Today, a lot of people tend to think that a brand is pretty much code for a logo.  But a brand is so much more than that. It’s about what that logo represents.  And this is no less important when it comes to marketing your book.

Let’s take a deeper look.

Book marketing—being a type of marketing—includes an understanding of branding. When it’s done properly, a branding research project is conducted over a number of months and results in a massive document that is full of key information about your company, your ideal customers, your competitors and your opportunities.

It results in information that will help you get the most out of your marketing communication dollars.

The Key True Messages

A branding exercise will stray into the ever important area of your logo, as well as the key true messages your ideal clients or customers need to hear about your business in order to know that you are the ideal supplier for them. It conveys emotion and personality.  In the field of book marketing, it is your book cover that gives your ideal reader their first inkling about whether your book might be a good fit for them or not.

Many branding experts note that your brand represents the promise you make to your customer about what they can expect from your book. It differentiates your book from those of other authors, and it expresses who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.

Are you the innovator in your industry?

The creative problem-solver?

The high-cost, high-quality option, or the low-cost, get-the-job-done alternative?

Are you mystical?

Intuitive?

You can’t be all things to all people and your brand/book cover represents the start of a relationship with the people who you are serving with your book.  Your website, packaging and promotional materials—into all of which your logo and, of course, your book cover should be integrated—communicate your brand.

Remember that images of your book cover will be presented alongside graphic elements of your website. You want them to seem aligned, if at all possible.

If you haven’t investigated your brand yet, and you haven’t formalized the information you’ve accumulated about it in a document that anyone can read, the people who create content for you are going to have to guess about what your target customers need to know about you in order to find you appealing.

Stay tuned for our next blog in this series, so you can build your base of information needed to increase book sales and share your message more broadly.

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