Slaven Vujic's Blog, page 18

Kids, Love and Heroes

Kids, Love, and Heroes: Inspiration for the Values that Define Your Author Brand

There are many critical ingredients to being a successful author. First and foremost, the best authors write often, and write well. They are excellent storytellers who captivate their audience from their book’s first sentence and leave them spellbound until the last. The most pragmatic authors are proud of their craft, but not so much so that they don’t aggressively rewrite and edit their manuscripts.

You probably know all of these things if you’ve been writing for more than a month. But many aspiring writers don’t know that most authors also market themselves to their prospective readers.

The Importance of Branding as an Author

Decades ago, traditional publishers had internal sales and PR teams tasked with selling an author’s recently published book. These teams would pitch the author’s book to interested booksellers and media, such as magazines, daytime talk shows, and syndicated television. They also helped develop the author’s “public persona” through book tours and interviews, so potential readers would know how to perceive the author and their book. In short, these teams helped attract the author’s audience, who would eventually purchase the author’s books.

Sometime during the Recession, marketing became less of a priority for traditional publishers. Although PR and sales teams still exist, traditional publishers expect authors to self-advertise more often than they have in the past. And self-published authors may be solely responsible for selling the books they’ve written. Fortunately, the Digital Age has made self-advertising easier than it has ever been.

The Internet has allowed authors to establish an online presence and attract fans from around the world. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are great forums for authors to establish their personal brand, or their online public personas. An author’s brand is a reflection of their personality, and authors with a strong brand are more likely to attract followers online. These followers may become dedicated fans, and ultimately, customers.

The Key Ingredients of Author Branding

What are the key elements of an author brand? The most important is sincerity. Your online fans want to see your authentic self, and they want to be treated as people, not potential consumers.

Consistency is also important. Your fans may not appreciate erratic behavior that deviates from your brand. If your author brand is classy, keep it classy. If you’ve adopted a literary brand, try not to delve too deeply into conversations around genre fiction. No only does inconsistency make it difficult for your fans to identify with who you really are, but this kind of bait-and-switch is often characteristic of cheap salesmanship and should be avoided.

Another important element of your personal author brand is transformation. Not only do you need to make the life changes necessary to become an author, you have to transform into a person that others want to follow. The values you embody when establishing your author brand will influence the people who follow you and buy your books.

So Where do I Find These Values?

Let’s say you’re a fiction writer without a tribe and without a brand. It’s important to start with a series of values that your brand can represent. These values should represent your writing, personal interests, and fans’ interests. The genre you write for may also influence your author brand and the values it embodies. For instance, branding for children’s book will likely be different than branding for a popular horror series.

Identifying the appropriate values for your author brand may be challenging, but there is inspiration everywhere. Brands have been inspired by childhood memories, works of art, and memorable vacations. Some people wake up with an idea for a company and its corresponding brand. The point is, virtually anything can help you find your brand’s values. So let’s with three muses—kids, love, and heroes—and see how they can help fantasy, romance, and thriller/suspense writers identify the best values for their brand.

Kids

If only we could hold fast to the spirit of youth. The sobering realities of life haven’t yet dampened a kid’s imagination. Kids believe in the boogeyman and the Tooth Fairy; that one day we’ll all be able to fly or live on the moon.

When we think of kids (or their personalities), some adjectives come to mind:

ImaginativeMagicalCreativeFantastic (as in, “based on fantasy,” but they’re awesome too!)

Kids really believe that the possibilities are endless.

The belief that anything is possible is a core tenet of the fantasy genre. As a fantasy writer, you want to unleash your reader’s dreams and imagination. You want to allow them to escape from reality and into a world where the impossible is commonplace.

If you’re a fantasy writer looking to establish a brand, consider building one around the childlike values your readership holds dear: imagination, magic, creativity, and impossibility.

Love

Love conjures as many thoughts as there are people on Earth, and yet, it’s an experience we all share in its different forms. We might describe love as:

HeartwarmingHeartbreakingRomanticPowerfulPassionatePlatonicUniversalFamilialTimelessUnconventionalModernTraditional

The list goes on.

Obviously love is a hallmark of the romance genre. Because love is so broad, romance writers have the benefit of writing for diverse audiences, and thus embodying different values. For instance, an LGBT writer might establish their brand on the foundation of inclusivity, diversity, equality, and acceptance. A chick-lit or romantic comedy writer might embody the concepts of femininity, easygoingness, candor, and chic. These values may differ from those held by contemporary romance readers, who care about passion, romance, timelessness, and glamour.

