A.J. Race's Blog, page 18

Collateral

arlier this week I discussed collateral, also known as marketing materials. Collateral means anything in which your logo is printed on. Business cards, t-shirts, tote bags, you name it. It’s all about brand saturation. You may not find the idea of all of these things necessary but consider again blogger and fellow author Jordanna East. Since incorporating Blood Read Press, she’s had several give aways with various items that have her logo on them including tote bags, t-shirts and really awesome syringe pens. It’s not exactly the cheapest option but one thing it now gives her is people showing off her logo, it’s got her website directly on it, and from there prospective readers will now check that out.

Business cards are perhaps the most important piece of collateral any writer can have, I can’t stress this enough. Business cards allow you to give people a quick way to find your site and you in one place. Tip: VistaPrint will give you 250 cards, for the price of shipping and handling, which ends up being about $10 or so. And believe me, if you don’t think 250 is a lot, I still have a ton. I even used slipped them into my books so readers could use them as a free bookmark (I’m working on getting my updated business cards, but for now I still have quite a few).

It may not seem worth it to you to have a whole big shop (particularly if your unknown) like I do with IHOR Clothing Co, but it’s completely free to set up a small store via Zazzle or Spreadshirt and the opportunities to further your brand are immeasurable. Even if you’re the only one buying them, buy tote bags for yourself, your friends, and family. Start giving away collateral as birthday and Christmas gifts, give your mother an iPhone case with your logo on it. Eventually people are going to get curious and ask them what it’s about. Have your website underneath and make sure that they can easily get to it.

Side note: It may not always be the most affordable option, but if your able to buy your own domain name e.g.: your-name or your-brand-name.com I definitely recommend it. I was with GoDaddy, but after the whole SOPA fiasco, I switched over to Hover. They’re absolutely fabulous and incredibly simple. I believe WordPress offers you the option to purchase a domain as an upgrade, and even if you don’t want to pay for domain mapping it’s definitely worth it just to have your WordPress blog point to your domain that way you can have a professional looking website address on your collateral rather than your brand.wordpress.com.

All About Logos

here are entire books and classes dedicated simply to the world of branding and logos, it would be impossible to explain everything in the course of a blog post, and frankly I’m not sure I’m qualified to dedicate my entire blog to branding. But, there are a few quick and dirty rules that can at least help you get started. If you need further help, you can research things to know about logos and if all else fails contact a designer for help.

The first thing to know is keep it simple. A good logo should be simple yet effective and if at all possible, timeless. Your logo may need to be updated over the course of it’s lifetime, many do, but the best logos rarely need to be changed.

Second a logo doesn’t necessarily have to be a graphical element. It can be text, or both. Or in the case of the Cult of Racewood logo, the text is the graphical element, whatever you feel, have fun with it. Remember, some of the best known logos are incredibly simple. Take Chanel’s logo. Two C’s one backwards and both interconnected. As an author it may be easier to simply use your initials, first and last, or first last and middle if you feel the need, or your entire name.

Third: Don’t be afraid to take inspiration from other logos you like, but don’t blatantly rip them off either. Originality in logo design isn’t really possible, that said, you don’t want to infringe upon someone else’s copyright.

And finally. Chances are your logo may end up in a variety of different places. In the design world we recommend that your logo be able to be seen as big as a billboard or as small as a postage stamp. Chances are you probably won’t have the money to buy a billboard (if you do you’re certainly lucky), but you should ensure that your logo be able to fit in a 1″ x 1″ box. If it’s still completely legible you can put it anywhere. (You probably won’t need to make it that small, but you can put your own images on postage stamps, so it might be worth considering to get your brand out that much further.

Fonts and Colors

our color scheme says a lot about your brand. Why? Because colors have meanings. All over the world different colors have different meanings, for the sake of simplicity, we’ll stick to the Western meanings of colors for now.

Red: Energy, war, strength, power, love, lust and passion. It’s the color of blood and fire.

Orange: enthusiasm, happiness, creativity, joy and success

Yellow: joy, happiness, intellect and energy

Green: growth, harmony, freshness and fertility, dark green in particular of course represents money.

Blue: trust, loyalty, wisdom, intelligence, truth, faith

Purple: Power, luxury, nobility, ambition, royalty

White: innocence, purity, virginity

Black: power, elegance, evil, and mystery

(for the full list check out Color Wheel Pro)

Keep these things in mind when considering  color scheme for your brand. Remember however, certain colors radiate when connected, red on blue for instance, or red on green are particularly painful to the eye colors. Be careful when choosing such colors in combinations, the last thing you want is to make people dizzy.

Like color schemes, fonts are incredibly important and speak volumes about your brand. Think of most of the top Fortune 500 companies and their brands. The fonts are generally (though not exclusively) fairly simple and extremely easy to read. You may not be a Fortune 500 company, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look your best, and an inappropriate font isn’t going to win you points.

You should chose a font that is easily readable in a variety of different mediums, print and web in particular, but that if possible also represents you and is distinctive.

