Successful Self-Publishing: Build Your Brand

By Laurisa White Reyes, @lwreyes

Part of The Indie Authors Series 

JH: A successful writing career takes more than just writing great books. Laurisa White Reyes shares tips on how to build your author brand, and why it's a critical element of an author's career.

Laurisa White Reyes is the award-winning author of seventeen books, including 8 Secrets to Successful Self-Publishing. She is also the founder and senior editor of Skyrocket Press and teaches English composition at College of the Canyons in Southern California. Visit her website at www.SkyrocketPress.com.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads |

Take it away Laurisa...

Building YOUR Indie Author Brand

By Ray Flynt

Part of The Indie Author Series

JH: Once you decide to go indie, the next step is to ensure you have a strong author brand. Ray Flynt is back this month with tips on how to build your indie author brand.

Forty-six years ago I moved to an unfamiliar community to develop a new program for my employer. Eventually, I’d be hiring staff, but to begin with it was just me. I only had two contacts in that new community. One was a minister who had once preached at my home church. He hardly knew me, but when I showed up to say “Hi,” he made me feel welcome.

During a tour of his church, we stopped by the choir room. He asked if I sang, and when I replied that I did, he invited me to come for choir rehearsal the following night. I showed up as the proverbial stranger in a strange land. The following Sunday, I joined with forty-five others to sing in the choir loft. I began to make friends.

Do You Know Who You Are? Building and Sharing Your Author Brand

By Kris Bock, @Kris_Bock

Part of the Indie Author Series

Developing your brand helps readers find you.

Walk through a grocery store. Chances are you can spot your favorite products from the colors and style of the packaging. Drive down the highway. Does your stomach rumble when you see a familiar chain restaurant sign?

That’s successful branding.

Branding authors seems like more of a challenge, but the basic principle is the same. You want readers to have an instant reaction to your name and cover style. Authors can also take advantage of genre branding by matching the kinds of titles and covers a genre typically uses. For example, a muscular, bare-chested guy with a gun says “romantic suspense,” while a woman in a old-fashioned gown with a big skirt says “historical romance.”

On Pen Names, Cover Art & Reader Betrayal

By Gail Carriger, @gailcarriger

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: With more and more writers writing in more and more genres and markets, how to distinguish which book is which is a growing problem. Please help me welcome back Gail Carriger to the lecture hall today, to share her thoughts and reasons behind why an author might choose to use a pen name to maintain brand and book integrity.

Gail Carriger writes comedies of manners mixed with paranormal romance (and the sexy San Andreas Shifter series as G.L. Carriger). Her steampunk books include the Parasol Protectorate, Custard Protocol, Supernatural Society, and Delightfully Deadly series for adults, and the Finishing School series for young adults. She is published in many languages and has over a dozen NYT bestsellers. She was once an archaeologist and is fond of shoes, octopuses, and tea.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Tumblr

Take it away Gail...

Indie Choices: To Pen Name or Not to Pen Name

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy
 
Part of the Indie Author Series

In traditional publishing, many of the choices are taken out of our hands, including sometimes whether or not to use a pen name. As independent authors, this becomes another choice we’re able to make ourselves based on what we think is best for our situation and our business.

Authors use pen names in a few different ways, so this month I wanted to walk through some of our options and the pros and cons of each.

Guest Author Thea Atkinson: Branding. What is it? How Do We Do it?

By Thea Atkinson

Today we have Thea Atkinson joining us, talking about branding. You might think this is something only published authors have to worry about, but trust me, I wish now that I had started earlier and had everything figured out and in place by the time my first book came out. It's much easier to plan for it then to retro-fit it. If you can get a jump start on this, you'll be better off when you do sell that first novel.

Thea is a writer of character driven fiction; call it what you will: she prefers to describe her work as psychological thrillers with a distinct literary flavor. As in her bestselling novel, Anomaly, her characters often find themselves in the darker edges of their own spirits but manage to find the light they seek. She has been an editor, a freelancer, and a teacher, but fiction is her passion. She now blogs and writes and twitters. Not necessarily in that order. Please visit her blog for ramblings, guest posts, giveaways, and more.

Take it away Thea...