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Nink: Lifestyle Brands ~ Next Level Trademarks

This article, written by Mindy Klasky  is from the July 2020 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

Hey! Author! What’s your brand?

In general, authors are increasingly sophisticated about branding. Many of us use slogans, taglines for our websites and emails. We have logos—general ones for our websites and specific ones for our series. We use trademarks such as series names to convey the source of our books. We use color schemes and fonts and designs of book covers and websites to make ourselves recognizable to our readers.

But few authors have conquered the next frontier in branding: becoming a lifestyle brand for their readers.

What is a lifestyle brand?

A lifestyle brand embodies the values of a specific culture or community for marketing purposes. While a simple trademark indicates the source, sponsorship, or origin of a product, a lifestyle brand goes further, inspiring and motivating consumers.

Nike is a classic lifestyle brand. Its familiar “swoosh” logo and its slogan Just Do It do more than connote the manufacturer of a T-shirt or a pair of shoes. Instead, Nike inspires its customers to compete, to rise above ordinary limitations and to achieve the impossible every day.

Similarly, Southwest Airlines embodies the notion of a lifestyle brand. Expanding on its start at Dallas’s Love Field airport, the low-cost, no-frills airline incorporates “love” into its marketing, from a heart logo on its planes to heart-shaped swizzle sticks for drinks. That “love” is further conveyed for customers through the airline’s forgiving cancellation fees and luggage checking fees. Even the in-flight magazine is filled with empathetic stories advancing the notion of Southwest as an airline that cares for its customers.

As a result of their extreme enthusiasm, lifestyle brand consumers are more likely to remain loyal, regardless of the price of their beloved goods. Therefore, most lifestyle brands convey a sense of luxury—or a thrifty aversion to luxury. In addition to Nike and Southwest, popular lifestyle brands include Apple, Lululemon, and Mrs. Meyer’s.

Lifestyle brands create such an emotional connection that their consumers are often described as members of a “cult.” For example, one of the most popular blogs about Apple products is online at cultofmac.com, and thousands of articles reference Apple products, Apple founder Steve Jobs, and cultish behavior.

Can people be a lifestyle?

Individual people can successfully market themselves as lifestyle brands. For example, Oprah Winfrey has a cult following, willing to follow her from television to movies and from magazines to bookstores. Similarly, Gwyneth Paltrow has crafted a lifestyle brand that transcends her career in film.

As with Nike and Southwest Airlines, these individuals promote a way of life. Oprah inspires her followers to realize their potential, repeatedly asking her viewers, readers, and followers to define their own dreams and develop plans for achieving them. Gwyneth fosters a more introspective inquiry, urging her followers to explore the mind-body connection. Both of these women guide their followers to a more complete, more satisfying life, with the not-so-incidental endorsing of products along the way.

Neil Gaiman is one of the few authors who has achieved this status. Gaiman writes in a wide range of genres, inspiring his dedicated followers to follow him from graphic novels to adult novels to middle-grade books to children’s picture books to retellings of Norse myth. His public appearances are mobbed by faithful readers who wait in line for up to ten hours for his signature. Avid fans permanently tattoo themselves with references to Gaiman’s books. For several years, he has sold out events styled as “An Evening with Neil Gaiman,” where entertainment takes the form of whatever interests him at the moment—songs, dramatic readings from his books for adults or children, or simply answering pre-submitted questions from the audience. Gaiman isn’t promoting a specific book; rather, he’s promoting himself.

Arguably, authors’ characters can become lifestyle brands as well. Ian Fleming’s MI6 agent, James Bond, has been portrayed by six different actors in two dozen movies. Regardless of the specific image on the screen, the suave character’s luxury tuxedo, martini, and high-end cars become aspirational for avid fans. That enthusiasm persists even though Bond himself does not exist.

Can a lifestyle brand be crafted?

