Staying on top with a strong personal brand!

Hi guys! Today I want to take the time to touch on a topic that is personal to me and I think it is important to a lot of young artists whether they know it or not. So let me start with a question: What do the Twilight series and the Amazon Kindle have in common?

Both of them have achieved success as they have provided for their certain niche of customers. Twilight appealed to those teenage girls who dreamed that their first love would be as gorgeous, exciting and dangerous as Edward Cullen.

The Amazon Kindle appealing to all readers who wanted a lighter, easier way to read. There were many readers before this from companies like Sony, but no e- reader was celebrated like this before.

So what made these two inventions more appealing to customers?  They both had very strong Brand appeal! Twilight enticed with teenage girls and boys with it Cinderella/Romeo and Juliet storyline and with vampires and werewolves who had now become, sexier, cooler, looked younger and loved rather than hated humans. 

The Kindle, heavy influenced with all it super cool reading techniques and technology made reading cool again even in this age of video games and play stations.  

Branding is very important if you are trying to sell your writing and want to reach a mass audience because readers need to buy into you as well as your book. Readers will not purchase your story if they cannot connect with any aspect of your product and this product needs to have a strong brand.

Some would say that anyone can write a book but let me tell you this- not many can create a story that people would want to buy. This is where your author related branding strategy comes in.

“Although a PR firm normally takes care of branding your book, there is nothing more personal than an author reaching out to her readers,” says Kia. “Readers like to know that you care about them and their opinions. That you are passionate about the world you are creating both for yourself and your readers and that most importantly, they can relate to you because you get them. They like to know that they can interact with the author.”

Your brand can take a variety of forms. It can portray your product as the one that can differentiate itself from the competition whether through quality, use or design. 

Some products can also be priced lower than others while others target an area of the market where not many or no competitors exist. Thus its brand is defined by the fact that it can offer something new and exclusive to its competitors.

Authors can appeal to their niche of customers through injecting their personality into the brand. Never aim for an audience that it is too wide. Your readers should be able to invest emotionally in your book so that they will want to see your finished product.

One easy and definite way to build your brand is through your personal website. Here your unique characteristics can shine. You can also post interesting and exclusive details about the upcoming projects. Make your website something that stands out using a variety of multimedia and design features.

If you want to interact even more with your customers, make your email address easy to find in case they want to comment on your book. If you respond to your readers in good time, you can be sure that they will recommend your work to others.

Write articles for newspapers and magazines that pay you and allow the possibility of a byline as well as a promotion for your upcoming book.   Mix around as much as possible and do book signings, lectures and appearances to talk about your book or a related topic of writing. Travel locally at first and then extend this to the national or international arena. 

Get on local radio and TV at first to increase your coverage. Also target student radio/ TV and print as it is now a very important part of the mainstream media industry. Don’t aim for the BBC in the first instance. They get thousands of requests like this per day and unless yours would be a new angle, you are likely to get nowhere.     

And of course, it goes without saying that you must engage in social networking. Tweet and post regularly but make your posts unique and meaningful. Ask readers questions, highlight useful links and in other words, encourage them to comment.

Social networking can be made easier if you have a personal blog that you use regularly. So as well as short statements, you are providing your reader with a unique insight into your world. As well as blogging yourself, follow and comment on other blogs who might, one day, then be encouraged to highlight your blog to their followers.

And this is all for now, folks! We hope you enjoyed your Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year.

The Christmas spirit: wind down, relax and breathe- Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Special Message from Kia Storm & Rochelle Sampy:

 “On behalf of Rochelle and myself, we want to say a big thank you for reading and following us throughout the last few months. Please stick with us because next year is set to be even bigger and better and we can’t wait to reveal all J. So as we get ready for Christmas, I just want to take the time to say a massive Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We love you so much for reading and sticking with us!!!” We are back on the 5^th of January, However please check on our last post for the year on branding due out on the 30^th of December.”

