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.