Sadly, there’s no exact formula for developing a lifestyle brand. (If there were, of course, every trademark owner in the world would apply it, basking in the power and prestige of cultishly devoted fans.) There are, however, some marketing methods that make “lifestyle” status more likely:

  • Focus on the reader. How can you, the author, make your readers’ lives better? Can your books or your online presence answer questions, meet their emotional needs, or otherwise solve their problems? What community can you build for your readers? Can you give them an online home, such as a Facebook group? What about a forum to communicate with you and with each other? What unique aspects of culture can you offer your reader? Can you develop a catch-phrase or slogan and offer it on merchandise? Can you foster inside jokes with a unique vocabulary in the places you share with your readers? Can you create merchandise for them to identify themselves and each other in public spaces?
  • Keep it simple. At the same time that you’re building solutions for your readers, remember to keep your presence simple. Use a logo, but keep that design as straightforward as possible. (Think of Nike’s “swoosh” or Apple’s line-drawing of a bitten piece of fruit!) Use a distinctive font, but be certain it’s legible. You never want your fledgling community of fanatics to need to work hard to join you.
  • Maintain consistency. Once you’ve identified your simple logos, fonts, and other trademarks, use them consistently. Maintain a uniform color scheme. Apply similar designs to all of your social media. Communicate frequently with your readers on a regular timetable—releasing books, sending newsletters, posting to social media, and reaching out in other regulated, predictable ways.
  • Reach out to influencers. Every community has powerhouse members, people who enjoy an out-size effect on others. Some influencers can be courted with honest communication. Others are swayed by the offer of free books. Still others offer their influence for purchase, especially in the high-powered world of YouTube influencers. A high-powered influencer can be the difference between a merely successful brand and a powerhouse lifestyle brand.

Dangers of lifestyle branding

Building a lifestyle brand requires a substantial investment of time, to study readers’ behaviors and to develop solutions for their problems. It also requires a substantial investment in energy, to become consistently present in your readers’ lives. Most lifestyle brands also invest substantial money in reaching their audience, purchasing advertisements wherever their followers are likely to be found.

In interviewing authors for this article, I uncovered another potential danger to lifestyle branding: alienating readers who perceive authors as being too wealthy. Multiple authors reported a negative response among their readers when the authors displayed cars, shoes, or other purchases that were perceived as luxury goods. The authors were chastised for charging too much for their books or for wasting time playing when they could be writing. The affected authors noted that upset readers did not have a similar reaction to actors, athletes, or musicians sharing similar high-end acquisitions; there seemed to be a negative reaction unique to authors’ sharing.

(Of course, not all lifestyle brands connote wealth or luxury, and sharing one’s high-end purchases is only one way to build a devoted community. Anecdotes from a subset of authors are not hard data. Older authors such as Danielle Steel and Jackie Collins certainly built careers as “glitzy” authors, with a flamboyant style. But contemporary authors might choose caution if they’re building a luxury lifestyle brand.)

Building a lifestyle brand isn’t easy. But with a focus on existing readers, a simple, consistent message, and the amplifier of community influencers, authors can build communities of dedicated readers that might make the leap to true “lifestyle” status.

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USA Today bestselling author Mindy Klasky learned to read when her parents shoved a book in her hands and told her she could travel anywhere through stories. As a writer, Mindy has traveled through various genres, including romantic comedy, hot contemporary romance, and traditional fantasy. In her spare time, Mindy knits, quilts, and tries to tame her to-be-read shelf.

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Nink: Be Your Own PR Person ~ The Real Secret To Writing A Good Press Release

This article, written by Michele Dunaway is from the June 2020 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

In a previous installment, we worked on the idea of your “Home Base” or your key message. This concept revolves around the idea that you don’t have to hire an expensive public relations firm to be able to stay on message with the media, and that with a little work, you can develop and disseminate your own talking points.

In this article we’re going to focus on what really matters when you write a press release. What we won’t focus on is stuff you can learn when you go online and Google “press release samples.” When you do that, dozens of images are going to pop up and they will tell you exactly what needs to go where. They’ll tell you what you need to include and give you sample formats where you can slot your words right into the fields of headlines and body copy and contact information. Easy peasy. Poof.

