Blogger: Mary Keeley
Last week I blogged on identifying your unique brand, and we had a lively discussion. Picking up on that interaction, this week I’ll offer tips on establishing your unique brand once you have defined it clearly.
Some commenters expressed confusion regarding the terms brand and tagline, so let’s take Apple as 
an example to help clarify what is meant by an author’s brand and tag line. When we see the Apple logo, chances are images of all the Apple products parade across your mind, followed by awareness of Apple’s established reputation for consistent reliability, innovation, and grasp of forward trends and consumer needs and desires.
Your author Brand Is YOU.
Just as the Apple icon signifies everything about Apple products, visualize your image signifying everything about you and your books. That’s the purpose and goal of your author brand. There are three primary areas you need to master in order to establish successful brand recognition.
- Quality and relevance of your work. Not much needs to be added about this that hasn’t been said many times before on this blog. The highest quality of your writing is paramount in this competitive publishing climate. You can’t build a successful brand without great craft and content that people want to read…and continue reading.
- Emotional connection. The more your readers and potential readers are able to relate to you, the author, personally and establish an emotional connection with you, the faster your name will be recognized and your brand will be discovered and grow. People will desire to read your books when they feel they know you and like you. The tricky thing about this is to maintain an appropriate balance between personal sharing and maintaining a professional author image.
- Consistency EVERYWHERE. It’s imperative that you convey the same message repeatedly everywhere you have a presence. This includes your marketing plan on your proposals; throughout your social media; on your website and blog; in your marketing and publicity campaign and advertising; and in you personal appearances at book singings, radio, online, and print interviews. A little more about personal appearances: it is important to be approachable but at the same time present yourself as a professional representation of your works. This reinforces the quality and uniqueness of your brand. Going back to the Apple example, they reinforce their strong brand everywhere from the consistency of their products’ reliability and innovative products to the white packaging, power cords, and accessories, all with the Apple logo in the center.
Your Tagline describes your brand.
The purpose of your tagline is to point to what is unique about your brand within your genre in a few perfectly chosen words that potential readers will remember. For example, Apple has used several taglines over the years. The most common one is “Think different.” One of my favorites is “Beauty outside. Beast inside.” However, the Apple logo is included with every one of them for consistency. You can update your tagline, too, as you update the relevance of your books to the changes in culture and in the world, but your brand does not change.
What will you be thinking about over the holidays regarding identifying or establishing your author brand? What about an author’s brand or tagline still is unclear to you? Can you think of authors who have mastered these areas of branding and gone on to have successful careers?
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This is a splendid exposition on the subject; there are many takeaways here, and I think you.
The salient need you’ve pointed out is that of an economical tagline; one that is viscerally short, yet fully contains the intended message without being trite.
“Beauty outside. Beast inside.” does all that and more. It’s genius.
“Think different” made me roll my eyes; it made me think different, all right. Like “think of buying something else because if the slogan’s boring, the computer can’t be far behind”.
The problem with the latter, for me, was that “different” says nothing. It’s merely a placeholder, and a placeholder must never be allowed into the open air.
“Take the leap”, “Don’t think outside the box. Break it.”, or “Imagine impossible, and do it with us” might all have said the same thing, with more snap.
I wonder how important it is for an author to have a logo? I’ve seen a few, but mainly of the “quill-pen-and-inkwell” variety.
If you watch the opening credits for movies, you’ll notice that many directors have logos; Jerry Bruckheimer, for example, had a lightning-blasted tree next to a road that runs to the horizon. Do you feel this is something from which we can and should be learning?
It does beg the question of “what would a publisher be willing to put on your book cover as an author logo/tagline?” I would suspect that most publishers would look on this with something of a jaundiced eye, since they want THEIR logo to be foremost in the purchaser’s eye.
Clearly, an author logo can be placed on the website and other social media applications, but I wonder if this is a bit redundant, as the logo’s something of a hook; if the reader’s there on social media, the hook has, at least to some degree, already been set.
It might be useful to think of logo as something like heraldry, a coat of arms with motto.
