Forgiveness and Group Branding

I am guilty.

I am guilty of not having a set routine, of not setting goals to check off, of procrastination...which is why this blog post is late.

Forgive me.

So what have I found to get you thinking for the next week.

The Author as Publisher...this thought was revolving around my head as I hung up the washing on the first sunny day here in two weeks. The Wall Street Journal has a good overview of what is happening with Amazon moving into the publishing market. They use several author experiences as case studies. In particular the royalty amount Amazon is paying (70%) which makes it worthwhile to look at what they are offering to authors and how this changes the publishing landscape.

With all these possibilities in mind Tony Eldridge retweeted a blog post from October last year on marketing plans with a multiple pronged attack. This is a handy list and as he says you don’t have to do all of it. One of his bullet points is joint ventures. Tony had already posted an excellent article on the synergy of working with other authors on a joint venture. Each week as I research my blog post I am finding more of these author collective initiatives. They are a very good idea.

Create a Group Presence

If you are finding the whole author online presence very daunting, get together with a few friends and create a group presence. This divides up the work each author has to do online. It promotes collective branding as a group. It can give you wider exposure.

A while ago I talked with Stacy Nyikos about the class of 2k8 and how that was set up and how it operates. It is such a good idea that it has morphed branding on its own with 2k9, and 2k10....

In a collective author venture everybody has input into the brand. The brand promotes itself collectively and individually. The brand provides speakers to events, a fan club to promote them, a built in author blog tour....

You can be as big a presence as you want and can cope with, from Readergirlz with their video TV channel to PBJunkies, writers with its focus on parent events.

(Note: As I was loading up the links to the blog I found this one for dystopian writers, courtesy of P J Hoover of Spectacle writers....)

In Facebook land I am part of a collective of writers experimenting with writing a group book. We are still developing the story but alongside we are brainstorming ways that we can bring children along for the ride online. We are going to have to think seriously about collective and individual branding the project. This all seems like adult work...when at the moment the collective energy and camaderie has us feeling like the kids at the back of the class having a secret plan and executing it while the teacher (publisher) is not looking. When we grow up and put the whole project on a more serious footing, it is still going to be fun given the personalities involved....

So having confessed I spend too much time researching social networking...Chip McGregor of McGregor Literary has a timely reminder with a guest post by Rob Eagar of what an author should be doing with the 10 plus hours they spend online.

Following on from this is a good post by Mike Duran on routine and how this can benefit an author’s career. He makes the point that he never understood why his agents asked him how fast he wrote a novel...and why that fact is important to know.

This month is SoCNoC. (Southern Cross Novel Challenge)Yes, here in the Southern Hemisphere we have our own NaNoWrMo (National Novel Writing Month) in a winter month. Kiwiwriters.org are organising it and people from all around the world are taking part which goes to show that authors like a goal and need a whip cracking challenge to apply butt in chair.

I attended Ruth Paul’s Two Little Pirates Book launch last night, at The Children’s Bookshop. The publishers representative commented in her speech that so proud are they of this book they had ordered 19,000 copies to be printed and distributed in Australia and Canada as well as here in New Zealand. This is a well deserved accolade for one of our best writer illustrators. Two Little Pirates is gorgeous!

Over on Craicerplus (my amplify page)

Marketing Tips for Authors 10 Tips on Preparing A Speech

The Number One Habit of Highly Creative People

The Three Best Takeaways from Book Expo America (this is a must read on copyright and royalty changes)

Author Marketing Experts inc.Free Toys and Downloads for Authors

Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize longlist...great lit for under 10s

Enjoy

maureen

Pic is the cover of Two Little Pirates

Branding with coffee and gin...

This week’s blog post looks at some of the latest comments on branding being talked about in the fiction writing world.

Jane at Dear Author has been looking at book branding. She has posted an interesting article on publisher brands and author brands....with a host of spot the difference visuals...She asks the question

With an increasing number of books on the market, the biggest challenge a reader has is finding a good book to read. Do you rely on Author branding? Do you look to see who the publisher is? Does it matter to you? How long does it take you to associate something (either negative or positive) to a book brand, whether it be author or publisher (i.e., 1 book, 2 books, etc.)?

And the comments came thick and fast...there is much food for thought in our own sphere of children’s books. I know authors who grab each new Gecko Press book released by Julia Marshall. We don’t know the authors but the expectation that the standard will be high is the pick up factor. Great publisher branding!

Guy LeCharles Gozalez of Loudpoet predicts that the publishers are going to increase their publisher brands...i.e. become more visual on the cover (think orange and white penguin classics)

Guy has an interesting discussion going after his post about book publishing being a business decision verses an artistic decision.

Something I’m sure all authors must mull over...Am I an arteest or am I in it for the money?

