Today my guest is personal branding expert Dan Schawbel. I asked Dan to talk to us about branding by association, and in this post, Dan reveals three ways an author can enhance his brand.
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How does a new author align his name and reputation with quality?
How does a published author elevate his reputation and stature to the level of better selling authors?
Is there a way for lesser known authors to market themselves and their titles so that their professional image and body of work appear closer in reputation to the recognized writers they emulate and admire?
For the answer to these questions, I asked the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, Dan Schawbel, recognized as a “personal branding guru” by The New York Times. Dan is the author of Me 2.0, founder of the Personal Branding Blog, and publisher of Personal Branding Magazine. He has worked with companies such as Time Warner, Symantec, IBM, EMC, and CitiGroup.
Dan maintains that branding by association is the single most powerful idea in personal branding. He defines branding by association as creating a linkage between two brands of unequal brand equity, to build upon the brand of lesser equity through association.
Here is Dan’s branding advice for authors:
1. Connect with successful authors. If you’re an author and people have never heard of you, build credibility by associating your name with an author that’s more well-known. The best way to go about doing this is to conduct a search on Amazon.com for authors in your niche and then rank them by popularity. Reach out to each author from the top down until you get a response. Try and promote their book through your social networks, and your blog, and they will be more inclined to endorse your book and to promote it to their audience when your book comes out.
2. Build rapport with the media early. The best way to get press during your book launch is to get the media to review your book months in advance so it is already perceived as successful and worthy of more attention. Talk to bloggers, journalists, and producers in your market as early as possible and send them a galley so they feel special. When your book comes out, use the pre-pub endorsements in your email pitches to up your likelihood of response.
3. Develop your speaking platform. If you want to sell books and gain credibility, it helps to become a good speaker. If you’re first starting out, you will have to give some free speeches in order to gather testimonials and video footage that will later help you make money from being an author and speaker.
Good luck with your branding efforts, and remember that who you surround yourself with has the potential to make or break your career as an author.
The more I call myself a writer, the more I realize that marketing is a third of that. I had pictured just me and my unending imagination alone in a room, churning out fiction that captured the truth, etc. The various mechanics and processes of marketing, including branding, have set me on fire. I appreciate this post very much and now know what branding is and, most importantly, who Dan Schawbel is.
Echoing Peggy West’s comments, I, too, now understand how very little difference the actual writing makes if the writer does not understand and utilize marketing. One of my friends happened to be in Larry McMurtry’s neighborhood, Archer City, left his book with him to read (he wasn’t sure that McMurtry would), but was pleasantly surprised when he not only read it, but wrote a blurb which my friend used on the back cover of his book. This blurb assured him a placement in WalMart, which sold a lot of books for him. I find Schawbel’s advice right on target.
Not only marketing but branding oneself as an expert, especially in the case of non-fiction, is important. My inclination is to do all of that once the writing is finished, but as Dan points out, it’s important to do it well before publication.