Category Archives: Business

Branding

Craft & Skills Marketing Nancy Greene Publishing 9 Comments

And no, I don’t mean with an iron despite the picture.

Whether your traditionally published, e-published by a publisher, or indie/ self-published, marketing is where it’s at. With the rise of Kindle Direct and other media that allow self-published writers to get into the larger marketplace, writers, especially new ones, struggle to get noticed. One of the ways to do that is to establish strong “brand” recognition. Your brand is what and how you market. So, let’s start with the concept of brand recognition. You, dear writer, are a product just like a Hershey Bar. And just like a Hershey Bar, you want an immediate connection to the consumer (reader) on the mention of your name (brand). I know for me, when hear or even type “Hershey Bar” a vision of the dark brown wrapper full of chocolaty goodness pops into my head. That’s good brand recognition Some products so dominate the market that the brand name is synonymous with the product – as examples look at Kleenex and Xerox. Excellent branding and marketing.

The interesting thing about Hershey Bars is that at one point the product so dominated the market it had become synonymous with chocolate bars. Then it made a mistake. Hershey decided it could stop advertising, that’s right just stop. But it lost that dominance when it did because Nestle, among others, increased advertising. Hershey tumbled from the top of its chocolate mountain.

My publisher’s first anniversary is in a few weeks. As part of prepping for the event, I typed “Musa Publishing” into Amazon to see what there was to see. Here’s what I noticed. While the search brought up non-Musa books, at least 90% of the time  I could tell if it was really a Musa book by looking at the thumbnail picture of the cover. I was able to reject books that didn’t fit my profile by looking at them. That’s good branding (and a great art and marketing division).

What does this tell writers about branding? Several things.

(1) You MUST create a brand.

Writers like Neil Gaiman have a brand. Again, if you’ve seen a picture of Neil or met him in person, he is always wearing black on black. Kevin J. Anderson has a brand. Take a look at his press releases and photos, he’s always in a sport coat, usually camel colored, or  a dark brown leather jacket, a softly colored oxford shirt (usually with the sleeves rolled to the elbow (if no jacket), and jeans. That’s his brand. I could recall it without looking at any of his press photos making it a successful brand. Dean Wesley Smith has his hat. And so on. If you look at the superstars in the writing field, you’ll note each one of them has a consistent look or brand. That’s not a coincidence. It’s done very intentionally and by design.

The picture on tthe right is part of my brand. I’m a mommy, writer, lawyer who writes fantasy, often with romantic story lines.  What was I aiming for in a look then? Something polished and professional, but that was soft around the edges to suggest that romancey feel. Did I do it? Feel free to tell me in the comments. I’m a lawyer, which means thick-skinned and I can take it.

Anyway, I go to professional writing events – seminars and conferences dressed in at least business casual. If weather permits, I wear a blazer. Why? I’m trying to create a look  or a brand.

(2) Get professional help.

I don’t mean a therapist. I didn’t take the photo on the right. I hired a professional do to it. I also hired a fashion consultant, who went through my wardrobe and engaged in the Ceasar-like task of indicating thumbs up or down.  We went shopping. I now have a new wardrobe that “fits” all of my jobs – mommy, writer, lawyer.

(3) Use your website and blog.

Okay, don’t look at my website yet. It’s under construction to fit with the current branding attempts. Or actually, look at the website as what not to do. It’s a mess. I hired (see item #2) a website designed who’d never worked with a writer before, didn’t understand what I wanted/needed, and didn’t know what a falcon was or at least couldn’t find an image of one for the site. This last one is tough since the website’s called Falcon’s Fables. Sigh.  Anyway, the original website is a lesson in better than no website than a bad one. I now have a webpage designer who has worked with a lot of writers, knew what a falcon was, and designed a kick-butt new logo, which is in the same color family as the rest of my items. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to reveal.

My blog is a different story. I designed that, and while it’s still not perfect it’s a closer fit to the brand I’m trying to create.

(4) Market

Don’t make Hershey’s mistake. You must market. Even the superstars of writing have tweet, FB, maintain a website and regularly attend conferences. A few of them still go on book tours. You have to get your name out there. Your publisher might give you some press, but it’s not enough. You need to be out in the world where people can find you. If you have friends with blog, be a guest blogger. While the site your a guest on may only have 50 followers, odds are there are 40 people that weren’t also your followers.