You’re done… only to have your hard work sent off and immediately deleted and discarded. After all, how many pieces of email come into your inbox only to be deleted unread? How many newsletters do you send to your readers that do not get opened, or if opened, are not really read or converted into sales?

Before we go on, I’m going to send you to this site. Seriously. Go read it. Or give it a quick skim.

While all that information is relevant and important, you probably overlooked one line that seemed like a throwaway: “Don’t waste the journalist’s time with a long-winded, self-absorbed introduction to yourself or your business. They probably don’t care.”

I’m going to repeat that last part: “They probably don’t care.” It’s tough to hear, but true.

What’s in it for them?

I ask my high-school journalists two critical questions when I’m coaching them on writing their news and feature stories: “Are you bored writing this?” and “Why should the reader care?”

Think about it. Every year there is a homecoming dance. Every year there’s a varsity football team. Every year there are final exams. School starts sometime in August. Graduation is always the first Saturday of May. For 17 years, I’ve guided my students through the creation of award-winning yearbooks. We know, every year, we’re going to cover the exact same stuff.

So do newspapers. There will be the sweet stories published on Valentine’s Day. There’s all the election coverage that ramps up every two and four years. 2020 was a leap year, and of course a story on leap year babies ran. The same principle applies for magazines. Fashion follows a cycle, so does sports, so does gardening, etc.

Your book release is one of all the other book releases out there, and with the advent of self-publishing, the noise of those wanting to be noticed is even louder. In order to get the press you want, to get to that interview stage or to get your press release to simply be printed almost verbatim if the media doesn’t have time for anything else, the content has to make the reader care. In Part I of this series published last month, this all boiled down to answering the simple question the consumer wants to know: “What’s in it for me?”

Your message map keeps you on point. However, when you looked at the sample, were you bored? Did you care? Most likely no, you didn’t care.

Pretend you’re a journalist. If University of Missouri Extension sent you a press release about one of their programs, you would look at it because you had to look at it, not because you think it’s the most exciting thing on the planet to receive.

As much as our latest book is the most exciting thing on the planet to us, it’s not necessarily the most exciting thing for everyone else. So, as the next part of your media message, you have to figure out how to make your message the most exciting thing.

Making them care

Let me digress with an example that I promise will make sense, so bear with me and please keep reading. I teach Walt Whitman, who is considered one of the most important American poets ever. Except if you’re a high-school junior in regular English III. However, I usually introduce Whitman in the last week of January/first week of February, right around the Super Bowl. Spoiler: high-school kids are into the Super Bowl. So I ask how much does a Super Bowl commercial cost for 30 minutes? (Someone will know. They always do.) Okay, I say, Apple made this commercial a while ago and not only paid for a minute and a half or airtime (we calculate that amount in today’s dollar value), but then they had to get the rights to the voice-over you’ll hear and then film and edit it.

Then I play the commercial. Take a minute and a half and go watch how Apple introduced the iPad Air.

Kids all know Apple. They have iPhones and iPads. Some may know Dead Poets Society, and most still know Robin Williams. And let’s face it, it’s a pretty awesome commercial with excellent visuals.

By the end of the commercial, it’s clear that Apple made Walt Whitman cool again, and I let my students know that when this commercial came out, all over Twitter people were like “That’s Robin Williams’s voice” and others were “That’s Dead Poet’s Society.” We talk about how Apple built an entire campaign around the slogan “What will your verse be?” (which excites all the kids who like business class best) and how the campaign went beyond the Super Bowl. Suddenly Whitman is relevant again, and “O Me! O Life!” suddenly matters.

To get people talking, you have to make them care. You have to show them why it matters to them. The secret to making them care all comes down to this: Stories are about people, not things or events.

Your book launch is an event. Your book is a thing. You are the real story.

So how do you make the story about you, while still talking about your book and its launch? You have to find the hook that makes the reader care.

Your company has its message, but now that message must translate into newsworthiness. When editors decide what to cover, they look at various elements that make the story newsworthy.

