The second in a series of posts on names: Your Name as Your Brand. The series includes:
- Googling Your Name
- Your Name as Your Brand
- Naming Characters
I spent many years doing community relations and working to build (and sometimes repair) a corporate brand. This post is based on much of that experience.
What is a Brand?
A brand differentiates a person, product, or company from another. It’s what makes one memorable and unique. Consistency in branding means the user knows what to expect from each encounter.
For a business, the brand includes the logo, messaging, customer service, and product quality associated with that business. Often, the branding becomes iconic. It conveys a promise to the customer.
Author’s Brand
Authors also have a brand. Some authors consciously strategize how to develop and enhance their brand, while others evolve their brand over time. Neither approach is perfect, but the more you are aware of your brand the more effective it will be.
A key piece of the author’s brand is the genre in which the author writes. Romance, mystery, thriller, picture books, fantasy, and graphic novels all have a different appeal to readers. Authors typically gravitate to those genres where they are most comfortable. That becomes the space for your brand.
Authors can write across multiple-genres, but that’s when pen names become helpful. Pen names allow the author to write divergent types of books and not confuse their audiences. While a picture book author may write a murder mystery, the audiences for both books vary widely. Such a situation would be a great time to use a pen name and create a brand for each genre.
Cultivating a Brand
Consistency builds a strong brand. To the extent possible, an author should use the same naming convention for social media. Do your email address, your Facebook account, Twitter profile, and Website all identify you with the same name? Same profile photos?
Sometimes it’s not possible to use the same name on all outlets. It happens. Select the naming convention you prefer and stick to it whenever possible.
Create your email signature with all the appropriate ways to contact you. Much as a business card includes all that information, so too should your electronic signature. Do you have a business card?
Color selection, fonts, and general appearance of your various social media sites builds a consistent feel as a viewer travels from one site to another. Using the same author photo ensures a smooth transition.
Author’s Name
You decide what name you want to use. If you are using your given name, how do you want it to appear?
I was named Kathleen when I was born, but it was immediately shortened to Kathy. I’ve grown up being Kathy, but that is a dated name. When I established my FaceBook author page, I decided to use K. L. Small, Author, and on Twitter I’m @KLSmall_Author. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking when I set up my Website, which is www.kathleenlsmall.com. I’m using the same photo on all sites.
Initials as Brand
I opted to use initials for my name because I wanted my future book covers to be less cluttered with my name. K. L. Small is short and concise. (I know, it’s small too!)
Other authors have done quite well with using initials. J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, A. A. Milne, T. H. White, T. S. Elliot, E. B White, and J. K Rowling all did very well using initials. Not that I’m comparing myself to any of these superstars!
Branding is More Than a Name
Your writing is part of your brand. Readers come to expect a certain style from their favorite authors. Not to say that you can’t change your style, but your brand is a promise to your reader. If you write fast, action-packed stories and you suddenly produce an intense, physiologically-challenging character study, your readers will be disoriented.
Actions Over Words
The way you behave with people says much about you, and is a big part of creating your brand. Your behavior at book signings, public speaking engagements, conferences, Webinars, on-line, and during mentoring opportunities builds your brand. Let it be a positive one.
Define a mission for yourself and make it part of your brand. Can you donate some of your books or proceeds to a charity of your choice? All of those things help define your brand.
What Others Have to Say
There are numerous articles on the Web about author branding. Many of them are written by companies that want to sell you their services. Be careful when visiting these sites that you don’t get enticed into hiring a firm that offers to do for you what you are quite capable of doing yourself.
Publisher’s Weekly has a good article on Seven Author Branding Tips.
In Closing: Your Name as a Brand
Your time is worth investing in building the best investment you’ll ever make: your name as your brand. Next post we’ll look at naming your characters, which is very much a part of building a brand for your book.