Why Your Book is NOT Your Author Brand
MENTIONED IN THIS BLOG:
The Biggest Branding Mistake That Authors Make
Example 1. Ally Carter
Example 2. Steven King
Example 3. Rebecca Yaros
Example 4. Lauren Roberts
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Branding is Vital (But Not All Web Designers Provide It!)
Hello everyone! Today, I'm diving into author branding. Specifically, why your book is NOT your brand.
There’s a reason all the biggest companies, influencers, and celebrities spend so much time, money, and effort developing their brand - they know their brand is the essence of how others will perceive them and their work.
Your brand is what's going to resonate with your readers and create that connection between you and your audience
Bear in mind that not all website designers offer branding! Some designers only offer branding packages while others only do websites—meaning they'll put your books up on a website with no branding (aka the colors, fonts, etc. that make your visual brand you!).
So, be careful when choosing a designer to work with! You always want to make sure that branding is included.
The Biggest Branding Mistake That Authors Make
I’m not going to beat around the bush here - The biggest mistake authors make is thinking their book is their brand.
Book = brand may feel intuitive, but it’s actually not true!
Why? Because most authors intend to have a long career.
Think about it: if your brand and website are built around your published book(s), you’ll have to update them every time a new book or series releases!
Not only is this a lot of wasted effort, but one of the most important pillars of branding is trust. And the most important aspect of trust? Consistency.
Constant changes undermine the trust you’ve built with your audience.
It can leave readers wondering, “Who is this author, really?” They thought they knew who you were, but then you pivoted, and pivoted again…aaaand somewhere along the line, the audience lost interest.
Example 1. Ally Carter
Ally Carter is a wonderful example of the pitfalls of making your book your brand. I heard her speak at a conference once, and here is what she explained.
Ally’s first novel, Cheating at Solitaire, was published in 2005. Among other things, it’s about cards.
So, like many authors, when Ally created her website, she focused her brand solely on her published book.
Her website was actually really cute. It was card-themed and had cute little graphics…
But then I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You was published in 2006. This new book (which I love) was the first in a series about a school for girl spies.
And it had nothing to do with cards.
Which meant Ally’s very cute website had to be completely redone. Ugh!
Having to redo your website every time a new project comes out is exhausting and ineffective. Yes, your brand will evolve over the course of your career, but you don't want to be changing it every time a book is released.
So, how do you develop a consistent brand that will last even as you publish new projects?
Example 2. Steven King
For some authors, determining their brand can seem easier than others. For instance, Stephen King’s books all have a similar flavor: dark and scary.
So you say, “Okay, that’s easy! Easier than someone like, for instance, Rebecca Yarros.”
Example 3. Rebecca Yaros
Rebecca Yaros was known for her adult romance books for years. Then she came out with Fourth Wing, a very dark, intense New Adult romantasy. And when I say dark, I mean dark.
If you go to her website, you'll see the conflict of brands.
At the top of her website’s homepage, we have a very dark, moody Fourth Wing section.
But then scroll down, and you’ll reach the point where she's advertising one of her adult romance books. All of a sudden, we’re surrounded by pink pastel fluffiness.
It looks almost like someone took a screenshot from two different websites and squished them together. So how could we take such different books and create a cohesive brand?
The key is that the brand is not her books! The brand is Rebecca.
And since all of these books are coming from Rebecca, they will have the same essence at their core. We just have to dig a little deeper to find it.
Let’s do Rebecca’s brand together.
First, let’s look at her adult romance. People often think adult romance is light and fluffy, but Rebecca’s adult romance books are not puff pieces! They have intensity to them, and that intensity can bring some seriousness and darker colors to Rebecca’s brand.
Now, let’s look at Fourth Wing. Yes, it's very dark and moody. On her website, Rebecca has a lot of black in the Fourth Wing section, which makes sense. However, Fourth Wing is romantasy, and its romantic elements can lighten the heaviness of its branding.
Put these together, and we get two core brand elements: Intensity & Romance.
In terms of color, I could potentially create a palette that contained a selection of darker colors—to incorporate the seriousness of Fourth Wing—with gold shades and a nice romantic bridge color, such as purple. We can have very dark serious shades of purple, but then we can also have some lighter purples that would allow us to tie in the adult romance.
Picture this: when you start at the top of Rebecca’s website, the Fourth Wing section would still be a lot of black and gold, with a hint of dark purple. Then as you scrolled down to the adult romance section, we start bringing in some of the lighter purples.
So now both Fourth Wing and Rebecca’s adult romance books are covered within this “Intense Romance” color palette and her website has a cohesive brand!
UPDATE: Since writing this blog, Rebecca has added a section to her website that demonstrates my example. She’s using pink as her romantic bridge color, but look how this section merges it with her darker, more intense color palette. If she takes this merging of the two sides of her brands further and implementes it through her entire website, she’ll be able to turn mismatch into cohesion!
But What About Debut Authors?
If you're an established author like Rebecca Yarros, we can build your brand by looking at all your books and finding the common threads.
But what if you're a newer author? What if you're a debut author? Can you still build a brand that will last and grow with your career?
Absolutely! In this case, we just have to do a little more sleuthing.
Example 4. Lauren Roberts
I created a mock website for Lauren Roberts after I read her books, and she is a great example because she has only one book series out so far. It's a romantic and intense trilogy—not as dark as Fourth Wing, but it definitely has gravitas.
Now, I didn't want to fall into the trap of making Lauren’s brand all about her first trilogy.
Why? Because the third book releases soon, and then she will no doubt write other projects! Therefore, we want a website that will grow with her.
So what I did for Lauren’s brand was take her first book series and look for the sort of tones and themes that have a really good chance of growing with Lauren’s career.
Lauren’s current books contain elements of romance, fantasy, and an intense, yet not too heavy, gravitas. These are the core brand aspects I honed in on.
Below, you can see I’ve incorporated gray, the color of fantasy, castles, and swords. A darker black brings in the gravitas, and we have white, a nice neutral that can be used to lift the website when necessary. Then we have purple.
Purple is not only a romantic color; it's also a royal color, and there's a lot of royalty in her current book series.
Now, let’s look into Lauren’s future.
Say her next book is a young adult romance.
Great! When building out that section of her website, we would play with purple and white to give it a lighter, romantic feel.
Or, perhaps Lauren’s next book is an adult fantasy, but it's even darker than her current series.
That’s a-okay! In this case, we would pull in the gray and black—we can really amp up the blacks if needed. If there's any romance involved, we can play with darker purples; if not, we can use white as a clean accent color that will completely take romance out of that section of the website.
In this way, we have built a brand that is indicative of where Lauren Roberts is right now AND has flexibility built in so no matter which direction she goes next, she can build out her website with a consistent brand.
Sleuthing For My Clients’ Branding Packages
This type of sleuthing is one of my favorite parts of working with clients.
We always have an initial strategy call at the beginning of our time together, where we talk about my clients’ current books and where they imagine their futures might go.
What story ideas do they have? What other projects are they working on?
This in-depth discovery call allows me to build a cohesive, flexible brand that will grow alongside my clients’ careers.
To recap: Your author brand is not your books! Your brand is you, and identifying the unique elements of your writing will guide you to an authentic brand that will last.