Heroes

Heroes range from the firefighter who rescued a baby from a burning building to the ones in suits with superpowers. One thing most heroes have in common is that they are known for their courage in the face of adversity or danger. Their stories are often harrowing and heart-stopping, perfect fodder for the thriller and suspense genre.

When we think of the heroes themselves, one might imagine they’re:

BraveFearlessSuperhumanFormidable

Additionally, the situations heroes find themselves in are usually:

DangerousExcitingAdventurousUnpredictable

Knowing that their fans appreciate a good dose of thrall and risk, thriller and suspense writers might want to consider building their brand around the tenants of intrepidness, valiance, excitement, and adventure.

The specific values you choose are not important; they just have to represent your brand and resonate with your audience. Your brand should stand for something realistic and that is related to your books. Your brand should also help connect like-minded people with common interests. This is a critical ingredient in self-promotion and acquiring a large online following: your values should represent your brand, which should help attract people with similar values that they believe are best represented by your brand. Eventually, these people will become faithful followers of your brand and consumers of your merchandise.

If you’re interested in learning more about brand values, please check out the course I’ve developed to help authors learn more about personal branding. This course will help you establish and successfully use your brand to attract a larger audience of likeminded fans who can’t wait to read your next book.

Cloudy, Obscure Love

Chapter 1

In the semi darkness of the pub, the man was nothing more than a shadow tucked away in the gloom. He sat alone in the corner with discarded bottles of alcohol around him, they were all varying sizes and shapes of rum, whiskey, brandy-basically everything the pub had that has been specifically brewed to dull the human senses.

All around him, the loud noises of activity rang out clear and shrill. The pub was one of the surviving few in the district that still had an old jukebox with all the lights and levers perfectly functioning. There was even an arcade in the area. Not that the man had much need for these though, he only comes here for one thing and one thing alone- to drink until his liver screams out: no more!

The bartender eyed him curiously. The bartender was a wily old man of almost seventy years old and he was one of the last few surviving relics from what was oftentimes referred to as the Golden Age of bartending. The bartender was originally from Kent but he moved over to this side of Cardiff to escape some rather unglamorous events from his past. He worked a few odd jobs in his time but then he scrounged up just enough to open this pub and for the past forty years, he had been working hard enough to ensure that when people walked past by 6am, looking for something heavy to set the pace of the day for them, his doors were always open. The bar started out as a plank of wood suspended between two oil drums on the street. His hippie mate Sef began it when he dropped out of high school at 16, much to the dismay of his overachieving parents. All those piano lessons gone to waste. He moved out and stayed with his friends for a while, then he got mighty sick of having back ache like some old man and he got motivated. His bar was a huge success, none of his friends were old enough to get into a real bar for drink. His raves made him pretty wealthy for a teen and everyone thought he’d be a druggie next, now that he was so flush and all. But that’s not what happened. He never touched a drop of booze, in his glass was water with food dye to make it look like whiskey, or water in a vodka bottle. Sef went right out and bought a suit, got a bank loan and started a real classy bar. In his years of operation, the old bartender had had the pleasure of serving many interesting characters and there was hardly a better way to understand human nature than around a bunch of raucous specimens who would unwind and be at their most relaxed, telling rather confidential stories loudly.

The man seated in the dark corner was not the strangest character that had ever walked into his pub, no, not by a long shot but still there was something rather intriguing about him. Most drinkers are creatures of habit. They usually come in for one thing and one thing alone; to escape their demons and drown their unglamorous memories in glasses of alcohol. Most people would usually order just one brand of a drink. There are Jack Daniels men, there are Budweiser people, and then the Carlsberg folks too. The pattern was usually followed so judiciously that the bartender could tell what every one of his major customers would buy once he or she walk in through the door. The same was true for the man in the dark corner. He would walk straight to the bar and start the night off with pints of strong beer. He always sat at the same spot each time he was around and whenever he comes in to see anybody seated at his spot, he would leave and come back later that night. He would then drink hard and fast until the only way to get out of the pub was by staggering and swaying from side to side. That was his routine every time he came into the bar and the bartender had come to recognize this for what he was.

And the man had an interesting appearance too. If they had met in other circumstances, the bartender would have said that the man looked attractive with his green eyes hooded over by a wide-brimmed felt hat. But not here. Here, the bartender barely has enough time to observe him before he goes straight to his favorite perch in the dark corner of the bar. The bartender did not know the man’s name and quite frankly, he could not care much. He had never seen the man come into the pub with any of his mates or even colleagues, that was assuming he had a steady job but in order to pay for the large amount of booze he buys every time, he must have one and one that pays well to boot!