As for my personal take, I have a logo and tagline combination sketched out. I’ll be doing the artwork over the holidays, and introduce it on social media at the New Year.
It’s loosely based on the album cover for Warren Zevon’s “Mutineer”.
On a black field, at the top is a cross, over a pair of crossed bones forming an X. There is a ‘male’ skull in the left’hand opening, and a female skull at right (the female skull has red lipstick, for a shot of colour).
In the bottom opening, and extending to form a ‘base’ for the X, the tagline (imagine the text centered) –
Not
For Wimps.
Christian Romance.
Below the “Christian Romance” text is a pair of joined skeletal hands, forming a “rocker”. The hands are wearing wedding rings, of course, for the second colour callout.
This choice edged out two teddy bears hugging under a rainbow, watched by an approving Bluebird of Happiness, with the tagline “Making Love Bearable Every Day”.
Aargh. First paragraph.
“…thank you.”
NOT “…think you.”
The hamster shall be suitably rebuked.
I like the idea of a logo as a coat of arms. In photography, the logo (and corresponding watermark) is important enough for photographers to obsess over since it is such a visual media. It took me many attempts to find one that I felt clearly represented my photography brand, but now it’s easy for people to recognize my work because of it.
However, as a photographer, I’m in total control of the brand and its use, so I think your question of whether or not a publisher would be willing to put an author’s logo on a cover is valid. I’m curious to see where this discussion goes.
Becky, does a log/watermark have to be registered as a trademark to protect it?
As I recall, this is a formal process with a fee of about $400?
Andrew, in my experience, photographers don’t trademark the watermark or logo since rebranding is a common part of the business as ones style, focus, and business evolve. And since the actual photos are part of the brand, even if two logos are the same or similar, they are still representing different photos. I think this is where a logo for a writer would be different and more permanent.
Andrew, great thoughts about an author tagline and logo. Ideally, an author’s name will grow to become his or her brand and logo, as in, “I want the next Andrew book.” An author’s photo also can become the logo. Think about how many well-known authors have their photo covering the back cover of their books–no back cover copy necessary.
The risk in creating an intricate logo is that you never know how a potential book buyer, and future loyal reader, will perceive the logo you described.
I honestly didn’t think of the photo!
It can cause some problems over a long career; one of my favourite authors changed her cover photo toward the end of a long series, and the ‘new’ picture showed that time had not been kind to her. It didn’t affect my perception of her writing, but it was jarring.
For various reasons, I am careful about never letting a recognizable picture go public. (If I make ACFW next year, I might give a course in how not to be in a candid snapshot.)
Good point about my putative logo being a bit complex, and perhaps not creating the image I want. Time to rethink that one.
Thanks, Mary!
I’ve been redesigning my web site (long story, well overdue). I meant to have it up a few weeks ago, prior to my next book release (which happens to be today, alas). However, while the redesign is done, I’m not happy with my banner, which features a nice photo of me.
In my branding, I don’t know if I really want to use my face. It’s not by my face I’m going to be known, but the genres of my books. My face isn’t that important when it comes to marketing my books. My name, my genres, are more important to my branding. I need a logo/image that reflects that.
I have a general idea of what I want, but have been procrastinating getting the photography/art done.
Now my book is released (today! Go buy my books!) but I don’t have an updated website. Stupid logo, as part of my branding!
I’ll do it tomorrow.
. . . .you strike me as a Zevon type of guy. Kudos.
Don and Rascal, you just made my day!
And Rascal, may I introduce Emily, in my photo?
Rascal, Emily.
Emily, Rascal.
Rascal, you’ll have to speak in ASL. Emily’s deaf.
Just to throw this in – one advantage to a compact tagline is that it makes a good #hashtag.
#brilliant
#YouMadeMyDay
If you don’t want to use your photo, Andrew, why not consider having a drawing made of you–or a semblance of you–that CAN be used, for years even?
I kind of like that idea for myself, and certainly it would set you/me apart from all the author photos out there.
Hmmmm.
What do you think, Mary?
My other thought on branding is, if you have written a lot–I’ve published six and have some seven novels in various stages of completion–why not try to look at them as a whole and see what they have in common?