If you are in it for the money(ha.ha.), Coree Silvera has a post on her blog - marketlikeachick on marketing yourself as your main product...this post has been tweeted all over the place....(ahhh new verbs... )

Personal branding is now more important than ever in communities. People are buying you. If I don’t like you, I’m not only NOT going to from you, but I am blocking you and telling all my friends what I think of you too. (Hmmph!) That’s the power of social networking. We all talk and word of mouth can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

Editorial Ass (aka Moonrat) has done a fabulous series of posts on The Perfect Author, the Dream Editor and she has just finished up with the Absolute Agent. Moonrat is ‘a tell it like it is’ writer. Her blog is one of the gems out there.

I love her description of herself in the About Me sidebar....coffee and gin survivalist...that’s me going into the last week of school...various end of year shows to get kids to rehearsals and performances, Christmas present angst and my heart is sinking just thinking about Christmas music practice...I might locate my spouse by Christmas...I think he lives here? (Year End projects mean he works late... leaves early...hopes his washing is done and there is food in the fridge...)

Yup... what I want for Christmas is a wife!

maureen

pic is called Bombay Gin!

Being Social...the latest trend...

This week I have been mulling over trends. As the mailbox begins to fill up with junk mail advertising pre Christmas sales and this years hot trends for presents. To live a fulfilled life...it’s all about having the latest gadget...I was interviewing children this week about Christmas and they basically quoted their want list from the Dick Smith catalogue, starting with a new laptop and cell phone...these were 9yr olds!

I remember thinking at nine that a holiday would be fantastic and maybe a new book...

This week Publishers Weekly came out with a very comprehensive survey on What Teens Want based on a surveyTeenreads.com took with over 3000 teens. There is some surprising information in this report and some very valuable information to authors- for instance this little quote

We asked teens how they like to interact with their favorite authors. More than eight out of 10 (85%) visit the Web sites of their favorite authors for information about upcoming titles, and 65% would like to interact with an author at an in-store event. Other choices: library events (55%), book festivals (54%), in-school events (44%) and blogs (32%); and book and reader blogs (31%). Social networking sites like Facebook, Good Reads and My Space come in at 19%, lower than we expected

The kind of information that this article is stuffed full of should be passed around among all the children’s lit authors. It is invaluable.

So if you were wondering about whether you need to up your game in the online world the answer is Yes because generally where the teens lead the mid grade follow...after they get over the interactive fairy and pony web games.

You do need a website and some sort of interactive presence. Social media sites? Maybe a presence there, but not an all consuming live my life daily there presence, according to how I am interpreting the report.

Here in New Zealand we are lucky in that we do have time to mull over what we might do, and or how to approach this social media online public lifestyle. Our teens generally follow on a bit later from North American teens.

The speed of change means that we need to be giving some serious thought to our online presence.

Colleen Coble, multi published author, wrote a guest post on Michael Hyatts blog about using Social media to build the author brand. She has an interesting list of things that she is doing with social media and how it is impacting her visibility in the world. She has some good advice which is worth taking the time to think about. And the following video shows the speed of change that we have to be aware of....

In another trend, yesterday, Random House announced that they had bought Longacre Press.

I saw the press release on Beatties BookBlog...No one saw that coming a month ago.

It does change the shape of children’s publishing here in New Zealand, with only one independent left.

Much food for thought this week...

maureen

pic is the cover of my business card...blurry sorry...it is the barred spiral nebula.

Business or Networking?

Recently I have been thinking about business cards. People attending the Spinning Gold Conference are going to need one (if reported experiences of overseas conferences are anything to go by...)

But what use is the business card to a writer?

Writing is a business but you don’t have to be tied in to the standard business card model.

The Business Card is a Networking Card.

Networking cards have a different focus. They can have a personal statement or quote on them describing you - a selling point if you are looking for a job, a list of your achievements, a mini cv, your book cover or website logo or a classy photo of yourself....

A while ago I posted about branding for writers. It is something that I see as being of more and more benefit to creative people.
For a writer your name is your brand. So your networking card needs to reflect something of your personality /name/ brand.

One of my very favourite networking cards is Bob Kerr’s. For those of you who have met Bob Kerr, you will appreciate the genius of his business /networking card.

Bob is very tall. Bob wears jeans most days and is a fabulous illustrator and fine art exhibitor. Bob’s card reflects the first view most people have when they meet him. It is his self portrait in oils from the waistband of his jeans down. On the back of the card are his name and studio details.

Of course before you become famous and can employ staff to answer the phone (or not, as the baby is running and answering the phone for me at the moment) you don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harriet interrupting your creative time so what information do you want or need on your networking card?