It’s that time of year again when we can relax and enjoy the holiday cheer. Presents are wrapped, lunch for the big day is being prepared and the children are counting down the days. As well as spending that invaluable time with your family, Christmas can also be a quiet time to reflect on the year gone by. As an author, it can be an important time to think about how you can make the next year even better.  

Firstly, just try and relax for most of the time. Being a young author who will achieve success is hard work and you will not receive many relaxation periods such as this. Reconnect with your readers. Ask them what they would like to see from you in the New Year. They will appreciate this and nothing beats an author who cares about their audience. This is your dream and you should make it happen!

Take a look at last year’s strategy for your strengths and weaknesses, if there were any. If you did not have a strategy, it is worth creating one for the next year. Knowing how and when you are going to showcase your writing will help you prioritise and keep to your goals.

I speak from experience when I say that you should only make goals that you can keep. Find ways that you can keep to these goals and try to prevent the possibility of straying away from goals. You don’t want next year to be the same as this one. I’m just saying...

Organising yourself as a young writer is possibly more important than the creative writing process itself. Imagine if you were so busy that you forgot to plan to buy the newest games console for your son at Christmas? Hmmm... I’m not feeling so good just thinking about it!

I often find it useful to create word documents that can track your projects by date, tasks and deadline. Creating scheduled reminders on Outlook can also be useful. Whilst reflecting on the past year, think about your marketing strategy. How successful was your social media/PR strategy in relation to your target market?

Carry on with what worked but rework the part of the strategy that did not do so well. Remember that while you make time for the writing process itself you should also make time for marketing all this great work that you are doing. 

How are you goals going to be planned out? Depending on how busy or fast you want to work, goals can be set weekly or monthly. Weekly goals are useful at keeping you at a regular pace while monthly goals are more useful for big projects. Do not feel pressurized to achieve all goals by yourself.

There is only so much you can do and so it is useful to start building up a team of members, if you have not already. Assign them regular tasks and give them a function whether it is marketing or sponsorship. If you are not paying them, make their role as interesting as possible. As well as you achieving your goals for your project, they should also get something unique out of it that they can then share.

Think of new creative strategies that work that will really appeal to readers. Whether it is engaging directly with your target audience through lectures and events, or organising regular Q& A with readers virtually, or video interviews, make sure that your readers see you as distinct from any other author that existed.

Discuss all these new creative possibilities with your team and create new creative campaigns that will keep your regular followers as well as attracting new ones.  Set up a system for monitoring these goals so that you can evaluate what you are doing throughout the year.

And now to the fun bit... rewards. When you achieve your goals, remember to reward yourself. This might seem a bit patronising but taking time out from writing in a positive way will really help you push on in achieving success. Have a drink with your friends or do a bit of shopping. Anything that will let your mind now that more of this will be possible if your writing is on track! 

Also, connect with other young writers who will also be working hard throughout the year. Speaking or interacting with them will keep you focused and will also be great for venting those frustrations.  

Don't let fear destroy success: part 2

The writer dilemma- Part Two

Failures are not recorded in history nor are they built on in the media frenzy. But if genius inventors such as Thomas Edison only discovered the light bulb after 1,000 tries, then why should we be afraid of failing? 

However, many of us try to avoid failure and so in the end we settle for a very simple life when we could be living out our dreams. We will never face any real victory as nothing we achieve will have been achieved with all our strength and tears.

Mistakes are considered wrong in our society and not something that we could learn from. But we are not perfect nor were we born perfect. We had to fail so many times before we could walk, talk or ride a bike. If we gave up then, when we were young, we would have been nothing now.

Youth is a concept that is often connected with failure as it seems to be the time when people are more adventurous and comfortable with failing. When we get older, we suddenly become more protective. Our life is all about routine and making it work for our families.

But is it really worth not testing new ideas out just because of your family? Some might feel selfish by putting themselves first but perhaps they have forgotten the most important thing. Life does not end after your youth, it can only get better. The main advantage of getting older is that you can plan for your future using the experiences that you gained when you were younger.

