Brand Development: Topics

Thousands of books have flooded the market. How do you make sure people buy your book over another author’s? Book marketing efforts are a good way to go. But, what about after, what happens six months after your book has been released and you’re still months away from releasing your next one?

You’ll need someway to keep yourself in the minds of your readers. Some way to distinguish yourself from every other writer promoting their work. Developing a brand solves that problem. Focusing your brand around certain topics, a certain image, makes you identifiable. When people want certain information, they’ll know to come to you.

1. List any topics you’re an expert on. It could be cars, drawing, cooking, home improvement, plants.

2. List topics you are passionate about but aren’t necessarily experts on. Since your brand is supposed to help promote your book, I suggest the genre(s) your book falls under should be in either this list or the one above.

3. What makes you truly unique?

4. Examine the three lists you just made and create three overarching words or phrases that describe you. For instance, my list is:
            # 1: writing, books, social media, anime, horror, searching databases, organizing information, evaluating resources
            # 2: new technology, Darkness, dark fantasy, world building, fantasy, Jung Shadow, sci-fi
            # 3: creative, video gamer, nerd, loves to solve puzzles, loves a challenge, explorer, adventurist, my two degrees, writing style.

This became creative, researching, analyzing. With Search Engine Optimization in mind, it turned into Dark Fantasy Writer, researching, analyzing. Me in three words became Dark Fantasy Writer, Researcher, Reviewer.  All the content I share is for promoting one of those three categories.

As you can see, those three topics are incredibly broad. That’s on purpose. You can have narrow brand topics but I prefer broader ones because I get a little wiggle room. For instance, my passion for new technology can fall under any one of these topics. “Dark Fantasy Writer” means I can talk about all things horror since the genre is defined as mixing fantasy and horror. Reviewer means I can talk about that new action movie, or book, or article.

My brand happens to be genre related. It’s fantasy, horror, sci-fi as it relates to those three topics. Your topics don’t have to turn out that way. If you have a thing for Home Decor, have your content centered around that. But, as I said previously, you do want to be known for the genre(s) you’re writing in, so it should be a part of your brand.

Brand development is especially important to unpublished authors. It can give you a following well before you publish your first book. It’s not just about the topics you choose to discuss, it’s your voice, the look of your webpage or blog, even your profile picture.