In my researching of different business cards I have found that concerns about identity theft are changing the way some people are thinking about the information they put on their networking card. Their address and phone numbers and personal email address’s are not on the card. All their web contacts are tho, website, blog, twitter, facebook etc urls are listed on the card.

So if you are thinking about your contact details maybe an online email address is for you. Don’t forget that you can write a personal phone number down on the card before you hand it to someone important. You will get a pen at the conference...(and some other goodies.... )

If you are a creative....and all writers are, we have a unique opportunity to make our networking card stand out, reflect our personality and say something about us.

I am enjoying working with my very creative friend, Trish, on ideas for my networking card which will get its debut at the Spinning Gold conference.

It would be great to see, at the conference, networking cards reflecting the personalities of the wonderful writers and illustrators we have here.

If you want some inspiration Smashing Magazine recently posted an article on some of the best and most creative cards out there with comments about their effectiveness and if you want a most different take on the business card watch the video...




Happy creative branding
maureen

marketing and the author brand...or 8 links to stardom

Once again I’ve missed my regular blog day....sorry all you regular readers...however if you check out Fifi’s blog, she has a blog roll which shows who has updated lately...quite a handy little list and it must pull in more readers to her blog...great marketing Fifi....

While you are looking at her list, check out the neat link to her craft classes for kids...she has to make the studio pay...(and we’d all like her to keep the studio going... coz it’s a handy meeting space with everything you need, great parking at the door, big table to spread your gear around...)

Today following on from a comment made by Tim I am going to muse about Author Branding.

"Eh What?" I hear you splutter...

Yes...Remember when I raved about meeting Stacy...among the snippets I gleaned was the way The Class of 2k8 was set up and why.

In the States now the author is expected to get out and really push the book. Gone are the days when the publisher’s publicity department did that work. Because of this, authors are frequently at a loss as to how to go about their books P.R.

Canny Greg Fishbone of 2k7 decided that if a whole pile of debut authors got together and started telling the world in as many ways as possible about themselves as The (Brand) Class of 2k7, people would be more interested.

Voila! And so they were...

Debut authors were invited for 2k8 and beyond (Canny Greg having registered the brand names.)

The collective Brand gives these authors a voice and an identity which would otherwise be lost in the huge publishing world out there. All the authors commit money to the brand so that a Youtube video book trailer can be made of their book...and the videos all have the same feel (brand identity)

All the authors have websites and blogs and so does the Brand. The Brand profiles the release dates of each Partner Author with interviews... virtual parties... guest blogs...etc. Partner Authors do the same on their own website and blog. Suddenly you have 30 people out there promoting your book like crazy...instead of just you on your own.(quid pro quo)

Now it gets interesting...Because there are librarian conferences, reading conferences, literature conferences etc...who all need speakers, The Brand supplies Panels and Speakers to these conferences. They have the topic and collectively within the Brand can supply

The PB,YA, Mid Grade writers...on the topic, New Voices in publishing (coz they are all debut) or New Trends (coz they are all debut ) or whatever is interesting.

P J Hoover has been giving talks about code cracking and new alphabets etc all based on the research she did for her book, The Emerald Tablet at Lit. Conferences.

Stacy Nyikos has been coordinating the organisation of panellists for The Class of 2k8...that means finding out who’s available and getting them to an event. The authors meet before hand to make sure they are all on the right page with their presentations and to make sure that a local bookshop has ordered in copies of their books to sell....

The speaker’s fee they get means that sometimes they break even, sometimes they make a little, sometimes they lose out. But their individual profile and their brand profile is lifted....and don’t forget that the other Brand Partners are out there talking up the fact that...X, Y and Z will be speaking at ....

And that my friends solves the problem of ‘What brand am I when I write across the age groups?’ that children’s authors have with Author Branding...that genre fiction authors don’t have (they just change their name.)

Theresa Meyers of Blue Moon Communications has written a great article about Author Branding on seven steps you need to take to get an author brand...here’s a little taste.

At this point you might be scratching your head and asking, "Why do I need an author brand anyway? I'm small right now."

The point is you want to grow big, right?

You can take a long, painful, expensive trip to get to from point A to point B without a road map or make it there for far less expense, time and effort with a map. All I am trying to get you to do it creating your brand is build your map first.

Hats off to Greg Fishbone for a brilliant idea.

Hi to Tricia Hoover and Stacy Nyikos who probably have a google alert out on their names and books...now that is a great idea. (Check out Stacy’s blog for her diary on her research trip to NZ, absolutely brilliant...you will be cheering her on...)

I’m off to think up some great brand names for our conference...email me or comment back if you have some brilliant thoughts on what to call the National Conference of New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators 2009...(what a mouthful...)

pic is The constellation.. Kiwi....coz we need some local constellation names...courtesy of the Phoenix

Astronomical Society gurus...