I wrote a blog post this month on Developing Strong Decision Making Skills as a Writer. You need to develop the same skills when it comes to making decisions for your author brand.
But how do you know what types of decisions to make for your brand when you are just starting out as an author?
When starting out, there are many decisions for your author brand to consider.
What genre will you write in?
Will you write in only one genre or multiple?
Do you want to have a pen name or use your own?
Should you include your middle initial or not?
What colors, taglines, and graphics do you want to use for your website?
Are there blog topic ideas you can write about to help build your brand?
Who is your audience and what do they want to read? How do you reach them?
These are all questions a writer needs to ask when they are building their brand and developing a website and social media. And of course, all the fears and doubts rear their ugly head with each decision.
If you are anything like me, it can be a little immobilizing.
Sometimes making decisions for your author brand means trying something out.
You won’t have all the answers right away. You can only make decisions with the information you do have at the time. Your decisions will change as you grow in your writing and content. So for today, make decisions based on where you are right now.
I strongly encourage you to do some research with each decision.
A few google searches for the names you are considering may help you decide what to do.
Someone else was using my name Denise Colby as a website address. I then had to decide how I wanted my name to be different. I narrowed my author name down to three choices (adding an initial (my maiden name (M) vs my middle name (C), or choosing a different name altogether), and ran it by both friends and author friends. I then started building graphics using them to see what it would look like.
Yes it’s important to know where you want to go. But you can’t build your platform all at once. You have to build it step by step, adding content to your website organically. I encourage you to make decisions based on what you have now. Then as you add content, you can change things as the need arises.
Brand building takes practice and patience.
You have to start somewhere. Why not get started today!
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