Branding As An Unpublished Author

Dreity

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This week I've been angsting about my new blog. It's about a month old at this point, and I'm mainly focusing on building my archives with quality content without taking time away from my revisions to do so. If nothing else, it's giving me something to be responsible for, and I'm enjoying getting into the blogging mindset while I figure out my niche.

My dad has been designing and developing websites for about 20 years now, and giving my blog a makeover is item 5 or 6 on the agenda when I visit home in 2 weeks. I think it makes him cringe inside to know that his daughter doesn't have a custom domain name, custom banner, perfect color coordination, those sort of things. From his perspective, at least I don't have stark white text on a stark black background, you know? :p

I'm trying to be helpful by giving him a clear idea of what kind of content I will be posting and what kind of image I want to present. But I'm having a few specific issues, and I'm hoping someone here can help me.

I write fairly dark, gritty fantasy. My blog doesn't communicate this, but, with a few exceptions, my current blog audience (mostly extended family) also does not match the eventual target audience for my fiction. The picture of a baby turtle eating a strawberry as big as he is adds a decent splash of color and is totally adorable, but I understand that this does not scream "dark and gritty".

To put it another way, my current readers are people who remember when I was reading Gail Carson Levine and Brian Jacques. My look, if not my content, reflects that Dreity more than the Dreity who spent most of 2012 reading Brent Weeks, Alan Campbell, Glen Cook and Joe Abercrombie.

I know my blog needs to change to more accurately represent myself as an author, but with no real product yet, is this something I need to do ASAP? Or should I redesign with the audience I have NOW in mind?
 

mccardey

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I like your blog very much. Is it just me, or is there nowhere to plug for "follow"?

ETA: Oh - and to answer your question I think you should keep this blog as it is for your family and do a darklygritty one for everyone else. (Yeah, I know - I'm just saving the turtle...)
 

veinglory

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I would suggest that if you want to have a personal blog, just keep it as that.

A promotional blog should be aimed at your readership, stuff they like (bait), and facts about where they can get your stuff (promo).
 

leahzero

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I would suggest that if you want to have a personal blog, just keep it as that.

A promotional blog should be aimed at your readership, stuff they like (bait), and facts about where they can get your stuff (promo).

This.

It's really hard to do both successfully in one blog, and likely nigh-impossible for someone without an audience yet.

Personal blogs are not very effective at marketing, and shouldn't be.
 

Dreity

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I like your blog very much. Is it just me, or is there nowhere to plug for "follow"?

ETA: Oh - and to answer your question I think you should keep this blog as it is for your family and do a darklygritty one for everyone else. (Yeah, I know - I'm just saving the turtle...)

Thank you! You made me smile. :) And you also prompted me to finally add the Follower gadget. As you can no doubt tell I'm very new to Blogger, so I'm still figuring out what's vital and what's clutter. :)

The turtle would without a doubt be hardest darling to kill. ^_^

I would suggest that if you want to have a personal blog, just keep it as that.

A promotional blog should be aimed at your readership, stuff they like (bait), and facts about where they can get your stuff (promo).

This make sense. I had initially thought to have both in one, but now I'm doubting I would have enough crossover appeal to pull it off. Perhaps just maintaining a personal blog would do for now when it comes to building an audience and forming good habits. Then I can look into developing something promotional when I have something to promote?
 

mccardey

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And you also prompted me to finally add the Follower gadget. As you can no doubt tell I'm very new to Blogger, so I'm still figuring out what's vital and what's clutter. :)

Yay! I followed. But hey - if the turtle gets dumped, I'm outies.
 

Dreity

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Yay! I followed. But hey - if the turtle gets dumped, I'm outies.

As you are my first follower and therefore Most Dedicated Fan, I must humbly acquiesce to your demands. Let no one say I never give the people what they want!
 

ZoeYork

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Are you on Twitter? That's an easy way to slowly build an audience and establish relationships with future readers. I created a new Twitter account for my author self, so that feed is primarily about writing, publishing and reading, but I make sure that my tweets reflect all of the (public) me - you have to be authentic to build relationships, but you don't need to be transparent.

I did buy my domain name, and it redirects to my blog right now. I think it's a worthwhile investment that will pay off in a year or two when I'm published.
 

Dreity

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Are you on Twitter? That's an easy way to slowly build an audience and establish relationships with future readers. I created a new Twitter account for my author self, so that feed is primarily about writing, publishing and reading, but I make sure that my tweets reflect all of the (public) me - you have to be authentic to build relationships, but you don't need to be transparent.

