Gone are the days where all writers have to do is write. I know, it’s depressing. The way the publishing world works now–whether you’re traditionally published or indie–is that you are responsible for your author brand.

How you show up in the reading world and the methods you use to reach readers depends almost entirely on you. Sure, you can hire marketing agencies or hope that the internal PR team at a trad house will pull through, but almost no one can afford to keep those third parties working for them 24/7/365. So even if you have a great deal of support around your publication day, you’ll need a plan for the rest of your marketing endeavors.

But anytime words like branding/marketing/social media/content are used, authors tend to buckle. They feel it’s not their wheelhouse and sometimes opposes what they want to do. However, when you approach all of these things from a place of intentional branding it can come easily and even become fun.

So let’s walk through how you hone in on your brand in a way that speaks to your personality, your books and, most importantly, your readers.

Finding Your Key Topics

When it comes to you and your books, there is a swirling cloud of categories that makes up your platform. Perhaps you’re a married mother of three who lives in the South writing sweet romance books about a bakery owner from Louisiana. Or maybe you’re a single woman, who is politically active, working a corporate job living in New York writing crime thrillers.

To start, write down on a piece of paper all the things that make up who you are as a person and an author. Then next to it, write about the themes, types of characters, settings and traits that describe your books.

Where is the overlap of your personal life and your books?

Sometimes people think having an online presence means letting it all hang out online. And while some may take that approach, it certainly isn’t the only way (or even the best way) to develop an author brand. Having 3-5 key subjects you focus on will help unify your message, find your audience and bring clarity to your content strategy.

Using the two examples above, the categories an author may choose to focus on could look like this:

Sweet Romance Author

  • Cultural and geographical aspects of the South
  • Fun baking recipes
  • Books, TV and Movies in your genre
  • Motherhood
  • Heart-warming videos of families, pets and kids

Crime Thriller Author

  • City life
  • Politically aligned news
  • Crime documentaries and podcasts
  • Outfits/styles for work
  • Books, TV and Movies in your genre

While this drills it down to only five categories, you can create thousands of pieces of content that fit each of these themes. Not only that, narrowing your brand to these subjects will actually help you produce better content and make marketing less ambiguous.

Choosing Platforms

Now that you have your content topics to focus on, choose a platform or platforms that align with you and your content.

How do you see your content being presented online?

Will you be sharing mostly images/text-based graphics? Instagram is still a great place to hang out.

Feel comfortable producing and sharing video? TikTok is your new home.

Want to stick mostly to writing? Check out Substack and maybe Threads.

Whatever you choose, you want it to check a few boxes:

  • Is the platform relevant for your readers? Do the people you want to reach hang out there? Where exactly? Explore hashtags, trends and other content that’s working.
  • Do you like being there? If TikTok makes your ears bleed and or Twitter/X feels as if you’ve woken up and chosen violence, this isn’t the platform for you. Just because a space is popular, doesn’t make it a good fit. You have to enjoy hanging out there.
  • Is it a platform on the rise? Unfortunately, you may enjoy the quaint space of Facebook, but its popularity is dwindling and fast. On the other hand, Threads has put itself out there as a competitor to Twiter/X, but hasn’t quite proven itself to be the replacement. If you’re going to dedicate hours of time building your brand, you want to make sure it’s with a platform that has staying (and growth) potential.

Producing Content

Now, your brand is only as good as your consistency. No one can count on going viral once and selling millions of copies as their strategy. It happens, but it’s not a strategy.

When it comes to producing the content that will give your brand wings, you have to have a plan. For some people, a highly detailed editorial calendar with specific topics mapped out is the answer, for others, batch creating content for the week and scheduling it out is a much more manageable. Either way, you have to plan to set time aside. Some people can create content on the fly, most need a little preparation.

Again, make this fit your life. If you have kids, plan to produce your content while they’re in school OR include them in your content. If you know you’re unlikely to get much work done on your brand as the week rolls forward and your schedule fills up, take an hour to create five 1-minute videos you can share throughout the week with no extra work.

Today’s social media consumers prefer things that look authentic. Gone are the 2010-2020 days of “everything needs to be perfectly and professionally produced.” Show up as exactly who you are. No makeup, in the car at the grocery store, with a baby in your lap, wearing the same outfit 5 videos in a row. What matters is your content, not how it looks. You can build skills as you go, but for now, just get your message out there.

Reaching Readers

As you produce content, you have to continue to reach out. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of producing content and forget that social media is an exchange. Go to the places your readers are. Comment on bigger accounts, stitch with videos relevant to you, celebrate other authors in your space, highlight your readers on your accounts. Whatever you do, don’t get sucked into a vacuum of your own content.

In order to reach readers, you have to think like one. And in order to think like one, you have to live in their shoes. When you are looking for new books or interested in interacting with an author, how do you go about it? Be the undercover reader you hope to find and your brand will start to take shape not only in your image, but in the way readers hope to find you as well.

Branding is an ambiguous term that can mean too many things. All it truly is though, when you get down to it, is defining who you are in relation to your art and conveying that outward. While dog videos may be adorable, do they fit your brand? While TikTok may be the hot social media app of the moment, are you motivated to create there? Before you start attempting to market and sell yourself, get super clear on who you are and how that relates to your book. Then build out from there.