Join blog hops. What’s a blog hop, you say? A blog hop is a sponsored event where a number of blogs post together, usually on a common theme and contest. An example is probably the best way to show you. Right now, I’m participting in the Wicked Pleasures Scavenger Hunt Blog Hop with 21 other writer.  All the blogs are linked, and readers get a chance to win fabulous prizes at each site. Readers, most of whom would not normally visit my site, are encouraged to do so. They are “required” to look around the site if they want to enter the scavenger hunt since they need to find the answer to the hunt’s question. At the end of the hunt, Rafflecopter will choose the winners. Again, a blog hop is a great way to introduce yourself and work to readers. The cost of the giveaway is minor. I’m signed up for a blog hop a month until the end of the year and am looking for more hops to join in 2013.

If you are blogging, the cover of your book (or one of your books) should almost be your digital signature. Just like your words, you can and should market your covers. Your covers should have been designed with their marketing functions in mind. If you’re writing a steamy romance and your cover brings to mind a sword and sorcery fantasy you might have misbranded, and vice versa. Make sure the promises your covers (front and back) make match the pages in between them.

(5) Keep it professional.

We all have pet causes and beliefs. But unless they aid in attracting your target audience, keep them off your professional pages. If you are really keen on the idea that evil robots should rule the world, create EvilRobotsToRule.com and post your manifesto there, ideally under a different name. Bringing personal causes to the forefront of your professional page will reduce your potential reader pool.

(6) NEVER EVER get into a flame war.

This is a subset of #5 but it’s important enough to mention separtely. Just don’t do it. It takes a lot to build a career. It takes one rant to destroy it.

(7) Protect your brand.

Protecting your brand on the legal side may mean getting patents and copyrights, but I’m taking about a bit more than that.

Realize every time you go out with your “Author” hat on, you are marketing. You are always on stage. Be nice. If you are nasty to someone asking about your writing, you’ve lost a reader, and maybe several readers as that person tells his friends how mean you were. Good impressions can be lost, but bad impressions are almost always forever.

If you’ve created a “look” -whether for clothes, covers, or voice –  make sure you are using it.

As noted in #6, if someone attacks you or posts a “bad” review, don’t argue with them. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion regardless of how much you may disagree. You give that negative comment too much attention when you respond. If the response escalates into a war, you’ve lost so much more than you’ve gain.

Good luck and good branding to you all.

To restore Daphne to her nymph form, Apollo must bargain with treacherous Hades, but Death may demand too high a price.

After all I’d said about marketing, you didn’t really think I’d leave the cover of my newest release, Apollo Rising, off this post, did you?  Thanks for reading.

The Value of Mentorship

Evan Braun Publishing The Writing Life 1 Comment

As a writer, it has always been a struggle to get readers. I suspect this as close to a universal experience among writers as exists. My early novels went largely unread, but I harvested as much encouragement as I could from the crop of readers available-parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. That feedback kept me going.

It’s somewhat ingrained in us to value the opinions of those closest to us, which is exactly as it should be. But if we’re on a professional trajectory, a point must eventually come when parents, brothers and sisters, and aunts and uncles can no longer advise us in the way we need. In short, we grow up.

The longer I write and the better I get, the easier it is to find readers. Slogging through one of my books is no longer quite the imposition it used to be back when I was writing grade-school Star Trek tin-in fiction. My approach to plot and characterization has grown more sophisticated, and as a result my mother’s opinion has become steadily less critical to my process.

Let me take a rabbit trail for a moment. Until the last few decades or so, in western society, a person developed into a professional in their chosen vocation through mentorship and apprenticeship. It seems to me that we are so independently-minded today that we’ve progressively moved away from that. Which is a shame, because it’s critically important to take advice and guidance from those who have already accomplished that which we are trying to do. It doesn’t make much sense to glean career advice as a writer from a doctor or mechanic. While I’m sure there will always be some professional carryover, it’s apples and oranges.