Newsworthy elements include but are not limited to:

  • Celebrity and prominence: How famous or important a person is. The more famous, the more attention.
  • Conflict and impact: As writers we understand conflict and how it will impact or effect people.
  • Emotion: Emotion means the story pulls on your heartstrings. Think of the old adage “if it bleeds, it leads.” Blood, tears, and laughter get attention because we feel them in a visceral way.
  • Proximity and timeliness: Proximity means we care because it’s close or local, while timeliness means the story matters now and has a sense of immediacy.
  • Novelty and unusualness: Novelty means it’s different, while unusualness might mean it’s weird or odd—like the guy who at ate 20 hot dogs in one minute.
  • Human interest: Human interest is a bit of a catchall, but it’s understandable as to why we love stories about puppies, kids with lemonade stands, a girl who conquers cancer, or why we want to help when we read about those who need help.

Looking at each of these elements is how my yearbook staff and I find a new and different angle for the stories that are essentially the same event each year. Like the books you write, the characters are different. Stories are about people, not events or things.

The unique hook I often use is “teacher by day, romance writer by night.” It’s novelty. When I spoke at the Kirkwood Public Library, the press release played up I was a local native, so proximity. The article began: Twenty years ago, author Michele Dunaway was shelving books at Kirkwood Library for $2 an hour. Now the library has all seven of her books on hand and Dunaway is the library's June "Author of the Month." You can read the rest here.

Finding your hook

Now go back to your message map. Your hooks, your newsworthiness, should come from your positive, proof-positive, and more specifically, your distinguishing points. Your distinguishing points should explain how you are different from everyone else. This is your newsworthiness. What can you do to hook the person who will receive your press release? What can you do to make them care about you? Or be intrigued? Or curious?

Your uniqueness is what makes the reader care and why they will want to know more. There are tons of authors putting out books. So what makes your story the one that should be told? How can you sell them that writing about you is a different approach to the same old story?

Here’s an example from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Jan. 19, 2018, the fifth anniversary of the death of Stan Musial, baseball Hall of Famer, the first million-dollar player, and a St. Louis icon. The challenge for the reporter was how to find a new angle to commemorate the day of his death. Ben Frederickson started his story like this:

Swap a Stan Musial story today.
If you don’t have one, hear one.
It’s not hard.
You can’t throw a four-seamer in this city without hitting the glove of someone with one to share.
On the five-year anniversary of the day we lost “Baseball’s Perfect Knight,” find a moment to remember what made him so much bigger than the game.
I’ll go first.
Leo and Jane Garvin can’t forget their Musial story, because without Stan, there wouldn’t be a Leo and Jane.

Trust me, go read the rest of the story, hyperlinked under the word read. I’ll wait.

Now that you have, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Jane is my late father’s sister. Leo’s my uncle, and Patrick is my cousin. I don’t know Ben. I knew about the birthday party, but not about the fact there wouldn’t be Leo and Jane without Stan.

I had a reason to care when I read this article. But did you care? This story has emotion, human interest, and celebrity. If you said yes, if you kept reading even if you didn’t know Leo and Jane, or if you found yourself finding yourself thinking “this was cool,” even though you aren’t a St. Louis Cardinals fan, this is because the story is about people (Stan, Leo & Jane), not events (in this case, the anniversary of Stan’s death).

When you craft your press release, when you write your story, if you are bored, the person reading it will be, too. The secret to a successful press release is figuring out how to make the reader care, so don’t be afraid to dig deep and focus on you. Trust me, your story is worth telling.

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Michele Dunaway is in her final year as the Nink editor. Writing press releases and giving interviews don’t scare her. The fact that her term is almost over and she’ll really miss doing Nink does.

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Nink: Four Ways to Building an Online Community

This article, written by LaShaunda C. Hoffman is from the May 2020 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

Building an online community takes time, consistency and knowing it’s not going to happen overnight. Below are some ways I used to build my online community over the years.

Website/blog

Your website is yours, and you can share whatever you want or when you want on your site. Even if you hire an assistant or have someone or some company maintain your site, never let someone else have full control of your access to your readers. You should always have final control over your content as your website is your asset.

