Author Branding: Win Your Readers' Loyalty & Promote Your Books

Writer's Craft #30

by Rayne Hall

Do you want people to recognise your author name, and to associate it with their favourite genre? Would you like a connection with your readers so strong that they mark your next release on their calendars?

In this book, Rayne Hall takes you through the process step by step. She helps you create and refine your authentic brand, and shows you how to build a strong reputation and loyal following. An authentic brand is the basis for enjoyable, authentic book promotion.

This guide gets straight to the point, without fluff and without doctrine. It's all about you and your brand. You’ll design your author brand from inside out, starting with who and what you really are and what you're comfortable with. You'll choose which parts of your true self you want to put on display, and how to present them.

You'll learn:
- How to develop different aspects of your brand
- Which facets of your personality to present to the public
- How to use your brand for effective marketing and book promotion
- How to deal with conflicts and dilemmas
- What choices to make for book cover and website design
- What to post in social media
- What to wear for public appearances
- How to answer interview questions
- How to respond to fan mail
- What to say when asked "What do you write?"

Designing a personal brand is a fun journey. Are you ready for your voyage of discovery?

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing

144 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 28, 2019

About the author

Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction, some of it quirky, most of it dark. She is the author of over sixty books in different genres and under different pen names, published by twelve publishers in six countries, translated into several languages. Her short stories have been published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies.

After living in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, she has settled in a small Victorian seaside town in southern England. Rayne holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Over three decades, she has worked in the publishing industry as a trainee, investigative journalist, feature writer, magazine editor, production editor, page designer, concept editor for non-fiction book series, anthology editor, editorial consultant and more. Outside publishing, she worked as a museum guide, apple
picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, trade fair hostess, translator and belly dancer.

Currently, Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction and tries to regain the rights to her out-of-print books so she can republish them as e-books.

Her books on the writing craft (Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, The Word-Loss Diet, Writing Dark Stories, Writing About Villains, Writing Short Stories to Promote Your Novel, Writing About Magic, Twitter for Writers) are bestsellers.


Rayne Hall is the editor of the Ten Tales anthologies:
"Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires"
"Scared: Ten Tales of Horror"
"Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts"
"Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates"
"Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft"
"Spells: Ten Tales of Magic"
"Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies"
"Seers: Ten Tales of Clairvoyance"
"Dragon: Ten Tales of Fiery Beasts"
"Cogwheels: Ten Tales of Steampunk"
with more titles coming soon.


The stories in her Six Scary Tales series and the Thirty Scary Tales collection are subtle horror: suspenseful, creepy atmospheric, unsettling. Although they contain little violence and gore, they may not be suitable for young readers. Many of these stories have been previously published in other books or magazines.

British English: All Rayne Hall's books use British words, spellings, grammar and punctuation. If you're allergic to British English, avoid them. ;-)

Mailing list:
http://eepurl.com/boqJzD

Website: http://sites.google.com/site/raynehal...

YouTube "Ten Random Facts about Rayne Hall" (2 minute video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXR4T...

Contact Rayne Hall on Twitter
@RayneHall follows back writers and readers. http://twitter.com/RayneHall

Reviews

[Don Gerstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

It can be challenging, and I’ve heard more than one author speak of having to leave the safety of his or her keyboard and having to venture into the dangerous land of self-promotion. After all, you’ve just spent months, maybe years, putting your book together. While you don’t want to ruin your chances at getting your words into the hands of as many people as possible, you don’t have much of a clue how to do that most effectively.

Rayne Hall’s “Author Branding” provides the solution. If you think about it, just as you organized your book it is important to organize your self-promotion. This begins by understanding who you are and what you are trying to accomplish.

In easy-to-understand chapters, the author walks you through the steps, beginning with the image (archetype) you believe best represents you. Subsequent chapters build from there, and Ms. Rayne doesn’t just ask the tough questions, she also provides plenty of examples for you to choose from. Each chapter adds another important aspect, from examining your core values and your public persona to your brand purpose and determining how you are different from other writers. She also touches on social media and even includes a chapter on what to wear!

What this all boils down to is, what image do you want to project into the world? Ms. Rayne doesn’t attempt to change you, she helps you understand who you are and how that personna can best be leveraged to accomplish your main purpose, which is to get your book into the hands of readers. This book is a great step in that direction. Five stars.

[Kellyn Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

After going through alllllllll my notes, I've concluded that this book is quite good, though possibly not for ISTP me. I am just ... not this book. xD As you probably could tell by my updates. But at the same time, I really did enjoy it & think it has some valuable information to offer.

It was frustrating because I can never be the perfect based-on-self-but-still-organized persona you really need to create (e.g. I can't pick just a couple colors - I need to have dark & light purple, pink (light/mauve), blue (pastel, sky, and midnight), grey (dark and light), and white/cream. Oh, and yellow! Yellow is important.

Things like that made it difficult for me to get into the book ... because my color palette is already narrowed down as much as I can (I legit have to force myself to remove red from it) - I can't let myself fit one archetype because then I would be able to post this, this, or this - when I try to narrow down my brand principles I come up with 30-some words - etc.

Butttt at the same time, I did figure out that I'm a Very Ordinary, Very Unorganized Rebel. xD So that was helpful.