I did buy my domain name, and it redirects to my blog right now. I think it's a worthwhile investment that will pay off in a year or two when I'm published.

Hehehe, I get in the pool one toe at a time. :D

I think I'd do okay on Twitter, I'm just hesitant commit to another form of social media right away. At the moment I'm making most of my pithy observations on Facebook, since that's where most of my audience is anyway.

It's something I'm giving careful thought to, though.
 

ZoeYork

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Honestly, I've found it easier than the blog by far - and I'm terrified of Facebook, not going there until I actually have a book to promote. A nice bonus is that if you follow a lot of authors/publishers/fans, you'll probably learn a fair bit at the same time.
 

Tepelus

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There are different templates for Blogger out there besides the ones available on Blogger. I Googled Blogger templates and different sites come up, some with more designs to choose from than others. That's how I found mine. I wanted something dark, but not too dark. However, you can't really change the format on them unless you know how to do that programming stuff. Which I don't.
 

Dreity

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My dad is strongly leaning towards doing something completely from scratch anyway, although he did say there's no need to reinvent the wheel, so I can browse around to see if there is a Blogger template that really speaks to me. (He's so funny, he's like those baking connoisseurs who turns their noses up at Duncan Hines and the like.)

I don't find my current one offensive or anything, but it is kind of bland. I'd like to find something that creates more of a mood but doesn't draw attention away from the text. I've seen some busy, busy templates!
 

Tex_Maam

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Oh boy, I'm glad I'm not the only one who's hand-wringing about this kind of stuff. Neat blog, by the way! Consider your stalker count upped by 1.

In terms of relevant contribution to this thread: it sounds like you've gotten some great advice from folks who really know what they're talking about. The only thing I can add is that (as far as I can tell), blogging, like writing, is much less about Achieving Perfection and much more about Better Than It Was Before. If you can do that consistently over the long term, I think you will be in GREAT shape.
 

Polenth

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I write fairly dark, gritty fantasy. My blog doesn't communicate this, but, with a few exceptions, my current blog audience (mostly extended family) also does not match the eventual target audience for my fiction. The picture of a baby turtle eating a strawberry as big as he is adds a decent splash of color and is totally adorable, but I understand that this does not scream "dark and gritty".

To put it another way, my current readers are people who remember when I was reading Gail Carson Levine and Brian Jacques. My look, if not my content, reflects that Dreity more than the Dreity who spent most of 2012 reading Brent Weeks, Alan Campbell, Glen Cook and Joe Abercrombie.

I know my blog needs to change to more accurately represent myself as an author, but with no real product yet, is this something I need to do ASAP? Or should I redesign with the audience I have NOW in mind?

Your blog is very new, and I assume the audience you have now is mostly friends/family who'll be cool with whatever you do. So my vote is for a redesign and to think about what you're aiming for. You don't have to stick with the direction you chose on day one of blogging. You probably do want to chose a direction while it's still new (rather than trying to change everything in two years times).

As far as gritty grimdark branding goes, you can have too much of it. People do need a break from it, so I don't think it's advisable to go all dark all the time. A lot of horror authors keep a pretty light tone on their blogs, for example. People still know they write horror.

The issue here is you've gone totally for the light, as though you write lighthearted things always. A darker background instead of the parchment and a serious header image could sort that. Also, make that about the blog paragraph be more specific about what you write. You've told us here you're an author of dark fantasy, so say it plainly on the blog.

The tortoise isn't really a problem. He's small and it shows you have a sense of humour, which isn't a bad thing. But he ought to be a quirky flourish, not the element that sets the tone of the whole blog.

(On a personal note, I can't really read brown on brown. I prefer tan backgrounds over white, but with black text.)
 

Linda Adams

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Branding is tough to do. Despite what the experts imply on all the social media sites, it's not an overnight thing. I found mine -- but I went through many incarnations to get there. I have new subscribers all the time, but I still don't get a lot of comments, so it's an ongoing process. The key thing is to keep up with regular posting -- not necessarily on the same days every week, but just not to neglect the blog by posting whenever you get around to it or posting meaningless stuff (I've seen writer's blogs where they talked about what the weather was like just to have a post).

I'd also recommend against doing a personal blog and professional one. I was in a social media class where everyone jumped in and started blogging three times a week. About six months later, a lot of them dropped off because it was cutting into their writing time. Two blogs means more out of your writing time.

Also, you need your name on the blog where it's visible. If you have a book out, how am I supposed to be able to find it without your name? When I post a link to a blog, I try to look for the name of the person rather than the blog name, and a lot of writers don't have it up. It's important to get your name into the search engines now. Put your name as a category, too, in every post. Mine's really common, and there was another writer with the same name who ranked higher. Now I do.

