Designing A Brand
I don’t wanna work. I wanna type out this book all day.
[I can’t help sing to words to the song Bang the Drum All Day.]
Prevailing wisdom advises aspiring authors to develop a website and a brand, in additional to all the behind-the-scenes work that makes up the creation and marketing aspects of authorly pursuits.
Website? Check. Brand? Um…
To create a brand, you need a voice. I haven’t figured mine out yet. This whole endeavor, from plotting my novel to designing my site and blog, are stepping stones toward that goal. I feel like the two processes should inform each other.
All I can do now, aside from focus on the book writing, is work toward a point where the website and the books will meet somewhere in marketinglandia. Without taking valuable time away from writing. The great challenge.
There’s a whole checklist for how to create author pages and how to brand ones self. Some items include:
Put your book, or product, on the cover.
Blog. Or add a social element.
Show people where you are hang out on social media and hang out there.
Set a mood for readers. Bring them into your world.
Make your website a fun place to visit.
There are things I can do and things I can’t. I have no books to sell, so I’m starting with a blog, a thematic journal of the authoring journey. It includes topics like author websites. Viola! and Check!
I have some sample work I could share, but I’m going to hold off on that for right now.
I am hanging out on social media, especially Twitter. The community that has greeted me on Twitter has been a wonderful resource that it is easy to check off the list. Check!
I have not developed a voice or even finished my first WIP, so branding is tricky. But I can set a mood…
Setting the Mood
The first series I’m working on centers on magic and spell craft, so naturally I was going for dark elements on my page. Initially I wanted my page to set a dark and ominous tone. But there were some problems with that.
First, as I noted in my blog post Whiskey or God? Twang Twang Twang, I found it difficult to make the story setting dark during the summer in Texas because the days are long and bright. So I’ve been working with bright and sunny witchcraft. I wanted my website to reflect that tone.
I also got early feedback telling me that it was difficult to read light text on dark background. So I’ve redirected my thinking to early morning misty backgrounds and a floating white, semi-translucent page.
I also wanted to a wee bit of web design bling to show off all I had learned in my novice web design education. But I read that “flashy gifs and scrolling text scream ‘tacky',’ which made me nervous. I’ve settled on my current floating white page and misty, woodsy background. It’s likely to change. In the meantime, I hope it sets a misty, magical ambience.
Author Websites I love
As I work toward these goals, I do pay attention to sites I come across that bring their written worlds together with their online personas. I don’t know if it’s branding, but here are a few that I think do that very well.
Huck Beard is a writer, photographer, and art director, so it makes sense that his page would be so visually dramatic. The whole page is basically a mood board for this book, and I love it. I’ll be really interested to see what he does with it as he writes more books.
Molly Harper has a simple page and a witty tagline: SNARKY ROMANCE WITH BITE. It’s 100% accurate. It’s an aesthetically simple page with fun extra material for fans. Harper has a Fun Stuff page that gives you more background to her books and a guide to the resources she uses for writing and story development, including her sources for witchcraft and supernaturals. She also has links to interviews with her and the narrator of her books answering readers questions. She is as fun as her books are.
Some resources and tips for author website designs:
https://blog.reedsy.com/author-websites/
https://annerallen.com/2013/06/is-your-author-website-working-agains/