As a young writer, you will receive several rejections and some may tell you that writing may just not be for you. But, publishing and writing are both very subjective career fields. Before entering the literary arena, you should be prepared for the fact that your first manuscript might not be a total success. But do not stop getting your work out there.

Take all the criticism in and strive to make your manuscript your personal best so that the next time an editor sees it, he is blown away. Remember that showcasing your book to agents and publishers is one of the highest levels that you will compete at as a young writer. 

Failure was prevalent in the life of Bill Gates who experienced failure with his first business Traf – O – Data but carried on to establish Microsoft as well as Albert Einstein who was considered mentally handicapped when he was younger. 


Who knew he would, in a later years, actually be considered a genius! Yet, if he or Bill Gates, had stopped trying at that juncture in their lives, the world would have lost two of the greatest minds it has ever possessed.

 JK Rowling also had a hard life in the publishing world before the success of Harry Potter:

“The first agent on my list sent my sample three chapters and synopsis back by return of post. The first two publishers took slightly longer to return them, but the ‘no’ was just as firm. Oddly, these rejections didn’t upset me much. In any case, these were real rejection letters- even real writers had got them.”

She continued:

“And then the second agent, who was high on the list purely because I liked his name, wrote back with the most magical words I have ever read: ‘We would be pleased to read the balance of your manuscript on an exclusive basis...”

Failure is often inevitable when you start something new but, a writer should never let their passion stop after the first hurdle. Success mostly comes at a price and is something we should all be prepared for.

Don't let fear destroy success: part 1

The writer dilemma- Part One

Kia once told me told that in order to achieve success, one must embrace failure.

She explains that throughout the course of her young writing years (It was only recently that she started taking her writing seriously) that she too had, had to cope with the dreaded rejection letters.

Most of them are now locked away in her sacred dream box for the day when she actually makes it, so she can post the response ‘You were wrong and I was right’ to all those who rejected her!

“I wrote over a dozen short stories in the midst of a very painful break up and was able to get them all published within the space of a year or even less,” she tells me.

“In that same year, I wrote my novel too- the pain from the break up was intense and writing was the only way I knew how to deal with it. That’s how I express myself. Funnily enough, I personally find it very hard to talk about how I feel and so writing enables me to express myself freely and without constraint,” she explains. 

“Every now and again though, I do write strange things on Facebook and then get people asking me whether I live on another planet...!”

Who doesn’t, I think to myself.

She smiles, “The point it, I always find I am my most creative through failure. It is necessary in order to develop your craft and to become bigger and better. There is no escaping failure and the pain you experience can be great motivator for all if only we embrace it and use it to drive success,” 

“I have had lots of no’s when I sent off the first batch of my short stories. I mean, I even had someone wrote ‘No thanks, please don’t send back’ on my manuscript,”

She shakes her head in amazement. “Can you imagine? This is my dream and someone has scribbled that on the front of it? I had to compose myself, I had to tell myself that this agency just doesn’t get it but, someone else will...someone out there in this big, gigantic world must get it!”

She continues, “And you know what? Someone did get me, but it was only because I kept going. That’s all it takes... the ability to rise above the fear of failing and just do...that’s all that is required from you and you never know what could happen.”

“So... are you really going to send a response to those rejection slips you received?” I asked in disbelief.

She laughed with a now very obvious cheeky grin on her face, “Yes, I am. Together with a copy of my new glossy book! But in all honesty, Rochelle you must believe that when one door closes another really can open for you. If one person doesn’t like you, I guarantee there is someone out there that will love you. The point is to never take failure personally,”

“You know that saying, feel the fear but do it anyway? I live by that statement.”

This makes me think about failure from a young writer's perspective. There are so many unpublished, young writers out there and there is this major feeling going around that most can’t make it really big as a writer.  The ones that do are lucky geniuses. 

Is this really true? What is the difference between those that makes it and those people that don’t? In any case, I believe that in any writing career, failure is necessary is reshaping a young writer’s style and never lets them get lazy in their craft.