When I started building my online community for my magazine, Shades Of Romance Magazine (SORMAG), I started with a website. It wasn’t the most beautiful website, but it did its job to showcase the magazine.

Your website should at the minimum host information about your books and about you. I recommend keeping the readers on your site as much as possible versus sending them to various social media sites to interact with you. You can do this by adding a blog, forum, or membership area to your website.

Give your readers a reason to visit your site daily, weekly or monthly. What you share on your site is what brings the readers back. Here are a few ideas:

  • Share what you share on social media, like what’s going on with you and your writing. Put this also on your site.
  • Share resources such as tools you use to write or podcasts you listen to.
  • Share tips like articles on world building or how to plot your next book.
  • Host workshops on topics that appeal to your audience. If they are aspiring writers, you might offer a workshop on how to write your first book.
  • Host events. Monthly book discussions and interviews with writer friends are popular.
  • Host contests. Readers love to win prizes, so you might want to choose a Reader of the Month or give a prize to the first person to post a review or buy a copy of a new release.

One of the things that hurt my promotion of SORMAG was when I focused more on social media instead of the blog for the magazine. The blog used to have a lot of engagement, but when I focused on social media, the blog slowly started to only have visitors and no comments. Having visitors was good thing, but I know now that the interactions and engagement was what made the blog work for the magazine. I learned the hard way that when you when you move your readers off your website, they usually don’t come back mainly because it’s easier to be on one platform instead of visiting multiple sites.

Social media

Even though I’m a fan of websites, I know many writers choose to use social media as their home base because it’s easier to maintain. It’s also a fun way to build your online community — and you don’t have to leave home to do it! I tell my clients to find the platforms where their readers hang out and go have fun. I recommend starting with one or two platforms.

In this article, I will focus on one platform — Facebook. I’m a fan of Facebook because it lets you create communities with your profile, fan page or group. I call my FB community my FB Fam. Some of the people who follow me I’ve known over 20+ years when I first started online.

There are three main ways to interact with your fans on Facebook:

  1. Profile page – You can build a community with your profile page. However, you are limited to 5,000 followers, so you might have to be picky on who you let follow you.
    • Your profile is more for building relationships, so be careful with doing a lot of selling posts or you could end up in Facebook jail or worse, kicked off Facebook.
    • One of my favorite ways to engage my community is to ask questions. I ask at least three questions a day. This keeps my engagement up and often introduces me to new people.
  2. Fan pages – If you can get the engagement started on your fan pages, this is a good way to build your community. It’s open to everyone to see and you can have unlimited followers.
    • I see this as more of a billboard to showcase who I am and what I do.
    • I invite people to like my pages which helps grow my following.
    • I post at least three times a day. This helps my posts show up in my follower’s feed. I also try to ask questions to get the engagement going.
    • Your fan page is where you promote your book by using boosts or ads. Look at your results to see if you reached your promotion goals for your ads.
  3. Groups – My favorite way to build a community using social media is groups because you can make them private and be selective of who is in your community. I like that I can see who is inside the group and who is engaging or not.
    • I use my groups for learning, networking and sharing content.
    • The downside to groups is that they are time consuming and a commitment you must be ready for. It’s your duty to keep your members engaged.
    • I create promotional campaigns to invite new members to the group.

I’m a huge fan of using social media because it’s a fun way to build relationships with your readers and to make book sales. I use it to get to know my readers by asking questions and sharing things about myself. I’ve learned it is an important part of my promotion plan but it’s not the only thing.

Videos

If you aren’t camera shy, video is another way you can build a community. My favorite form of video is live streaming because I enjoy the live interaction with my fans. They can ask me questions and I can do the same with them.

You can go live on many social media platforms (like Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram) and engage with your community. Each one has time limits so check each platform for specifics.

Another option is to record your videos and post them on your social media platforms and wait for views and comments. It’s helpful to be able to record in batches and create a bunch of videos you can schedule for later.