Note: While there are thousands of free fonts, you need to ensure that the fonts you are using are commercial free, or open source license fonts. This means that you can use them for commercial and non-commercial projects alike without paying a fee. Most fonts that you download from the web include a Read Me/Licensing Page that spell out specifically whether or not a font is free for commercial use. Check out FontSquirrel.com for Commercial Free fonts specifically. 

Finally, because this is discussing brands and because I am a bit of a font snob I will recommend that you not use Comic Sans for any reason ever, nor Papyrus. Be wary of script fonts as they are often hard to read, the main font you chose for your brand should be able to be used in a variety of different places, from your blog, to your Facebook, Twitter and Google+ covers and on any and all collateral (which I will cover later in the week).

Tomorrow I’ll be discussing the ins and outs of logo development (if you feel the need to DIY) and I’ll round the brand series off with a word on collateral which is just a fancy design term meaning anything with your logo on it. Business cards, t-shirts, cups, and everything in between.

What’s In A Name?

fter you’ve established what you’re selling, you next need to ask yourself, what should my brand be called? Your brand doesn’t necessarily have to be your actual name. It can be your pen name or like with Cult of Racewood something that could be a play on your name, if you can immerse yourself as the face of your brand enough, technically it could be anything, as long as it always relates back to you. The key is association, will people associate you the author back to your brand? Consider your blog title. What made you chose it? How does it represent you, and could it possibly help grow your brand?

Remember, while it’s ultimately important that you love your brand, your audience has to like it too. Don’t assume that because you like something that you’re audience will as well. You may have to consider taking a step back and separating yourself from the brand a bit in order to gain more perspective, if that doesn’t work, consider hiring a graphic designer who you can explain your brand and what you hope to accomplish with that brand to. Think of your designer like an editor, it’s their job to always remain objective in the hopes of creating the best possible product for you in the end.

Once you’ve decided on your name, you should next consider your color scheme and font options. If necessary consider consulting a graphic designer for better assistance. Tomorrow I’ll discuss the importance of font choices and the emotions they can illicit, as well as colors and their similar emotions.

Your Brand and You

ow that you’ve established that you are in fact a brand, we need to figure out more about you and the heart of what you’re trying to sell to figure out what your brand is really all about.

If you are a frequenter of this blog chances are high that you’re a writer and chances are higher still that you’re probably also a novelist. For us the brand is about writing, obviously. If you’re a non-fiction writer you’re job is a little bit easier because the basic point you have to prove is: Why am I qualified to write this book? For novelists the question is: Why should anyone else care that I wrote this book? You have to immerse people into your brand, from the way you speak to the way you represent yourself online. For the Cult of Racewood, I’ve created icons, and cover photos both for my Facebook Page and Twitter page that are identical but vary mostly by size. I have a chosen font and color scheme that represents me and my brand and anywhere you can find me, I am under the Racewood moniker. My color scheme, fonts and design are everywhere that I am. From my business card to my logo and everything in between, uniformity is key. For non-designers this all may seem a little intimidating. I have to think about color schemes now? You’re probably wondering. The truth is, when you’re just starting out you may think that all of this seems a bit over the top, but here’s something to consider. When you meet someone new, you tell them you’re a writer (believe me you manage to find a way to slip it into a conversation, we all do), generally the next question is what do you write. You immediately have an opportunity to discuss your current project or most recently published project. You explain you have a website, and right then you slip them your business card. Just in case. Who knows, you may have bought yourself a new reader. 

Your business card is the first place to showcase your brand, and it says a lot about you, particularly if it looks professionally designed.

Are You a Brand?

ecently I read an article regarding author obscurity in which the author offered the following bit of advice: The cool thing about obscurity, in this case, is that I can write whatever I want and NO ONE WILL CARE. I’m not a brand, and by the time I become one, evolution will have put Morlocks in charge of the planet.

To which I have the following rebuttal.

Everyone is a brand. The question is, does anyone know of your brand? 

Your brand may not ever become that of Coca-Cola or Apple, but you are definitely a brand. Stephen King is a brand, J.K.Rowling is especially a brand. Her real name isn’t really J.K. it’s Joanne, and being that she’s married her last name probably isn’t Rowling. But she writes as J.K.Rowling because that’s her brand. That’s what people know her by.

I’ve considered changing my name for years, (eventually I will), but because of the Racewood brand, I can never fully drop A.J.Race because that is the brand I’ve built up for myself, and frankly it’s a brand that I’ve come to love.

You are not your brand, you are merely the face of your brand. 

Anybody can be the face of a brand. Take MAC Cosmetics for example, they have a new face every year or so, the people who are the face represent the brand, but they are not however, the brand itself.

This gets a little more tricky for writers, actors, designers, people who’s brands are them, but who are not necessarily their brand. Your brand has to be separate from yourself, you represent your brand, and you will probably be the only face your brand ever has, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be separate from your brand.

If I were to change my name (privately, though little is private in my life because I chose for it not to be). I would still be A.J.Race, in the brand sense.

Think of it this way (to maybe make it a little easier) if you go by a pen name, that is your brand. Your brand is what you are known by. You’re selling yourself as an author and your books. That’s your brand.

Ultimately the question isn’t whether or not your a brand, it’s whether or not anyone knows of your brand and how hard you wish to sell your brand.

