The Importance of Branding and How to Do it -- The Basics
We've all heard of the term "branding", but what does it really mean to an author? The simple answer--everything. As authors, we need to know our target audience. For example, we all know that those who love the horror genre are not likely to pick up a romance novel. Utilizing this mentality, if we wrote horror novels, we wouldn't make our website in a floral-themed motif anymore than we'd have dripping blood and guns on a site geared to a romance audience. How can we use this to help market our books? When I was at the Bouchercon writer's conference one of the panels discussed branding our image. This "image" involves all aspects from ourselves as a person, author, as well as branding each specific book. For branding to be effective it has to encompass every part of marketing--whether it be social media, or in person. First the easier aspects. Your website and your blog. Take a long, honest, and objective analysis of them. Do they...