  • You can use videos to teach workshops, read excerpts from your books, conduct interviews or just share news about your writing.
  • Make sure to add the link to your email list to your videos. You can also put this in the written descriptor and comment section of your video platform, so you can get new subscribers.

I'll be honest, at first I was intimidated by video. I thought I had to be perfect: hair done, face flawless, and my words not tumbling out of my mouth.

But when I started doing it, I learned that I missed one key point. With video that’s not live-streamed, you get a million takes to get it right. Editing is your friend. If you’re like me, don’t be intimidated. Get your hair done, your make up flawless and get in front of the camera and do your thing, then get a good video editor (or become one yourself).

Recognize & reward your community

Who are the people engaging with you?

  • Do you have someone who opens all the emails you send?
  • Do you have someone who engages in all the social media posts?
  • Do you have someone who shares all of your videos?
  • Do you have someone who is highly engaged in your group?

These are the people you offer a thank-you gift to — gift certificates, free books, or book swag. Let them know you appreciate them and their support.

I’ve learned over the years how important your community is. As I grew SORMAG’s community, I saw how loyal the readers were to the magazine. They attended the events and joined the social media community. They enjoyed the SORMAG goodies I sent out. I always wanted them to know they were appreciated. For the last few years, I’ve hosted a free online book festival for readers and writers with workshops, panel discussions, book discussions and prizes. Consider doing a Reader Appreciation Day or event for your readers.

Readers are loyal to writers they enjoy and these readers will stay a part of your community if you treat them like you appreciate them. Make time for them — respond to emails, reply to comments, and answer direct messages. Get to know them and you will see your readership grow.

Now, are you ready to start building your community? Go showcase your wings, social butterflies.

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 LaShaunda C. Hoffman created Shades Of Romance Magazine (SORMAG) and published it for 20 years. In 2015 she wrote a book about book promotion, Building Online Relationships — One Reader At Time, featuring lessons she learned while promoting SORMAG Digital. Join her community and receive a copy of SORMAG’s Literary Directory.

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Nink Knowledge: C.H.A.N.G.E. and Every Writer

This article by Melanie Stiles is from the April 2019 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

Ask any number of your writer friends if there is something they could change about the mechanics of their writing career and most (if not all) will respond with a yes. So, as writers, why don’t we take action, instead of merely thinking about it? The answer tends to be as varied as the tasks. In the end, many writers are more than tempted to give up and remain in the status quo.

Change almost never takes place instantly. Real change is usually accomplished through a series of gradual, purposeful actions. The beautiful thing about change is that even one small adjustment contains the possibility for a myriad of beneficial outcomes. So whether you view change with a fair amount of chagrin, or embrace change as eagerly as a leaf is carried on the autumn wind, by engaging with a few minor examinations that require minimum effort, you can move forward into the C.H.A.N.G.E. you need today.

C = Community
When it comes to our money, most of us look for competitive interest rates on credit cards. We want to pay the lowest cost for the greatest amount of insurance, and we want the best sale price on major purchases. But when it comes to our communities, we tend not to give them a second thought. If we have fully incorporated a person into our writing life, they are apt to be there for the duration. If we accumulate enough folks, we simply don’t have room for more. People are definitely not as interchangeable as credit cards, but writers can do themselves a great disservice if they do not periodically take stock of their own community. We tend to travel in genre herds, aligning ourselves with those who speak our lingo. That’s great for critiquing particular projects or for shoring up our comfort zones, but it’s not always conducive to expanding our writing horizons. Branching out can offer new opportunities. Writing communities should support several basic areas; it’s rare that one group does it all. For example, if you haven’t already, consider adding the following:

  • A Social Media Partner – When it comes to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all of the other outlets on the web, it hardly matters whether the writer you connect with writes in the same genre. If a writer likes to post more than you do, he/she is a community treasure trove for you! A simple weekly telephone appointment can change the nature of your own social media presence as you trade information or navigate mutual chores.
  • A Marketing Partner – Marketing partners do not necessarily have to be other writers. Successful sales people make great connections, as they are innovative and often gregarious about thinking outside of the proverbial box. As writers, we can always use a fresh approach that differs from what we already know about.