For ideas on posts, check out this blog: http://practicalfreespirit.com/2011/10/04/social-media-talk-about-something-besides-writing/
 

Dreity

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Oh boy, I'm glad I'm not the only one who's hand-wringing about this kind of stuff. Neat blog, by the way! Consider your stalker count upped by 1.

In terms of relevant contribution to this thread: it sounds like you've gotten some great advice from folks who really know what they're talking about. The only thing I can add is that (as far as I can tell), blogging, like writing, is much less about Achieving Perfection and much more about Better Than It Was Before. If you can do that consistently over the long term, I think you will be in GREAT shape.

Thanks! I can always benefit from having another stalker. :D If I know that there are people out there who are interested in what I have to say, then that will push me to say more interesting things.

Your blog is very new, and I assume the audience you have now is mostly friends/family who'll be cool with whatever you do. So my vote is for a redesign and to think about what you're aiming for. You don't have to stick with the direction you chose on day one of blogging. You probably do want to chose a direction while it's still new (rather than trying to change everything in two years times).

As far as gritty grimdark branding goes, you can have too much of it. People do need a break from it, so I don't think it's advisable to go all dark all the time. A lot of horror authors keep a pretty light tone on their blogs, for example. People still know they write horror.

The issue here is you've gone totally for the light, as though you write lighthearted things always. A darker background instead of the parchment and a serious header image could sort that. Also, make that about the blog paragraph be more specific about what you write. You've told us here you're an author of dark fantasy, so say it plainly on the blog.

The tortoise isn't really a problem. He's small and it shows you have a sense of humour, which isn't a bad thing. But he ought to be a quirky flourish, not the element that sets the tone of the whole blog.

(On a personal note, I can't really read brown on brown. I prefer tan backgrounds over white, but with black text.)

Thank you very, very much! I needed to hear this.

I definitely don't want to go overboard with the dark and gritty thing. You know, with the ultra-goth color scheme, the author pic of my face cloaked in shadow, etc...but it's too light right now, I agree. I want to be able to share some of the more fascinating tidbits about, say, my PTSD research without my readers getting Mood Whiplash because of the presentation.

Now that I have a clearer idea of what I do and don't want to talk about, a rewrite of my About section is definitely in order. Thank you for calling my attention to that. :) And I will also see what can be done about the text colors to make it readable for everyone. Fortunately, I'll have an expert's guidance!

I do dearly love the turtle (or is he a tortoise? I thought he was a turtle because of the feet, but his shell is rather round), but perhaps he does need to be moved to somewhere slightly less prominent in favor of something else. I can't get rid of him entirely though, or mccardey will leave me. :(



And Linda, I really appreciate your input. That blog post was fantastic! It really pinned down exactly what I want to avoid, and gave me a few idea seeds too.

You make some good points about having two blogs. I don't want blogging time to detract from writing time, and since time management is a skill I'm somewhat lacking, I can easily see the pitfalls of maintaining two.

I was at least smart enough to have my author name as my blog name, but yeah, I should put it somewhere else on the site too.

As you folks can see, I'm wishy-washy on the two blog thing. >.< I'm giving it a lot of consideration and see the pros and cons of both approaches. I'm so grateful for the advice I've been given in this thread! I want to be a good client two weeks from now (I've heard horror stories) and this is helping me immensely. :Hail:
 

aikigypsy

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I'm in the same boat, more or less. I had a personal blog which I maintained for a while a few years ago, but then facebook took off and I find that it's plenty for me, in terms of a personal online presence. Professional online presence is another beast entirely.

I'm now looking to establish a new blog, under my own domain name, which will be more about who I am as a writer. But who am I, as a writer? How can I find a common thread among all my many interests, and the dozens of projects I have planned and in the works? Do I want to make money directly from my blog, or what?

There have been a lot of helpful comments here.

...blogging, like writing, is much less about Achieving Perfection and much more about Better Than It Was Before. If you can do that consistently over the long term, I think you will be in GREAT shape.

That is awesome advice!
 

Dreity

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A funny side note that's not really an update: About an hour ago I published my "darkest" entry yet. That's really not saying much since I have so few entries anyway and they've all been either neutral or generally positive, but anyway. I had a close relative share it on FB, which was very cool, but she also noted that I had some "interesting thoughts and observations". I just had to laugh at her word choice. This relative is one of the sunniest, most positive people I know, a true joy to be around, so I'm sure it was strange for her to catch a glimpse of my slightly grayer perspective on life and humanity. :tongue