Your Loyal Reader Base

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief for Southern Writers Magazine 

Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit, said, “A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is.”

I was reading this statement and thought about authors, their books, and their readers.

Do you wonder what your readers tell others about your books?

We’ve been preached to on how important it is––branding. By now, don’t we know pretty much all there is to know?

No! We don’t. The reason is we package our branding but we have no control over how the reader perceives it because it filters through their minds.

The most important thing about branding is creating name recognition.

Why this is done is simple, we want a loyal reader base who wants to read our books we write and expectantly wait for the next one.

So how does successful branding come about? By understanding your readers––what they want to read. Look at your books, what are they about? What is the core? Then ask yourself what kind of reader wants to read this type of book? What would the needs of readers who want to read this type of book be? The more layers you can peel back the deeper you will see what your book offers, which will help you in your writing, promoting and selling your books.

I read somewhere that branding is an expression of who we are and what we offer.

Our reader has to identify with us then they become a loyal fan and reader.

I think Bernard Kelvin Clive, Ghana’s foremost authority on Personal Branding, says it best, “Author branding is the process of positioning an author as the center of attraction and influence, to be the preferred choice in a given theme, style, category, niche or genre”.