Adding and subtracting community, when done deliberately, can push us to the next career level.

H = Habits
We generally recognize when someone else practices habits that are different from ours. This can create a silent message that winds its way through our brain saying, “I wouldn’t do it like that.” Interestingly, most of us never consider a secondary message, the one that says, “But, is his/her way better?” Consider performing a short, three-question survey. Ask questions, of other writers, that relate to areas in which you deem yourself most entrenched. Examples might include:

  • How do you maintain a consistent word count?
  • What does your social media management look like?
  • What is your most successful marketing tactic?

These simple inquiries can often encourage us to make small habit changes that can lead to greater productivity.

A = Attitude
Winston Churchill said, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” It seems to be true for an army of writers such as J.K. Rowling, Dr. Seuss, John Grisham and Madeleine L’Engle, who never let multiple rejections stop them. To make mental adjustments in our attitudes, it’s often necessary to redefine or reframe our challenges. We have to believe and accept that there are no dead ends, only redirections that move us one step closer to our goals. In the end, attitudes are always a choice. Contemplate writers who have traveled before you and what their lives could have been like if they had quit.

N = New routines
Let’s face it. The evolution of new apps, software, computers and most everything related to writing and publishing, is traveling at exponential speeds. By organizing our learning endeavors so that they are both purposeful and scheduled, we can increase our skillsets gradually and successfully. We already have a lot on our plates, so pacing is primary. Try attending seminars or participating in online classes with a partner. Having a study buddy automatically increases consistency. There will always be something new on the horizon, so why not make our educational experiences as pleasurable as we can?

G = Goal centered activities
The average American now spends a little over five hours a day watching television (www.bls.gov) and a little less than one-half hour thinking. In order to ascertain whether or not an activity truly supports our goals, we will have to exceed this sad, thinking statistic. Taking the time to simply ponder or daydream about the end result of a project carves out an imaginary path to its completion. By mentally plotting our way, we can easily see what fits and what is irrelevant to its success.

E = Extending the vision
No writing career is complete if it doesn’t include the acknowledgment of the people in our surroundings. We must extend our knowledge, time, and pens to include helping those who are new to the writing journey. It is our way of repaying those who were there for us.

By tweaking the things that we already do right, we can effectively hone our lifestyles to increase our maximum productivity. As we apply the components of the C.H.A.N.G.E. acronym at least twice a year, we can create a lifestyle overview that quickly ascertains what is missing, what we need to let go of and what is going well.

________________________

Melanie Stiles is an award-winning author and life coach who has accumulated hundreds of bylines in various publications. She has authored three books specifically for writers and frequently speaks at conferences. She offers writing-related services including editing, ghostwriting, coaching and more.

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Nink Knowledge: Advanced Author Branding

This article by Nicole Evelina is from the February 2019 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

In the October 2017 Nink newsletter, I covered the basics of author branding—from internal aspects like mission statements and core values, to external elements such as taglines, colors and fonts—and how they influence your book themes, website, swag, etc. Now I’d like to take that a step further.

Believe it or not, your brand can and should influence everything you do, or as a lot of experts say, you should “be the brand.” Now, this doesn’t mean being inauthentic; if you’ve done the work in your basic branding, it should already reflect who you are. This is just taking it to the next level. Your brand should be reflected in:

What you wear
You only get one chance to make a first impression, right? When you’re at an event, a reader should be able to look at you from across the room and gauge your brand. Most of the time, that doesn’t mean wearing a costume (but you can, more on that later). It’s all about purposefully choosing your clothing based on the message you want to convey.

On the minimal side of things, think about incorporating your brand colors in your outfit or makeup or wear a shirt with your book cover or logo on it. If you want to go a step further, you might think about what kind of clothing would appeal to or make you fit in with your audience. For example, a YA author would likely wear something more casual and fun and a non-fiction business author would wear a suit. I know an author who is very open about writing erotica and she dresses in revealing outfits and red lipstick to compliment her brand. It’s a perfect fit for her, but it wouldn’t be right for me because the heat level in my books isn’t nearly spicy enough. It would be false representation for me to dress that way.