The average man will think there was more to Marti than meets the eye and in this case, he would be right. Marti nursed his glass of vodka as he observed the crowd around him. He savored the smell of the vodka martini. In one swell move, he downed the content and it burned his throat as it traveled down into his stomach.

Marti pursed his lips as he waited for the burning sensation to go down. Tears tingled behind his eyes. He was a man to hold his liquor but after the fifteenth glass, even the strongest of drinkers would be having his fair share of tipsiness by now. But Marti was just getting ready for the night. He turned around to survey the crowd and then turned back to his drink.

The bar is hundreds of conversations told in loud voices, all of them competing with the rock music that dominates the atmosphere. The crowd is young, students from the university for the most part. The smoke twisted in its artistic way, forming curls in the gloom, illuminated only by the age-speckled bar lights. Along the wall was every hue of amber liquid in their inverted bottles

He seemed to be concentrating on his booze but in actuality, he was listening to the conversations going on around him. To the people around him, he was just one more person who had come into the bar to get his fix of alcohol but Marti was actually multi-tasking. He was on duty and right now, his duty required for him to drink some alcohol. The drinking is one of the few perks of Marti’s job as a reporter with one of the lesser-known magazines in the city.

The Daily Reel is one of those magazines with loud headlines that you see on newsstands all across the city but it is not the one you pick off the shelf to read while having your morning coffee. But Marti did not mind, he was a darned good reporter and at least, the job was making good on its primary purpose: paying his bills.

Here in the bar, Marti usually opts for the darkest corner because it is the most inconspicuous and over time, people even forget that he is there and they talk about basically anything and everything imaginable. Here in the bar, there are no restraints, people talk about anything. That was how Marti was always getting his scoops, well, one of the ways anyway and whenever he tells his superior he got a piece of news from an anonymous source, this is usually what he means. Sometimes, he wonders why more reporters are not stationed to bars and pubs around the city for fact-gathering missions. In Marti’s experience, you can learn more about basically anything out here than you would anywhere else in the city. And the people are always ready to talk! And then there is the booze which Marti can never get enough of, anyway, he chooses to look at it, it is a win-win situation for all the parties involved.

He checked his wristwatch in the gloom; the luminous dials announced it was a few minutes to 11 pm. Time to pack up shop. Marti felt a bit woozy as he stood up to leave his seat. As always, he unsettled the bottles on the table in front of him and he had to quickly reach out before one of them could tumble to the ground in a crash of shattering glass.

He headed over to the bar where he settled his bill for the night. He always paid cash and as he left, the old bartender smiled back at him. As always, the reporter in Marti wondered just what the man’s story was. His old eyes twinkled with tales of intense adventures yet untold. Yet again, Marti made a mental note to maybe sit the man down and run a feature on the story of his life one of these days. Maybe he would add a bit of a spin to it to make it sound more glamorous than it really was.

But as always when he stepped outside, all of these thoughts vanished. All that was left was the shade of drab greyness that characterized his days. To Marti, the world did not appear as bright and colorful as it does to regular people. He watched as a couple trudged down the grey road bordered by large trees to head further downtown. Maybe yet another man coming back home late from work.

The streets were illuminated by bright streetlamps.

The street was glorious in its inception. The sidewalks were smooth grey stones, joined with such precision that the joins were almost invisible. The walls were concrete, but not like a villa in rural Spain; they were more akin to the construction of a modernist skyscraper, all sharp edges and corners. The buildings were nothing short of monoliths, the bastions of the city’s pride, stamping its arrival on the map of financially significant places to trade with. Yet no-one had communicated this vision to the citizenry. The street that should have been such a joy to walk was littered with garbage and the detritus of dogs.

The street winds over the hill like a carelessly discarded belt, grey and cracked with age. On each side, the houses are separated by yards large enough to accommodate farm animals, but this is no rural district. The homes are many times larger than even the biggest of families might need, yet in each are mostly parents with one child. To each dwelling, there are more sports cars than people and kitchens that cost more than the homes just a block over.

The street has seen so many transitions. There were redbrick terraced homes that were built for the railway workers without even internal washrooms. Inside their walls had dwelt families far too large for two bedrooms up top. Marti could bet the children mostly slept in the long narrow living rooms that blended right into the kitchen. But this is London and from the latter half of the 1900’s these solid houses close to transit and the city center could never remain for the poor. They became “executive” with all the amenities the professionals demanded. No longer were the gardens for growing vegetables but instead became home to new horticultural creations in vivid magentas, yellows and burnt orange. In the soft late autumn light, they are simply deserted. Inside the damp creeps ever upward, peeling away designer wallpapers.

