What’s your brand?
You’ve probably heard the term “branding” and likely know that you need a brand of your own, but where do you start? What does that mean for you — the aspiring or established author — and how is your author brand different from your book brand? If all of this makes your head start to spin, take a deep breath and rest easy, because we’ve got you covered!
- Branding isn’t meant to overwhelm; it’s meant to articulate.
- Branding isn’t meant to be an afterthought; it’s meant to be all thoughts combined!
- Branding isn’t meant to be a tactic of a strategy; it’s meant to bring your strategy to life.
Every (business) brand — especially your author brand — tells a story. When done right, a brand tells the story you want to share in a way that inspires people to take action, exactly how you would like them to. It’s the connecting piece of your business’ overarching story, and even though it’s usually wrapped up with a logo, your brand is much bigger than you realize.
A Forbes article noted that “digital marketing experts estimate that most Americans are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day.” Each ad has a brand, each brand tells a story, and each story hopes to inspire action. With that many brands to compete with, you want to make sure your brand stands out (in a good way, of course!).
Are you ready to develop an author brand? Do you even know how an author brand can be different than a book brand?
The entire second season of The emPowered Author Podcast is chockfull of insights on author brands. We’ll help you determine how best to collaborate with a team to bring your author brand to life, while ensuring it tells a story that compels meaningful engagement.
Before any branding discussion, you should give some thought to your overarching goals and the strategies you currently have in place to achieve them.
To help you be prepared for a deeper branding discussion—with us or with another team of marketing experts—download our Branding Brainstorm Guide. This Guide will help you be able to articulate your vision for your brand, your book and your business so that you are ready to work with a team to bring it to life.
So, how is an author brand different from a book brand?
Great question!
Many authors see these brands as one in the same. But let me tell you, that is usually not the case. You, my author friend, are bigger than your book. Your book is an offering you provide, but you likely have other offerings, too, that you seek to share with the world (or are sharing already)! Your author brand tells a story—your story—and your story isn’t limited to your book. It’s bigger than it.
Your author brand…
- Helps you reach your target audience, allowing you to connect with them and build a story that relates to their wants and needs, all in a split second.
- Forms your foundation and is in direct alignment with your goals and your business strategies.
- Can be interconnected with your book’s brand — and your book’s cover — but should be able to stand alone, too.
- Makes a promise to your current and potential customers, clients and readers of what they can expect from you.
- Brings your business to life!
Meet the Team
Stephanie Feger
Stephanie Feger, owner and chief strategist of the emPower PR Group, is passionate about emPowering nonfiction writers, authors and authorpreneurs with laser-focused marketing strategies and tactics to help them write books that sell, promote their books to those who need and want them most, and build a meaningful business from a message that is emPowering. Stephanie doesn’t believe in movement without strategy, and always keeps strategy front and center. She has also seen how emPowered people emPower people. In fact, her business is built around it!
Madelyn Copperwaite
Madelyn Copperwaite is the emPower PR Group’s graphic design extraordinaire and author brand expert. Her work is a blend of creative genius and focused strategy, making her a key player in any design elements authors and authorpreneurs may need. While she loves developing marketing materials, she thrives in brand development. The challenge of taking a business’ vision and impact — something that is not easy to articulate — and creating a brand identity that captures the story in a single identity is a challenge she will take on any day.
Stephanie and Madelyn help authors and authorpreneurs in bring their brands to life. Depending upon your specific branding needs, one of these three packages will meet you where you are and help you get where you need to go.
Author Brand
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Build your author brand with purpose and strategy. This package includes:
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A strategy session to kick off the design process as well as a follow-up discussion with insights and tips on how to best utilize your brand as an author.
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The development of three author brand designs options for your consideration.
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A brand package complete with fonts, color palette, and variations of your brand logo.
Authorpreneur Bundle
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Build your authorpreneur business with these must haves. This digital package includes:
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Digital design files leveraging your author brand to create business essentials to help you build and grow your authorpreneur business.
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Branded business materials include business card, letterhead and PowerPoint template deck to assist with promotion of your brand.
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Mailing package includes digital designs for a mailing postcard, notecard and envelope.
Event Package
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Get ready for book signings and trade shows! This digital package includes:
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Digital files for the promotional materials needed for in-person events such as book signings, speaking engagements and trade shows.
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Branded materials include digital files for a retractable banner, table banner and table cloth, ideal for branding an author table at an event.
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Help event attendees to capture branded photos through a step-and-repeat banner.
Frequently Asked Questions
Making the intangible tangible requires creative thought and collaboration. Depending upon your understanding of your brand, and where you want it to take you, the timeline to develop brand assets could be impacted accordingly. However, the Author Brand package typically takes 3-4 weeks to complete. Prior to moving forward with the development of an author brand, a strategy session is held to ensure clarity on expectations, timelines and requirements needed to make a beautiful end product.
We want you to love your brand assets, and we realize that sometimes figuring out what you love requires you to see a few options to help you come to a decision as to what speaks to your brand. Our team creates three designs of your brand’s identity for you to react to, and we will finesse the finished product based on your feedback. You will walk away with one, strong design that tells the story you want told!
Absolutely! We’ve created branding packages with our authors’ needs in mind, but sometimes all you need is a PowerPoint template, a promotional poster or podcast art. Don’t worry! We can help make that happen for you, too. Let’s chat and see what you need and how we can support you.
Of course we can! Whether you have an author brand already or are looking for help to bring your vision to reality, we are in your corner, on your team, and ready to deliver something you are both proud of and will both speak to and reach your target audience.
We sure can. We realize that a book brand is many times different from an author brand, but just as important. Because, let’s be real, people really do judge a book by its cover. We’d love to connect to learn more about your book and your graphic support needs. Schedule a call with us.
Oh, great question! We realize that you will likely have various ways that you want to use your logo, so we typically provide several options and file formats. Depending upon the design of the logo, you may receive a stacked option and a horizontal option. If your logo has an icon, you will receive that as a stand-alone file as well. Your logo will be provided in full-color, black and white, and white only. And you will receive .jpg, .png and .eps file formats for each variation.
Every author to writes and publishes a book become an authorpreneur whether they know it or not. This digital design bundle includes everything we believe authors need to build or grow their business design-wise.
Materials include: business card, letterhead, PowerPoint deck and a mailing package complete with a notecard and envelope as well as a postcard. All files are delivered digitally and printing is not included in the package.
For the mailing package, the postcard could be utilizes as a holiday card, a seasonal card or a book launch promotional card. The notecard and envelope typically includes the author brand on it and is a beautiful resource for a thank you card mailing.
Many authors find the opportunity for them to promote their book through in-person events. This could include trade shows, speaking engagements and book signings.
This package includes the creation of branded materials (digital files provided) for everything needed for an author table at an event as well as a step-and-repeat banner, which make an ideal backdrop for photos taken at an event.
All files are delivered digitally and printing is not included in this package.
Our team wants to help you how you need our help. So, the short answer is yes. If you get your finalized brand assets and want support in effectively using them, we are happy to support you. Our model is twofold—we are happy to empower you with what you need to be successful and we are happy to help make that success happen. To discuss how we can help you, and what that investment may be, let’s chat.
Yay! We are so excited to get the chance to work with you. We’d love to chat with you to learn more about your needs and determine how we can best support them. Schedule a chat with us when you are ready to get started. From this chat, we will pull together a proposal for you. A signed contract and full payment is required to get you officially on the schedule and begin our work together.
There are three package offerings to support your branding needs as outlined above: Author Brand ($600), Authorpreneur Bundle ($850) and Events Package $500). We require a signed contract and full payment to begin our work together.