If you want to go all out, you can dress like your characters. I know several steampunk authors who regularly show up to events in full costume. Whimsical children’s author Sheri Fink attends events in colorful wigs and sometimes dresses as a unicorn or mermaid, per her brand and characters. Leanna Renee Hieber actually lives her brand by wearing Victorian/gothic dresses all the time, even when she is not at an event, and by leading spirit tours of New York. It is just who she is.

You might also consider adopting a trademark visual as part of your brand, especially if it appears in one of your books. For example, the ouroboros is important in Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Trilogy, so she wears a necklace with one on it to her events, which allows her to connect with fans in a different way. Similarly, Joanna Penn has recently adopted an octopus bracelet she often wears to events. It’s unusual enough to be eye-catching and memorable, it’s obviously symbolic of something she likes, plus it ties into her book Desecration. Author Laini Taylor is known for her bright pink hair, which fits with her being a YA fantasy author.

Your event booth/table
When you have a designated area to sell books and/or promote yourself at an event, your brand should be center stage. Your stand-up banners and table banner should reflect your colors and fonts, as should the items you place on your table, which should tie into your books. Oversize items, things that shine or sparkle or are interactive are all great attention getters. Like Penn’s bracelet, if you can make them odd, they will serve as a great conversation starter and a natural segue into talking about your books.

This is especially true if an item seemingly contradicts your brand and makes a passerby ask, “Why do you have XYZ on your table?” Take an author whose brand is light in color and tone, yet she has a big sugar skull on her table. On first glance, those two things don’t seem to go together. But perhaps when you ask about it, she explains her book takes place in Mexico during Dia de los Muertos, or her characters are of Mexican heritage and really love the feast. Perhaps this is her opportunity to educate on the holiday being a joyous festival (as reflected in her books), rather than the spooky/evil time often associated with Halloween. That’s a connection a reader won’t soon forget, even if they didn’t buy her book.

Additional ways your brand will be reflected in your events include:

  • Interaction – The way you interact with people ties back in to your internal branding. Are you open to answering questions? Do you pose for pictures with fans and engage them in conversation? Or are you more standoffish? Some authors will sign books for hours, while others refuse to ever give an autograph.
  • Hashtags – Hashtag mentions and brand impressions on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram can easily show fans and followers what they’re missing and get them engaged even if they can’t attend.
  • Giveaways – Make sure they tie into your brand and your books. Giveaways that have thought and symbolism behind them are special to fans and give you another chance to connect with people as you explain their meaning.

Where you speak/appear and the topics
Obviously what you write and the opportunities you are given will be the driving factors in the events you attend, but your brand should factor in as well. For example, I’m a feminist and it shows in my writing, so you aren’t likely to see me at conservative functions; it’s just not a fit. Likewise, while my books have light fantasy in them, I may not be the best person for a convention that focuses on high fantasy and science fiction.

What you speak about should also reflect your core values as an author and the themes in your books. Sheri Fink speaks about courage, never giving up, and having fun every day, no matter what life throws at you—themes found in her books and also in her story as an author. If she were to attend an event and be serious and stern and speak in monotone, yet you pick up one of her books and it is all bright and cheery, you’d feel the disconnect, even if she was talking about raising brave children.

Do we really need all of this?|
You may be thinking this is overkill, and you may be right. But the purpose of a brand is to help readers distinguish you from other authors. They need to know what to expect; it’s a promise you make to them. All of these things tie into that promise and help strengthen it.

It’s up to you whether you just dip a toe into advanced branding or jump in with both feet. Neither way is right nor wrong. But I have personally found that every little bit helps.

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Nicole Evelina is a historical fiction, non-fiction, and women’s fiction author whose six books have won three Book of the Year designations. Her fiction tells the stories of strong women from history and today, focusing on biographical historical fiction, while her non-fiction focuses on women’s history, specifically little-known figures.

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