The American dream-or at least as I understand it, as an acknowledged Canadian-is for every individual to become a self-made man (or woman). The emphasis being on the word self. But wouldn’t it be much better to have a mentor? Wouldn’t it to be much better to have some help along the way from someone who has already walked this difficult and barely navigable path? Wouldn’t it be better to follow in someone else’s footsteps?

As a writer, I value the opinions of my peers. But I value the opinion of my betters all the more. So if you’re trying to make it as a published author, you would be well-advised to hang out with published authors. Over the last few years, I’ve come across a lot of successful authors who are more than willing to pay it forward by lending a helping hand to those who are a few steps behind them on the publishing track.

Take advantage of such opportunities when they present themselves. And when they aren’t just falling into your lap, seek them out.

Book Trailers

Frank Morin Publishing The Writing Life 4 Comments

I recently attended the LTUE (Life, The Universe, and Everything) conference in Orem, Utah at the UVU campus.  I sat in on the book trailers class more out of curiosity than any real expectation to learn anything useful.  After all, I had never heard of book trailers.

This turned out to be an extremely insightful session.

Book trailers are a growing phenomenon.  Just like movie trailers, some authors and publishers are now developing book trailers.  This was news to me.  I had never considered making a trailer for a book.  But as was stated in the panel, today’s world is a video-centric world so a book trailer could draw a very wide audience.

What a brilliant idea.

Who doesn’t love a good movie trailer?  When done right, they can drive moviegoers into a frenzy to see the movie.  Book trailers can do the same thing.

Then again, a bad book trailer can be the stake through the heart of your book.

My first thought was, “Book trailers?  That’s great for publishers with a marketing department and deep pockets to pay for expensive graphics design or live actors.”

But, book trailers can be more affordable than you may think.  The panel at LTUE gave us some useful tips.

First, for the do-it-yourselfers, there are some great sites to download photos, music, and even video clips royalty-free for very reasonable prices, like iStockPhoto.  With a little work, you may be able to piece together an excellent trailer with very little cost.  Please remember, no matter where you find your material, make sure you have permission to use it.  One author mentioned that they produced a book trailer independently.  When they signed with a publisher, they were forced to take the trailer down because they could not guarantee that all of the images they used were royalty free or used with permission.

A couple of points were stressed repeatedly:

  1. Find the right music.  Great music can make your trailer.  Bad music will kill it.  Again, there are lots of resources online for royalty-free music.  Or, if you know a musician, they might just let you use their music for free as a way to increase their own presence on the web.
  2. Don’t underestimate the importance of asking.  If you want a piece of music, or a photo, or even live actors, ask them.  Many people will give permission for their work to be used, or will offer to help free of charge because they see your trailer as a way to highlight their talents.

Another idea is to check with local colleges, or with any college students you might know, particularly those involved in film production or any related field, including acting or modeling.  You may be able to get high-quality assistance from students looking for a good project.  Again, they want their names out on the net, and this provides a way.

One example of a good book trailer is the one for Dan Wells’ new book, Partials.  You can view the trailer here.  It had only been out a month when I watched it, and the YouTube link had already received almost 3000 hits, plus all the hits on the official web page.

I also found this one for Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters,  that was very well done.

Other links of interest:

On Darcy Pattison’s web page, she lists a Book Trailer Manual for sale as well as many links to other resources on book trailers.

Book-Trailers.net shows some existing book trailers

BlazingTrailers also has existing trailers to watch.

From the little research I’ve done to date into book trailers, I don’t find a ton of trailers yet.  I find that encouraging because a good trailer might just get a lot of attention.  The sobering flip-side is that of those trailers I’ve watched so far, many of them weren’t very good.

So if you’re going to do a trailer, make a good one or don’t bother releasing it.  You don’t want to hurt your sales.  If you can develop a really good trailer, it might play a major role in your marketing plan, especially if you e-publish your own novels.

This is an idea too powerful to ignore.  I know I’m going to look into it this year.

Does anyone know of any good trailers to recommend?  Do you know any authors who have successfully developed trailers?  Are you planning to release your own trailers with your books?

Rebecca Shelley: Facing the Blank Page

Craft & Skills Giveaways Guest Posts The Writing Life 5 Comments

Guest Post by Rebecca Shelley

I went skydiving once. It was a thrilling experience, one I hope to get the chance to do again soon. Ever since then, one moment of the whole experience has stuck out in my mind, that is the moment I stepped up to the open door on the airplane and looked down at the ground so many thousands of feet below me.

