A brand in general, or particular, can be a name or a logo of the company but the consumers identify the product (or services) just by hearing or looking at it. A lot of technical marketing strategies and advertising goes into brand building. Influencer marketing, for instance, is one of the most popular futuristic strategies for brand awareness. PR agencies take care of the brand’s reputation and react to sudden criticism in a way that manages to keep the brand image intact.
An author is a person who spends a lot of time thinking and writing his/her heart out, mostly following the passion to reach as many people as possible and create an impact on them. But due to the current scenario of thousands of books hitting the market simultaneously, most of the books get lost and may not reach the readers. Unless the person is JK Rowling or Chetan Bhagat, most of the time she would struggle to market the book to its target audience.
Why do most authors struggle to build themselves or their books as brands? Is it because they cannot afford to spend on the high profile PR activities, or is it because they are themselves not aware of the latest brand-building strategies? The number of reasons to think this can be numerous, perhaps everyone might have a unique one. On most occasions, these are mere excuses. The real reasons may be any of the following:
Repetitive Content – This does not mean that text presented in the book is the same as that already in another book or online article. It means that the content or the writing style is similar. On most occasions, the books we read affect our writing style too. Knowingly or no, the final content that the author presents in the book tends to be something comparable to the famous book that the readers may have already read. This is a huge drawback in terms of brand building and book marketing.
Irrelevant Content – The fiction readers crave to read engaging content that forces them to turn the pages over one by one without losing interest at any point. The non-fiction readers yearn to read and attain knowledge related to their problems. If the book does not provide the solution to their problem, they don’t seem to like it. The authors need to be careful of writing to the point and not too long and boring sequences that have no fruitful implications on the plot (fiction) or to the problem (non-fiction.) People are not interested in the colour of the shoes of the character, they are more interested in the conversation.
The above two are the things that the commercial brands (products and services) do just the right way. Even if the offering is similar to the one that is already available, the branding makes all the difference. And if the content of the book is good, all the author needs to do is to opt for a bit of digital marketing (it is 2021) to reach the target readers and build a brand.