Also, the words I chose were along the sames lines: "approachable, transparent, honest, active, independent, all in, unhesitating, devoted." Basically - be real, be yourself, and push hard.

Another thought I have - I'd say I write historical drama but, in the words of scrawlings in my notebook at 2 AM: "I never want to depress the reader. So if Adele is going to break Troy's heart, you get cute and humorous thrown in."

And for similar-ish authors/whatnot I could mention if I ever want to explain my style, I wrote down:

Jane Austen
Downton Abbey
Period dramas
BBC dramas
Francine Rivers
Tamera Alexander
Carrie Turansky
Gone with the Wind
Charlotte Bronte
When Calls the Heart
The Great Gatsby

Then I wrote under it: "Jane Austen or Downton Abbey but there's an occasional cessation of drama and social critique. I like people to laugh." "When Calls the Heart only it's not cheesy at all ... so Downton Abbey."

I'm too good at this.

Anyways, just writing these down. I think I'm actually going to do a blog series on figuring all this out (yes, revealing eVeRyThInG 'cause that's how I roll!).

Butttt long story short, great book. Not for me. But still has amazing info!

[Jery Schober · Rating 4 out of 5]

Authors, listen to this book. Think about your brand. Hard. And stick to it.
There are so many simple truths in this book which should be self-evident, but I know for many authors they're not. So read, understand and follow the guidelines. They are really quite simple.
Would have loved more depth, but it's a great entry point into demystifying brand. Which really isn't a concept that hard to grasp.

[Myna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very helpful if you wanna develop your brand. I really enjoyed reading this book, it was insightful and interesting.

I'm a writer of dark fiction as well as romantic stories. My archetype is "The Mentor" - at least that's what I thought reading it for the first time. I like helping others, if I can. I'm still not an expert when it comes to writing, but if I can help I'm always willing to do so. I liked how Rayne Hall introduced the various archetypes and it was fun finding out which one suits me.

The chapter about the brand purpose was interesting, too. My brand purpose is: "I want my stories to be a way to escape reality for a while." As I'm mentally ill I'm often in situations in which I want to escape from reality and books are a wonderful way to do so. So, I want to help others to escape reality for a while.

My favourite chapters were "Pick your brand colour" and "Select your props and icons". I got some new ideas from both chapters and can't wait to implement them.

I also liked how Rayne Hall wrote about her own experiences with developing her brand. I found this very helpful.

I highly recommend this book. It was one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came along for me at just the right time. I'm getting ready to publish my first book and while I had heard about author branding before, I've never studied it.

In her simple straight forward way, Ms. Hall explains the various ways an author can use archetypes that match her own personality to create the persona she wants to put forward to her fans. Then she helps the reader find the ways to enforce that persona on social media and in personal appearances.

This is not a long read, but engages from the beginning and slides you along with her. From telling about the points to relating her good and bad experiences in her career to asking you questions that make you think about what you just read and how to put it to work in your life.

Five Stars, a must add to your Writing Craft library, whether you are a new writer or not, it may give you an idea or two on how to tweak your brand.

[Kathie Montefiore-Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful, practical and worth every penny

It’s not often I am moved to post a review of a craft book, but was compelled to leave a review for Rayne Hall’s Author Branding. I am blown away by how this book has been so inspiring, educational and informative. I now have a clear plan for my author brand, based on the Archetype most relevant to me as a person, not as a writer nor based on what genre I write. That was ground-breaking and liberating. I found the chapters on How to choose your Archetype, Identify your Brand Purpose and Set your Brand’s Core Values the most helpful and valuable. I’d never thought about using core values to establish my author brand. It is so reassuring to know I can use parts or myself and still be authentic, honest and true. The exercises at the end of each chapter were so well-thought out and propelled me through each stage successfully and seamlessly. Thank you so much for your clarity and insight.

[Ina Morata · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb, no-nonsense book with actionable advice to develop your author branding. i highly recommend it, whether you are a first-time author or a seasoned pro. There will be something in there (or LOTS in there!) which will give you food for thought, a solid branding strategy and some "aha" moments. I read it, then immediately read it again.

[Sandra Fowlks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Branding for Authors is Essential

I loved this book because it talked about ideas that I never considered as a writer. The concept of author branding is important for writers because we need to discover and identify just who we are and therefore who put audience is. I'm going to answer the writer interview questions and post them on my Facebook page. Thank you, Rayne.

[Natalia Prats · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve enjoyed the reading, it’s very clarifying on some aspects of being an author that you rarely find information about. It’s easy to read and understand and the breakdown of the steps makes it super easy to work on marketing your image as an author.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually enjoy Rayne Hall's concise information, and this book was no exception. Her thesis: your author persona should be part of you, but not all of you. The steps to figure out which parts to include were helpful and fun.

[Rhiannon Futch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Branding

Is necessary and something every author needs to learn how to do without hating it. This books helps to guide you along that path as long as you actually utilize the knowledge in the book.

[Gwyn Haller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought I knew what author brand is- wrong

This book helps you discover your true trope and it goes on to a cornucopia of actions to stop and start including: how much of yourself to share and useful steps to put to work.

[Debbie Lukas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book for the writers toolkit!

[S.F. Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Info for All Authors

Whether just starting out or in need of a rebrand, this book provides pertinent info. I wish I had read it much sooner!