Resources & Tools For Authors

Your brand is your author name.

Everything posted online in a website, social media, or a blog help add content to your author brand.

Even unpublished, you can create worthwhile graphics to build your brand.

Figuring out the what and how to creating your brand and content can be a bit overwhelming. If you are interested in learning tips to help build your brand, sign up for my newsletter.

But for now, I’ll share some tools I have used to develop my own brand and content.

Graphics

WordSwag

I love the WordSwag App.  For a small cost in the app store, you can create memes for your social media fast and easy.  Use any photo from your phone and customize the text with either given quotes or creating your own verbiage.  This is a great way to create scripture graphics using a nature pic, or quoting a line from your manuscript. There’s even a way to enter a watermark so you can have your website listed at the bottom, branding your content.

CANVA.com

I love using Canva. This website lets you create all sorts of media, including fliers, bookmarks, and social media sized images. You can upload your own pictures you’ve taken or purchased (please make sure you use a royalty free image if you have not purchased it) and use the color codes selected from design-seeds.com. You have the choice to use existing designs or create your own. I’ve used this program to design bookmarks, social media graphics, and even my son’s high school graduation announcement. There is a free version or a subscription version which allows you to create an image in one size and convert it to different media formats.

Colors

Design-Seeds.com

I was introduced to this website when I took a graphics class from an author friend. With numerous color palettes to choose from, you can select certain colors and grab the color codes. These color codes are universal and work within Photoshop, Canva, or other graphic programs.  So anyone you hire for cover designs or creating materials can use these codes and you would have a consistent look.

Having a recognizable color scheme with your author brand is a great way to build awareness and identity across your materials including books, social media, and your website.

Ask yourself, ‘What are the colors I want to associate with my author name?’ Select 5-6 colors from light to dark and use them in everything you create. Your website, graphics for social media, and yes, even to incorporate into your book cover designs. (You can then select additional colors for that specific series or book).

I would recommend creating a Pinterest board where you save the photos of the color schemes you like and reference back to them.

Once you’ve selected a palette of colors for your brand, write down the color numbers to use in your graphics.

Online Learning

Stay Tuned! I’m in the process of developing on-demand classes. I’m very excited to teach on Brand, SEO, and Content creation.

In the meantime, If you would like to learn more about these and other programs, I would highly recommend signing up for the teachable class Author Elena Dillon has created titled Visual Content Marketing for Authors.  These are all on-demand classes (meaning you can sign up and take them without being scheduled in a set class). She also offers a Scrivener class and a Pinterest class. Take a look at http://confused-and-terrified-writer.teachable.com/  Her videos offer step by step instructions and she provides written out lessons explaining things in detail.

Denise graduated from CSUF with a degree in Communications, landed an internship with a fortune 500 corporation, and proceeded to earn her MBA in Marketing while working through the ranks. Over the past 25+ years, she has held positions in Marketing Services, Product Marketing, and Trade Marketing, as well as been a freelance Marketing Professional for several small and medium sized companies. Denise has used her marketing and writing skills as a volunteer social media director for the SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference and has an author platform called Denise M. Colby, with her own brand, website, blog and social media. She has published two poems/articles in two books and eight magazine articles to date, and is editing her Historical Romance novel she’s written. Currently she works for NDS as a E-Commerce Content Marketing Manager, which is a fancy way to say she does a mixture of copywriting, spreadsheets and project management.