[Kay Bratt]

I am always harping the 'build your brand' motto. But Ali Cross has put everything about building your brand into a nice, tidy blog post that you really shouldn't miss. Excuse me if this has already been posted.

http://www.indierecon.org/2013/02/building-author-brand-by-ali-cross.html

I've already send a request out to an artist to see if they can come up with a creative logo representing my books, but if you are an artist (or know one to refer) and can do these type of logos like shown on Ali's post, please post your contact info.

 

[Cheryl Douglas]

I am working on this very thing right now, so this was really informative for me. Made me think about things I may not have considered otherwise. Thanks for posting this, Kay. 

 

[Kay Bratt]

You are welcome!

PS. I found a beautiful stock art that represents my work, now I just have to figure out the tagline and find an artist to put it all together!

 

[ellendominick]

I was just thinking about this!

 

[daynahart]

oh. Wow. That article was very interesting, but the Will Self example is...wow. okay...now I'm thinking.

 

[RoseInTheTardis]

I think branding is a great for website headers, cover art, and avatars.

Less excited about her tips for Twitter/social media. I'm sorry, but tweeting about a subject a certain percent of the time? That's silly. I find the best thing you can do on social media is be yourself. Any attempts to do otherwise eventually come off as insincere and odd and don't do much to help you. Besides, if you're writing what you love, you're bound to tweet about it enough to give future readers ideas of what to expect.

(She does mention honesty and authenticity, which is great. I just picture people making charts of how much they've tweeted about Robotic Dinosaurs in Space trying to fill a quota and that's not going to end well. Except... well.... Robotic Space T-Rex is pretty bad ass.  )

 

[Courtney Milan]

I actually paid a type designer to hand-letter my name font earlier this year. She was amazing to work with--she made three different versions to start, and then took feedback and we condensed into the one you see on the titles in my signature.

Her name's Laura Worthington, and she also designed the fonts I use on my book covers, something I think made the branding all that much more intimate.

The cost for the design was...something more than I would pay for a book cover, but since I have all the rights to it for all time, I think it was well worth it.

Here's her website: http://lauraworthingtontype.com/

 

[Amanda Brice]

I actually paid a type designer to hand-letter my name font earlier this year. She was amazing to work with--she made three different versions to start, and then took feedback and we condensed into the one you see on the titles in my signature.

Oooh...I'd been wondering where you'd gotten your fonts. I didn't realize they were custom-created just for you. How cool is that?

 

[Courtney Milan]

Oooh...I'd been wondering where you'd gotten your fonts. I didn't realize they were custom-created just for you. How cool is that?

The fonts for the title are not custom--you can buy them from her website, and they're not that expensive (as fonts go), but if you're doing your graphics yourself, to take full advantage of them you need to be using a program that allows you to access the alternate glyphs.

It's just the name that's customized.

 

[Justawriter]

I think branding is a great for website headers, cover art, and avatars.

Less excited about her tips for Twitter/social media. I'm sorry, but tweeting about a subject a certain percent of the time? That's silly. I find the best thing you can do on social media is be yourself. Any attempts to do otherwise eventually come off as insincere and odd and don't do much to help you. Besides, if you're writing what you love, you're bound to tweet about it enough to give future readers ideas of what to expect.

(She does mention honesty and authenticity, which is great. I just picture people making charts of how much they've tweeted about Robotic Dinosaurs in Space trying to fill a quota and that's not going to end well. Except... well.... Robotic Space T-Rex is pretty bad *ss. )

Actually, it may seem silly, but it's not, it's hugely effective. It's even more effective when you take the same approach to Facebook and blogging and any other social media you do. It will help drive the right kind of traffic your way, people who enjoy the types of books you write. The formal name for it is content marketing and inbound marketing. This is a really interesting article that explains how this guy took this approach to blogging and turned his company around for a fraction of the money he used to spend on advertising. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/business/smallbusiness/increasing-sales-by-answering-customers-questions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

[Kay Bratt]

I actually paid a type designer to hand-letter my name font earlier this year. She was amazing to work with--she made three different versions to start, and then took feedback and we condensed into the one you see on the titles in my signature.

Her name's Laura Worthington, and she also designed the fonts I use on my book covers, something I think made the branding all that much more intimate.

The cost for the design was...something more than I would pay for a book cover, but since I have all the rights to it for all time, I think it was well worth it.

Here's her website: http://lauraworthingtontype.com/

Love your customized name branding. I wish I had done that with my books!

 

[BrianKittrell]

Hmmm.

I've written a series of zombie horror, an epic fantasy series, and in the process of writing a sci-fi series going from near-future to space travel and colonization (and beyond). I'll write in all three of these genres for the next thirty years or so. I may write in some other genres as it comes to me. Some non-fiction stuff is out and in the works, too.

The question is: how do I make a logo out of that?

I made a logo for my publishing company, so maybe I'll leave it at that. The uniting theme of all of my books is that most of them were written late at night.

I have no idea how to add a background to it here or if that's even possible. Transparent PNGs...

 

[Anne Frasier]

i have the same issue as Brian. i'm writing in so many different genres that i have no idea how to brand myself. but i love the idea of branding.

 

[Amanda Brice]

I guess my brand deals with dancing -- even if it's not my dance mystery series, there will always be dancing playing a role (major or minor) in the book. I sign books "Enjoy the twists and turns!" because I write mysteries in the dance world.

So maybe "twists and turns" is my brand? My tagline on my website says "Dance with danger...fall in love." So maybe that's my brand -- dancing, suspense, and romance.

 

[Ignis_Designs]

When we were working on my husband's branding, we branded him, then branded his book series. They are different brands. His social media changes to the series brand for the current series, and back to just him when there isn't any one series being pushed. Of course, we're new, there is only one series in progress, but we planned ahead.

 

[ruecole]

I write in too many genres. I have no idea how I'd brand myself, but I'd love to do it! (I know! And I'm supposed to be a graphic designer!  )

I don't as yet design author logos for other authors (not saying 'never,' of course!), but I definitely take branding into account when designing covers and other promotional materials (I do ad banners and FB cover photos and will be expanding into bookmarks soon).

Rue

 

[Ardin]

Kay, I'll give it a go. I'm starting up a cover design service and hadn't even thought of author branding but I'll take a stab at it if you like. I can post what I come up with here in the discussion and get feedback. Unless you'd rather do it privately. My email is [email protected]

 

[Ardin]

By the way, I LOVE the Will Self branding.

 

[AshMP]

I'm in ... I want an author brand!  I'm curious to know whose going to start creating these (cause goodness knows I'm helpless) ... I have idea percolating!

 

[dalya]

I'm always changing my stuff. I'll pick a font I like for my name on my book covers, then 3 months later I hate it. Right now, I'm using 2 font faces for my covers, but my excuse is one's for the serials and the other's for stand-alone novels.

I tried a bunch of things with my Dalya Moon line of books, but I found consistent covers across series made no difference to interest. Most readers are series-centric, and IMHO it's a rare and special reader who'll pick up another one of your books simply because you wrote it. I think they'll do so no matter what the typeface looks like.