Promptly: A Book That Inspired You To Become a Writer

I don’t normally do these… but this particular writing prompt required a response.

If you’ve been following me for a while now you probably already know about my love for J.K.Rowling and how I consider her the greatest inspirational factor in my wanting to become a writer, but I wanted to discuss the specific book that really set it off for me and why.

I got into Harry Potter a bit later than most. I had received the first two as a Christmas gift in early 2000, but upon attempting to read the first chapter of book one I found myself unable to get very far. Shortly thereafter either sometime before the movies or just after, my aunt and grandmother (the same grandmother who bought me the books in the first place) somehow came to the ridiculous conclusion that the books were incredibly Satanic in nature and therefore I wasn’t allowed to read them. (They spent a good chunk of my life pretending as if they were also my parents, since apparently they were not convinced my mother was enough, she really had no opinion one way or another on the books, she hadn’t read them). Just before the first movie came out we moved to Las Vegas, and I had asked my mother whether or not we should throw out the books since it was doubtful I’d ever read them. To which she suggested I keep them anyway. By the time the movie came out, we no longer cared what the rest of the family thought and decided to see it anyway. We were instantly in love and for the first time I decided to give the first book another chance. This was the start of my real love affair with books.

I realized somewhere after reading book 4 that I wanted to know what happened next, which, oddly led to me writing a completely unrelated story with a completely unrelated theme. But it wasn’t until much much later, in fact, only about two or three years ago, that I realized that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was perhaps more inspirational to me as a writer, even though it came out several years after I had already started writing.

The summer O.O.T.P came out I spent one of my final summers with my father and stepmother. They were always fighting and when they weren’t fighting which was usually when they were asleep during the day, I was reading. I particularly felt connected to Harry because I was at the time living with three other people in a tiny motel room and forced to read beneath the sunlight seeping through the front door, in an effort not to wake anyone. It was being transported into Harry’s world that helped me get through those times, and it was years later that I realized that I didn’t just want to be a writer, I wanted to be someone who could bring people into my own world, and out of theirs.

PS: I may or may not decide to do more of these prompts in the coming days and months.

 

Blog of Week: Inkygirl

Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com.

‘ve been obsessed with Debbie Ridpath Ohi since I first saw one of her comics during my first year of NaNoWriMo back in 06 or 07. They were hilarious and adorable and I ended up going through all her archives of the Will Write for Chocolate comic series over the course of a very unproductive (writing wise anyway) night. Typically her blog is centered more towards authors in the YA and under market which at the time was exactly who Secrets of Witches was intended for, but her comics continue to delight so, even though I no longer write for children (nor do I really expect to in the near future, hers remains one of my favorite comic/writing blogs.

Good Tension

f there’s one thing reality television does well, it’s tension. This week, actually yesterday, one of my favorite reality shows RuPaul’s Drag Race crowned it’s sixth drag superstar, and while it wasn’t the exact queen I wanted, I would still say I’m happy with the choice. Personally I would have been happy with any of the top three, but I was especially on one queen’s team in particular, (I don’t want to spoil it for you).

One of the things that I’ve noticed Drag Race in particular is good at, is going to commercial just before the bottom two contestants lip sync for their lives. It’s frustrating as all hell and yet you can’t stop watching. Then you have the finale which has for the last two seasons been separated into two weeks to allow for the fans to make their voices heard. It might not be so bad, but if you’re as invested as I am, the tension is maddening. On the night in question, conveniently also the night of the reunion, you have to sit through the entire reunion, then at least five minutes of Ru just saying the following line. “The winner. Of RuPaul’s Drag Race. America’s Next Drag Superstar is….”

It seems like a quick enough line, but they have found a way to drag it on so long that by the time she’s finished that part of the sentence, you’re so excited and a little bit exhausted that you’re on the edge of your seat.

There’s a lesson here for writers, tension can be everything, the question is… how exactly do you create honest to goodness tension with words? You can’t really draw out what someone says. If you read the aforementioned quote by Ru, it probably took you what? Less than five seconds, if even? The trick is finding a way to create tension that makes your readers excited for more, not ready to throw your book at the wall and never read it again. A slow steady build to the grand finale that they’ve waited the better part of several hundred pages for.

The best way to create tension is… not going to be announced in this blog post, because I’ve written far too much as it is. But, I would like to hear from you, what do you think are some good ways to create a lot of good tension in a novel that wouldn’t annoy your reader? Comment below, or sound off on my Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr pages.

FINALLY!!!

 

For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter which… you should probably do because I’m hilarious on Twitter; you probably didn’t see the fact that I’m WRITING AGAIN!!!

You have absolutely no idea how happy this makes me, and the fact that I’m now roughly 31k words away from hitting my goal is incredibly exciting. I feel like at the rate I’m going now, I may actually be able to surpass it, but I can never be completely sure because now that I’ve said that, something will no doubt happen to ensure that I don’t quite go over.

Still, I’m writing and writing a lot more than I have in a very long time, so progress.

Meanwhile I should get back to packing. Tomorrow’s the big day. (Or today, since I’m posting this on Monday but writing it Sunday night )