My published work is all historical fiction; my non published novels are all contemporary. So, how are they similar? Themes? Protagonists? Can I write a story that does not involve the military?
That type of thing.
My question would be, though, can you brand yourself around a theme and then write in several genres? I don’t think so . . .
Mary?
🙂
Oh, Michelle … that is a great question I would love to know. Because I love to write about overcoming hardships …
Yes, can you be branded in a theme, but write to women, children, teens?
I have one non-fiction for women (adults) … then, wrote the middle grade for kids … all same theme … overcoming hardships/ being content, etc.
I’m struggling with where to go from here … because we hear that you want to get into one genre and stay there. So??
Some authors who have succeeded in branding themselves. The boys and I just finished listening to “James and the Giant Peach” in the car. Roald Dahl made sure that all of his books were quirky and fun, you knew what to expect. Oh, Joanne Fluke’s cookie murder mystery series. I love how Hannah’s mother is always mortified every time her daughter discovers a murder victim and how the corpse is always clutching some kind of pastry that is a clue to the cause of their demise. So so good. I tried to read one of her thrillers, but I like the cookie murders best. Although her regency romances are nice too. I have learned a lot about branding from her, not sure that I like it, but I am realizing how reassuring it is to the reader to know what to expect.
Kristen, those are great examples. Parents like you, who look for books for their children that emphasize the values you want to instill grow to rely on an author’s brand, which benefits both the reader and the author. I think of Robin Jones Gunn’s Christy Miller series for girls too.
I’d like to make a Roald Dahl recommendation – “Going Solo”, his memoir of life in Africa immediately before WW2, and his training and subsequent service in the Royal Air Force.
It is perhaps the most finely-crafted memoir I have ever read (and I’ve read a LOT).
I’d like to ask a question to anyone out there with a psychology background –
What is best for recognition/retention…face, name, logo, or tagline?
To sharpen the question, is there one among these that has the fastest “retention time”; that is, the fewest exposures to put it in long-term memory?
Hey Andrew!
Shame on me for responding when I’m no psychologist and my sample size is one but my guess for the fun of it would be “logo” and/or “all of thee above? Taglines appease my over-worked self by telling me volumes in less space than a Haiku. Awesome. But honestly I hardly remember even the best of them.
The first thing when I think of Jurassic Park, for example, (P.S. this is not an endorsement!!) is the scary red and black the logo. Not the tagline. When I think of Stormie Martian I see the color pink. Color schemes that span multiple book covers, plus logo, website, AND author photo backdrop etc. play a huge roll for me. I have not even had much exposure or attachment to either of those brands. But I remember them! When I look for a certain product in a store, I zip through the aisles scanning for colors on the shelf of “my” brands too. I’m sure the marketing executives know which colors sell. It’s a quick way to shop.
At the risk of making this post unhelpful… faces are good for making a memorable impression, too. I latch on to a familiar face because it is comforting. And so my conclusion from the amusingly limited data in my brain is: all of thee above but favoring color and faces?
P.S. I wish online academic literature be available to everyone.
Thanks, Ellen! The question of colour is something of which I did not think – but it makes sense.
Great points about both Jurassic Park and Stormie Omartian. I remember both of those.
The only tagline I can really recall is “no man left behind”. from “Black Hawk Down”. But that was quite personal.
The others have faded away.
I hope someone answers your question for real! It’s excellent as usual! 🙂
For books, I like consistency that lets you recognize the brand from across the room: one thing changes with each book, but the rest declares who and what.
Andrew, authors rarely have logos on their books. They’re useful for commercial brands, like Apple’s apple, but an author’s goal is that his or her name becomes the brand and that the author’s photo becomes the logo so to speak.
Repeated colors, byline font and treatment, and cover design consistencies are issues in the publisher’s realm, hopefully with the author’s input. However, authors who self-publish can control that by hiring their own designer for all their covers.
Andrew, I’m not a psychologist, but as a former teacher I can tell you people have different learning styles. I’d guess visual learners would be attracted by faces and logos while names and taglines might appeal to auditory learners.