 The wind whipped my face, stinging my cheeks, and my stomach dropped to my toes. I knew I had to jump, but every instinct screamed that I should not. My instinct for self preservation had kicked in, and if I had listened, I would have missed out on one of the most exciting adventures of my life.

Fortunately I was jumping in tandem with an instructor, which means our harnesses were hooked together. He didn’t hesitate, so I couldn’t hesitate either. Together, we thrust ourselves from the plane and fell.

If you’re a writer you’ve probably experienced something similar to that moment before I jumped out of the plane-the stomach-dropping moment of opening a new file and facing the blank page. Even if you’re an experienced writer like I am and have faced that same blank page every morning for thirty years, there is still that flash moment of uncertainty. The desire for self preservation that makes you hesitate, wondering am I good enough, can I put into words the story that is swirling in my mind, what will my readers think of this, what will the reviewers or the critics say?

I’m sorry to say this moment of consternation that comes with the blank page doesn’t go away over time, the more things you published even, the more this feeling can intensify. It feels like so much is at stake and it would take almost inhuman courage to just get writing. If you’re feeling this way, it may (or may not) help to know the feeling is normal. Here’s what I do to combat it.

Jump

 Jump. Stop staring at the blank page, stop taking in the dizzying height and jump. When you first open the blank page, jump into writing as fast as you can. When I first start writing in the morning, I put my hands on the keyboard and start typing whatever comes into my head, which usually turns out to be a selfish rant about everything bugging my in my life for example:

(My carpet is terrible, I need new carpet, and paint and furniture, my stove won’t even work. I don’t dare let people come to my house until I can get it all fixed up but I don’t have money for that because all the money goes to pay school fees and medical stuff and car repairs ack. I can’t even deal with the money issue right now and I really really hate my carpet.)

My initial jump onto the page completely ignores spelling and punctuation. All I’m doing is jumping, getting my hands moving on the computer keys.

Then gradually as I type I run out of things to rant about and can start typing my feelings and impressions about the book I’m working on or about to work on. Random ideas about character, things I think I need to go back and change, how I want the scene to go. Words I might want to use in describing the setting.

At this point I’ve already jumped out of the plane and experienced free fall. Now, I pull the chute and it opens, slowing my descent. By writing about the book or scene, I’m creating a parachute which I can control and steer toward the landing spot on the ground.

That landing spot, the place where my feet touch ground, is the point where I’m fully engaged in the point of view of the character in the scene I’m working on. I’ve left behind my real life and all its problems as I fell and worked my way into the life and problems of my character and am ready to live the book I’m writing.

So here’s my challenge to myself and everyone out there facing the blank page. Jump!

For those of you who take my challenge, I’m offering a free copy of my latest ebook Wings and the White Horse. Just email me at rebeccashelley at rebeccashelley dot com with your jump story, and I’ll give you a coupon code for the book.

Ode to a Blank Page

By Rebecca Shelley

So beautiful

Clean and White

Unsmudged by ink and its offenses

You stare at me

I stare at you

Eye to eye

Daring each other to blink

What muse would thrust the first stroke of words?

What writer would dare to pour heart-pumped blood onto the page?

Knowing that no critique can despise the empty white

No reviewer can chastise the unwritten word

I stand on the brink, trembling with uncertainty

And you, oh daunting nemesis, taunt me

Questioning my skill and courage

With the weight of Atlas on my fingers

I reach for the keyboard and strike

_________________________

Rebecca Shelley is the author of over 27 books, including the best selling Smartboys Club series, and the beloved Dragonbound series. Her latest book, Wings and the White Horse, celebrates her love of flying.

Wings and the White Horse

After her father dies, Jolain Thomas must decide whether to pursue the career her father set out for her or follow her lifelong dream to become a professional pilot. Gathering her courage, she chooses her dream but falls into the clutches of a desperate kidnapper. Now she must battle her fears and fly through a dangerous storm if she is to survive and save the kidnapped baby.

Includes a bonus short story, “Magic Works,” in which a line of magical housecleaning products causes mayhem.