that really spoke to me is that if you’re not intentionally creating a brand, then you’re UNINTENTIONALLY creating a brand.

Yep. Ouch.

In this workshop, I learned how important brand is. We need to attract the right readers—the ones who will love our stories. We do that by honestly portraying ourselves and our work. We want to build trust with our readers so they’ll become loyal fans. Ideally, someone would see our website or social media pages or logo and would recognize them. We aim to earn brand recognition.

So how do we do that?

First, it’s important to establish what our brand will be. In the workshop, I learned that good branding makes promises and sets expectations. We need to make sure we fulfill those expectations. My website for my small town southern contemporary stories will look different from someone who writes historical romance, different from someone who writes suspense.

Part of branding is figuring out why you write and the type stories you want to write. Where does your passion lie?

Here are some really helpful questions to ask, taken from a 2013 article by Margie Warrell at Forbes.com titled Do You Know Your Why? 4 Questions To Find Your Purpose:

  *what makes you come alive?

  *what are your innate strengths?

  *where do you add the greatest value?

  *how will you measure your life?

Once we figure out why we write and the type stories we want to write (and thus, who our target reader is), there are several steps we can take to help brand ourselves. These are the items I plan to work on:

--Come up with a color palette. 

It’s really interesting to look at this webpage that discusses The Psychology of Colors.  I want to keep this in mind as I choose colors. Also, we shouldn’t use too many (maybe two or three). Plus, we also need to keep in mind things like the effects of using contrasting colors, complimentary colors, etc.

One thing mentioned in the workshop is that color can help improve brand recognition by 80%! So once we choose our palette, we need to use it (or portions of it) everywhere—website, social media, logo, newsletter, ads, and print collateral.

Note: Once the color palette is established, make sure to identify and save the colors using the HEX or RGB color codes. Here is a style sheet that Beth Erin created for our Seekerville blog.

--Decide on the typography.

We should choose fonts wisely. We shouldn’t rule out default fonts, because they are very readable. Don’t go too fancy—they can be hard to read. It was suggested to use no more than two font families. It’s okay to mix a serif font with a sans-serif. And we need to make sure the line length and spacing makes everything legible and neat. It was also suggested to align everything on the left. When I was reading more about this, one website said not to center text because it creates unsightly uneven edges on both sides. (Oops. I’ll be working on that!)

--Choose a style guide (ie. Chicago, AP…).

Traditional publishers can tell you what they have chosen to use. Indie authors should also choose one. It’s helpful for author brand to use this consistently through all content we create.

--Choose appropriate Images.

Our brains process images 60k times faster than text. Images are our visual language and create emotion, so we need to choose them to appeal to our typical reader and to create a certain experience for our readers.

--Create content that fits within the brand.

Everything we write or create should fit in our brand. We don’t want to create anything that will make our readers lose trust in what we’ve promised (unless we have plans to change our branding, which would be another blog post). For example, in addition to my inspirational novels and novellas, I also took part in a short story project by Callie Smith Grant, Second Chance Dogs, as well as a devotional project from Guideposts, All God’s Creatures. Both fit my brand as a writer of Christian fiction. Plus, I sometimes include animals in my novels/novellas, and I also post about my beloved pets on social media.

My precious Duke.

My takeaway from the workshop was the importance of consistency. The importance of figuring out who I am and how I want to present myself. I need to figure out exactly who my typical reader is and to be intentional about that reader’s experience. I want to come up with a style sheet for fonts, colors, etc. that will portray the emotion I want to create (the same emotion someone would feel while reading one of my stories).

Writers, I hope you’ll chat today about what you’ve done (or need to do) with your author branding! Readers, I hope you’ll tell us about how you’ve experienced author branding, and what you find attractive. All of you, share authors you think have done a great job!

A big thank you to my fellow ACFW North Georgia writers for sharing their knowledge at the workshop and for allowing me to talk about it today! I hope you’ll check out their websites and book links below!

Hope Welborn’s website

Lindsey Brackett’s  website and info on her book, Still Waters

Brandy Heineman’s website

Kristi Ann Hunter’s website and info on her book, A Defense of Honor, which is on sale right now.

After more than 10 years of pursuing her dream of publication, Missy Tippens, a pastor’s wife and mom of three from near Atlanta, Georgia, made her first sale to Harlequin Love Inspired in 2007. Her books have since been nominated for the Booksellers Best, Holt Medallion, ACFW Carol Award, Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, Maggie Award, Beacon Contest, RT Reviewer’s Choice Award, and the Romance Writers of America RITA^® Award. Visit Missy at www.missytippens.com, https://twitter.com/MissyTippens and http://www.facebook.com/missy.tippens.readers.