The importance of developing a brand

 

 

The hardest part about being an author in the current marketplace is finding a way to get noticed. With so many books released on a daily basis in both print and eBook format, a potential reader has almost unlimited options about when and where they spend their hard earned money. This is why branding is important, in that it can really help any product or business to stand out from the crowd. I know it seems quite impersonal for an author to refer to themselves as a brand, however that is exactly what we are, or at least should be building towards being in order to maximise sales of our books.

 By that, I mean we should be conducting ourselves in such a way as to let our potential readership know who we are. Of course, the first part of this is producing quality work. Branding is no shortcut to success if the fundamental skills aren’t there. For those who are willing to invest the time and effort into their craft and want to go further with their careers, marketing and branding yourself in the correct way is a vital part of the process, and one which I myself am now just coming to terms with.

In the past, I have always dealt with my books – be it self-published or with a publisher – on a case by case basis. In essence, I didn’t really think beyond whichever book I was working on or looking to place into print. As a result, I missed out on a few little things which I hope will help me to brand myself and my work in order to make it more recognisable.

Let me give an example. If you showed anyone a picture of the McDonalds golden arches, or a photograph of the Pepsi logo, it’s safe to assume they would recognise it and be able to identify which company it relates to and the product they sell. Those companies and others like it make a ton of money based on brand recognition, and for the budding author, it’s something we should be looking at too.

For me, the most obvious way to do it is by applying some consistency across the covers of your books. For those who self-publish this is pretty straight forward. One thing all books have in common no matter how they are published is you, the author. Your name is always there on the front. Up until recently, I never thought about how this could be used as part of branding until I looked at some of the bestselling authors in the genre. Those guys, for the most part, had the same font and text placement for their names on their books across multiple titles. Often they would have a tagline above or underneath their name which, again, carried across from title to title. Sure enough, the colours and artwork designs might change depending on the tone of the cover, but the font and placement remained consistent. Here are a couple of examples:

 

 For me, it was a no brainer. I wanted to get in on that action. Plus, I personally think it looks good. I want repeat readers. The best way to do that is to have some constant visual element that my readers can pick out when they are browsing the amazon listings. Something to identify me and my work as a brand. Looking back across my titles, I noticed that the name placement was different from book to book. It’s no surprise then, that some of my most loyal and consistent readers had missed out on some of my releases. So, I set about trying to rectify that. I set to work on designing a treatment for my name, a font which will carry across my work going forward and onto my back catalogue where it could be changed. (Unfortunately a few of these can’t be edited to add in the new treatment). I wanted a font which was clean and simple, and most importantly readable at a distance. I would also need a tagline. I didn’t want to have one of those pointless ‘best seller in amazon short stories about demon dogs’ kind of taglines or anything like that. (Although Whisper did spend a couple of weeks in the top 3 of the overall horror chart in both the UK and US) I wanted something different.

James Patterson uses ‘The pages turn themselves’. Iain Rob Wright uses ‘Fear on every page.’ King uses whatever the hell he likes. He’s King, after all. I plumped for ‘The voice of modern horror’

I like how it sounds, and it fits in with my chosen font for my name.  Check it out.

 

 

 The plan now is to place this font and tagline on all of my back catalogue releases where they will fit. Dark Hall Press have already kindly agreed to change the cover to Dark Corners for me to accommodate the new design. The rest of my works will be updated in the coming days. I also have this as the header on my official website, and my Facebook and other social media platforms will follow suit in the next day or so. My hope is that by identifying myself as a brand, people will be more inclined to remember me and my work and (fingers crossed) come and buy more books.

 

Hopefully, this is something my fellow authors out there might be interested in trying. I know some already do it, and do it really well. I feel like I’m arriving late to the party, and want to try and implement this as best I can going forward as part of building my brand. Here is a look at a couple of my updated covers side by side to reflect the new changes.

 

 

I think they look pretty good, and only wish I had jumped on this a lot sooner. Will it lead to an increase in sales? Only time will tell. I certainly can’t complain with my current numbers, both the UK and US markets are showing good steady sales month on month. My hope is that this further helps me to grow and become more visible, and has encouraged my colleagues in the writing world to at least consider paying more attention to how they brand and market their work.

 

Thanks for reading