Marti leaned against one of them as he sucked in deep breaths. He had to get sober and soon too. When he felt suitably ready, he straightened up and resumed his walk down the street. Most of the houses on this side of the street were the sort associated with small families. Marti walked past slowly, enjoying the steady feel of the gentle night air on his skin. He felt the air brush past his hat. He felt relieved. He felt alive.

His destination was a single-story house. He walked up to the porch and leaned on the doorbell. Minutes later, the door was pulled open to reveal an attractive blonde woman. She could be in her late twenties, mid-thirties or even early forties. She had one of those annoyingly ambiguous faces. But Marti did not care. She had a purpose and she served it well.

“Are you drunk?” She asked.

Here he was in the middle of the night ringing up yet another one of his female friends with benefits scattered around the city. Here was yet another perk associated with his job.

“It’s a cold night.” Marti answered in a soft voice.

“That it is.” She agreed as she leaned towards him and drew him closer for a kiss. It was long and within moments, Marti felt the last bits of booze leaving his system. He slid his hands down the length of her body and laid them to rest on her ass. It still felt soft and sizeable. He squeezed.

“How about we take this party upstairs?” She asked after they broke away to get some air. She sounded out of breath and her hair was already out of place.

With the two of them still tightly entwined, Marti led her up the stairs and on into her bedroom. He knew his way around the house as if it were the back of his own palm.

The kiss of the sun on his face woke him up a few hours later. He winced as he felt a stabbing pain in his head as he made to sit upright in bed.

“I should know better.” He groaned.

The bed was already properly made and his partner was not around. As always, there was a note on the nightstand. It said something about breakfast and where to keep the keys.

Marti enjoyed relationships like this. Short and mutually beneficial. There was no exclusivity contract and he was free to do pretty much what he wanted. That was exactly what he did.

He reached for his phone to discover that he had about seven missed calls from his boss. Instinctively, he opened his mail app. His eyes lit up as he read through the documents. They were details of an assignment. He was being sent to cover yet another unrest in the middle East. He grinned broadly. Maybe this month was going to have some action after all. But after he read through the documents, he only had one question:

“Where the fuck is Tovarnik?”

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The post Cloudy, Obscure Love appeared first on Slaven Vujic.

Bepo and the Golden Jar (Bepo the Bell-ringer series Book 2)

I’m pleased to announce that the second book in “Bepo the Bell-ringer” series is now available on Amazon.com! This picture book is based on a true story – Bepo was my grandpa!

There was a great food shortage in Bepo’s village and everyone was struggling to feed their families.

Bepo and his wife Angela were working very hard.

It was a cold day when Bepo and his friend, Mut, went to work on a farm.

The farm belonged to a very rich landowner and the work was incredibly hard.

While they were both hard at work Bepo discovered a golden jar filled with coins, which began to tumble to the ground as Bepo picked the jar up.

Mut wanted to keep the coins but Bepo was not so sure.

Read ‘Bepo and the Golden Jar’ to find out if the two friends decided to keep the coin filled jar or not.

 

Stunning images throughout.
A valuable life lesson is taught to children.
Based on an actual true story.

 

The second enchanting story about the Bell-ringer Bepo, which will leave you wanting to read the next book in the series.

The Secret of Bepo’s Bells (Bepo the Bell-ringer series Book 1)

I’m pleased to announce that the first book in “Bepo the Bell-ringer” series is now available on Amazon.com! This picture book is based on a true story – Bepo was my grandpa!

Children and adults alike will fall in love with Bepo, a very hardworking farmer who lived in a small fishing village.

Bepo had seven beautiful children who he called his ‘Seven Blessings of God.”

Now Bepo was well known throughout the entire village because not only was he a farmer, but he also rang the bells in the village church every single morning.

He was a small man and people often wondered how Bepo managed to ring such heavy bells.

Christmas was especially important to Bepo, and he would always ensure that the bells rang out loud on Christmas morning.

When the bell ringing became harder for him, his children would often help.

A captivatingly enchanting story.
Beautifully illustrated throughout.
Teaches children a valuable life lesson.

Based on the true story of Bepova Zvona this delightfully charming story will warm the hearts of all those who read it.

The Secret of Bepo’s Bells – Amazon.com