Write On! Features: Why Authors Shouldn’t Be Hiding Behind Their Books – What It Means To Build An Author Brand

By Isabelle Knight

To explain what an Author Brand is and why you should need one, it’s a good idea to first make the distinction between the ‘Brand’ and ‘Branding’ – that which is normally used to talk about logos, images, graphics, colours, headshots and book covers. Imagery helps illustrate a story, but the words and messaging are the most important thing in terms of allowing the audience and readership to get to know the author brand behind the books themselves.

This article addresses the Author Brand: that is, essentially, what your books seek to do. What messages, themes and stories behind the books are being communicated, whether overtly or covertly? What do your books stand for and what do readers associate them with? To begin to answer these questions, it’s useful to introduce the concept of the ‘Author Brand Story.’

The first thing marketers and publicists do before setting out to promote anything, is to establish what the story is – in the same way journalists do when they’re in the newsroom. The story, as writers know, is the driver: the thing that gives a book or an event or an action its reason for being there in the first place. Stories are what connect us as humans to other people, places and things. They’re how we interpret and make sense of the world around us.

You may have heard marketers say before that people don’t buy objects, or things. People buy feelings. They buy stories or, in other words, what the things signify, the emotional attachment they have assigned to the thing. The story they believe about the thing.

It’s the same with books. Readers buy what they believe the book is going to give them emotionally. How the book will make them feel. This might be to feel cosy, warm, transported to a fantasy world, or to leave the reader feeling their mind is expanded and they’ve learned a new perspective, or even gained a new insight into a part of the human experience with which they weren’t already familiar.

This is the principle concern before embarking on Publicity and Marketing for your book. It’s not a simple painting-by-numbers game of this review going into that publication or website. You want to get to the heart of your book and from there to the heart of your readership. Because no two books are the same, no two authors are the same and no two stories are the same.

Authors can often go into minute detail on their social media accounts of plots, characters, viewpoints, arcs and motives. This, of course, is absolutely essential to have figured out when you’re writing the book. But what you want to be able to convey to your potential readers is WHY you wrote your book and therefore what it means to you.

This is the piece that clearly shows your potential reader what it is that drives you, what makes you different and your uniqueness as an author. Your own experiences, circumstances and passions drive you to do what you do. What are they? What are the things that are most important to you or, in other words, what are your core values?

Once you have uncovered and are able to articulate these elements of who you are as an author, you will be able to clearly tell your reader why you wrote your book. Introducing this human element to your own ‘Author Brand Story,’ is the piece that your readers will be able to connect to. It’s what will compel them to want to read more, to pick up your book, buy it and read it.

Authors who have already established, or begun to establish their Author Brands, may want to re-examine the foundations of the Brand. Articulating your ‘Author Brand Story,’ or the unique drivers you have as a writer, will usually lead to further clarity on what attracts your readers to your work, allowing you to further strengthen your relationship with them in your marketing.

Whether you write under a pen name, or in several genres under several pen names – as the Author Brand doesn’t need to reveal every personal detail about you, but is a created and curated vehicle for you to reach your readers more effectively – the Author Brand can act as an umbrella for various pen names. You may use different marketing methods and platforms to reach different readers of different genres, but your ‘Author Brand Story’ remains the same at its core.

As with all cultural properties – including movies, TV shows and music – the thing that will ultimately sell books is word of mouth. This is what most marketers are trying to generate. In order to get people talking to each other about your books, sharing recommendations with their friends and reviewing your books online you, as the author, need to do the work in drawing the potential readers’ attention to your books.

The ‘Author Brand Story,’ once fully uncovered, tells the potential reader why you wrote your book, that you wrote it for them (that they are your ideal reader) and why they should care about it enough to actually read it. Your ‘Author Brand Story’ can then form the basis of your marketing and publicity efforts, in drawing in whomever you are pitching yourself to as an author (or pitching your books) to agents, publishers, journalists, award judges etc. in the future.

Building your Author Brand doesn’t happen through just one publicity or marketing campaign and it doesn’t happen with a few Facebook or Instagram ads. Nor does it happen with Reels, or TikTok videos. Building a brand takes several tools, pieces of the marketing and publicity jigsaw, working together over time. Conveying the same message (albeit in different ways and with different nuances according to the platform) towards one common goal.

That goal is to communicate your Author Brand messaging and present your Author Brand in a unified, coherent and cohesive way. The ‘Author Brand Story’ will underpin the messaging and can lead the author to further opportunities, such as speaking on relevant podcasts or radio and at events or book fairs, to become more visible and grow a bigger profile.

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Isabelle Knight is a former top tier publicist to the stars, of over 20 years. Having worked with giants of Entertainment and Publishing, including JK Rowling and the BBC, Isabelle is now an International Speaker and Brand Mentor to authors, as the owner of Build Your Author Brand.

She is also Adjunct Professor in MA, PR & Advertising at the American International University Of London and a Book Award Judge of the Page Turner Awards.

For more information on how Isabelle works with Authors, please visit buildyourauthorbrand.com

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