Good, clear explanations, Mary. Just another sample of why I try to visit Books & Such often, even if I don’t always pause to comment!
Rick, thanks for stopping by, and for your kind words.
I immediately thought of Cynthia Ruchti’s, Stories of Hope That Glows In The Dark.
I’ve used “Hardships can be blessed gifts” … with the idea that God can cause good to come out of any bad situation … but I might need to reword that some. And I just realized that I don’t have it on my blog, so I need to work on that. Be consistent. I don’t know entirely where the Lord is leading me next … but I do know I want hope and possibly a bit of Texas to be in all I do. 🙂
Shelli, how about “From Hardship to Hope”?
It seems to work as a #hashtag, #hardshiptohope or even #hardship2hope
I like that, Andrew. I still don’t understand the whole hashtag thing … when I post on Twitter, should I use something like that each time? And what will that do for me? Can people search for it, and all my postings will show up?
Yes, use it each time, but also use other “trending” hashtags.
You’re using it each time to build your brand, but it will take time for that particular hashtag to gain leverage. Be patient, and don’t abandon it.
Use others, as well. Since I talk about marriage, when I tweet I will type in “#marriage…” and Twitter will fill it in for me, with what’s currently popular.
For instance, it may give me #MarriageBootCamp, or #MarriageTherapy.
Look for current issues that may help boost your visibility, and hashtag to them; also if you quote a celebrity, hashtag their name. (I used a John Lennon quote on http://www.dailygracequote.wordpress.com, hashed #JohnLennon and #Beatles, and picked up a number of loyal followers.)
Shelli I just wanted to say thank you for your blog, it is so needed. The tagline you mentioned, “Hardships can be blessed gifts” reminds me of “Devotions for Morning & Evening” with Mrs. Charles E Cowman. Hearing encouragement, seeing living examples of hope in the midst of grief and adversity is like cool air and water to those struggling with difficult circumstances. All this to say, keep writing about hope’s hardships!
That is beautiful, Ellen. Thank you for your encouragement today. 🙂 “Cool air and water” … reminded me of my grandparent’s wall fan on hot days. Refreshing when the heat determines to take your strength. 🙂
Or Blessed Hardships?
I like that, too, Shirlee! 🙂
Yes, consistency of your message everywhere is so important. It can have high impact for your brand at very little cost in time and finances for authors.
Rather than striving to grasp direction, I encourage you to spend time over the holidays praying and quietly waiting and listening for the Lord to point out the topic in which he has given you the most passion…and for which age group. See if you can boil that passion down to a few powerful words that are especially relevant to that age group.
Thank you, Mary 🙂
Mary, this is a very helpful post. The way you said our tagline describes our brand made so much sense to me! I think I have a tagline, but it may be too long. “Stories where faith and grace hold hands.”
My boys love Donita K. Paul’s dragons series. They know when they pick up one of her books, it’s going to be a fantasy with dragons, action, great heroes and a super story.
I know I haven’t established my brand yet. I am going to think on all you’ve shared in these past two posts and work on defining mine.
Thanks for sharing this, Mary!
You’re welcome, Jeanne. I hope the tips help to guide your thought process.
Thanks for the help, Mary. I learned a lot from you today!
I’m so glad it was helpful, Brenda.
Your tagline describes your brand.
It scares me how long it took for this simple concept to sink in. But, it may have sunk in, and then floated out the vacant space in my brain…
I haven’t thought of the whole logo idea before, and that is definitely something to ponder. But for my work, I have to take great pains NOT to appropriate a cultural icon. I will have to create my own, with the help of those in the know.
Ideally, a desert path between mountains would be nice, using deep red and orange, and perhaps turquoise colours. As that would represent the Southwest nicely.
As for taglines…”Hidden stories of the historic Southwest”.
Yes? No? More blech than anything ever written?
Fire at will. I value your thoughts.
Jennifer, don’t get hung up on a logo. Those are helpful on some commercial products, which Apple has made stellar use of. The goal for authors is that their name becomes their brand and perhaps their photo becomes their logo.
