Mark Leslie Lefebvre has worked in the book industry since 1992 in almost every tyle of brick and mortar, online, and digital bookstore. He is a past President of the Canadian Booksellers Association, former Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations for Rakuten Kobo, and the founder of Kobo Writing Life, Kobo's free direct publishing platform. He has given talks about the business of writing and publishing across North America and in in Europe.

With over thirty years of experience in bookselling and as an author who has embraced both traditional and indie-publishing opportunities, Mark is an advocate for helping authors understand the options available to them for finding success on their own unique author journey.

Mark's more than thirty years of experience in the book industry as both a writer and an author, makes him a much sought-after consultant. He has sat on the board of directors for BookNet Canada and was a professional advisor for the creation of Sheridan College's Honors Program in Writing and Publishing.

A Writer's Guide to Branding for Success by Mark Leslie Lefebvre

Your Author Brand is one of your best long-term Intellectual Property assets!

Why should authors even be thinking about their brand? Isn't considering something like "brand" a corporate thing to do? Shouldn't that be reserved for mega-corporations like Coke and Pepsi? What place does it have in an author's more creative life?

Consider these facts about powerful branding:

•A strong brand can help to differentiate you and your products from the masses, particularly in a crowded marketplace
•Powerful brands can provide readers with an ongoing sense of familiarity, reliability, and comfort
•Consistent and conscious branding established long-term reader and customer loyalty by creating and maintain a recognizable and trusted presence in a saturated market
•It's a well-known fact that people tend to buy things from others that they "know, like, and trust"
•Today, authors have access to far more tools and resources to use in strengthening their brand than any previous time in the history of writing and publishing
•Authors with a strong brand can command higher prices for their books

You are far more than just the consistent author persona behind your books. And by employing the very skills that brought you into writing—storytelling—along with some core questions to consider about your long-term author career goals, your author brand can extend well beyond the mere books themselves and become part of the overall reader experience and journey.

This book will explore techniques that not only international brands but also successful authors have employed to engage, compel, and deliver the right promise to the right readers at the right time, and help you ask the right questions to examine your current brand and set the stage for refining and re-imagining your author brand. Whether you know it or not, you already have an author brand. But it's time to take control of it and allow it to work for you.

[This book, which is exclusive to Storybundle, is a 15,000-word special sneak peek of a book that will be published in the spring of 2024 at more than twice its current length. Your purchase will include the provision of the full completed book when it becomes available, and prior to regular retail sale.]

 
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

A LOOK AT POWERFUL BRANDS

We have already looked at some high-level views of what a brand is, and what a strong brand can be and do.

We have also explored why it's important to build an author brand.

But it's also important, before we dig further into the realm of the writer's world and help you explore your own unique branding options, to step back and look at examples of some of the brands that you, as a consumer, might be familiar with.

Below are numerous examples of solid and strong brands that are so pervasive that they have become a part of common culture.

As you read and perhaps skim through the list, pay attention to the ones that really jump out at you and perhaps come with your own memories of the various campaigns, how they were presented to you, and ultimately, how they made you feel, or even still make you feel.

That should further illustrate the ultimate power and importance of a brand, and how leveraging it in the proper way can help to enhance your own marketing, sales, and continued growth of your reader base.

And don't worry. While here we'll be exploring generic brands and marketing campaigns that connect to those brands from numerous non-writer-specific realms, products, companies, and services, later we'll narrow in on examples of authors who have applied similar techniques in their own promise to readers.

EXAMPLES OF STRONG BRANDS

The brand associated with each of the following tag-lines and marketing slogans might not be necessary, as, chances are you are familiar with them. But I've included them just in case.

Just Do It.

Nike

The Happiest Place on Earth.

Disneyland

Betcha can't eat just one.

Lay's

It keeps going, and going, and going…

Energizer

You're in good hands

Allstate

Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.Maybelline

Because you're worth it.

L'Oreal

King of Beers

Budweiser

Have a break. Have a KitKat.

KitKat

Think Outside the Bun.

Taco Bell

Good to the last drop.

Maxwell House

Red Bull gives you wings.

Red Bull

Got Milk?

California Milk Processor Board

Is it in you?

Gatorade

Where's the beef?

Wendy's

The snack that smiles back.

Goldfish

Breakfast of Champions

Wheaties

Finger Lickin' Good

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Taste the rainbow.

Skittles

The Best a Man Can Get

Gillette

There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

Mastercard

The Quicker Picker Upper

Bounty

Fly the friendly skies.

United Airlines

Live in your world. Play in ours.

Playstation

All the News That's Fit to Print.

The New York Times

Nothing runs like a Deere.

John Deere

When you care enough to send the very best.

Hallmark

Did you notice, as you read these, how each of them used as few words as possible to convey something powerful and impacting for the product, service, or company they represent?

In the next section, we'll take one company that has produced powerful branding in a multitude of ways, and explore some of the aspects of branding they have employed, including a dynamic and changing series of slogans employed over the decades.