Ask yourself these questions about your suggested tagline:
1. The word “hidden” is vague and doesn’t describe what your stories are, and will be, about. Were the stories lost? Why were they hidden?
2. What about the tagline sets my stories apart from other authors’ stories about the Southwest?
3. Are these the most powerful words I could use?
Thank you for the excellent explanation, Mary. The fog is beginning to clear. I’ll be rereading this over the holidays and into the new year as I continue to identify my brand.
You’re welcome, Meghan. I hope you enjoy the process.
Hi Meghan! I stopped by your site. I like your hair clips! I’ve been trying to visit some sites of those on the Books and Such site. So far, I’m impressed. I’ll try to leave a note with those I visit!
Merry Christmas to all!
Thank you, Debbie! It’ll be undergoing some minor changes right after the holidays as I try to clarify my brand. 🙂
Wow, lots to mull over here, Mary! I think what makes brand feel elusive sometimes is the challenge of narrowing down the essence of a person to just a few words. (Quite ironic considering many of us write 90,000-word books.) 🙂
That’s so true, Sarah. 🙂
So true, Sarah. Narrowing down the uniqueness of the author and his or her books within the genre often is more challenging than writing the books.
I *think* I understand brand now!
Still working on a tagline. “Faith and Sass on the Front Porch” feels right, but we shall see.
Weird how this seems so much harder than writing 80,000-word books.
I like the faith and sass, Courtney!
Yes, it really is harder, Courtney. But once you have identified your brand, it guides you in your future works.
Your working tagline is very good. “…on the Front Porch” is loaded with meaning for a reader. You have the right idea.
I’m starting to have fellow authors comment on how consistent I am with how I show up, no matter where I am. I must be doing something right.
I write romance, and I’m all about the hero. When you pick up a book with my name on it it’s going to be the hero’s story. My tagline is “romance for the hero lover.”
Focusing on the hero is a natural fit for me, and it means I stand out in the romance sea. There aren’t many authors who make such a concerted effort to focus on the hero, much less tell a traditional romance largely from his POV.
I have my tagline, but I don’t focus on promoting with it. It’s more of a way to keep *me* grounded and on task.
Rachel, you’re right about a brand and a tagline. They guide an author’s direction for every book they write. Congratulations on finding your unique place in your genre.
Jan Karon, James Michener, Nicholas Sparks, and Debbie Macomber come to mind when I think about consistency in branding.
Might be worth considering that Michener developed his brand over quite a long period of time.
“Tales From The South Pacific” was full of delightful, nuanced characterizations in small vignettes.
It was followed several years later by what he considered his finest work, “The Bridges At Toko-Ri”. Written from his experiences as a combat correspondent in Korea, and serialized in Life magazine, “Toko-Ri was really a novella, but when it was sold in book form it took off. Again, Michener was looking at strong and three-dimensional characters through a narrow lens.
The epics for which he’s best remembered are a departure from his early work; it’s almost like reading a different author.
Tagline. . . “Putting the Fun Back In Funny”
My tagline is “Opening Eyes, Opening Hearts.” I chose it because I realized both my non-fiction articles for adults and fiction books for kids helped readers understand and accept people who were different, often because of Special Needs.
Thank you for the excellent post. There are some very helpful comments too.
I’m just now building a website. I’ve been working on Christian middle-grade fiction set in first century Rome and Asia Minor. I write in order to bring the first century to life for young people and to challenge and encourage them to be loyal to Christ even in persecution. That is quite specific.
I know what kind of writing I’m doing, but a good tag line is still a challenge. At the moment I have a title (blog title?) “Echoes from the First Century.” I like it, but I don’t know that it includes everything a tag line should have. Comments are welcome.
Elaine, I think you should include the word, Courage, and maybe have some alliteration. Maybe The Century of Christian Courage? That doesn’t seem quite right, but maybe if you play around with it you can come up with something better.
Today I thought of a tagline “Writing first century fiction to challenge Christian youth.” It tells more but I’m not quite happy with it, especially for something to interest middle graders. I like your idea of the word “courage,” and alliteration is always good. It was definitely a century of Christian courage. I will let these ideas simmer a bit. Thank you.