Crafting Your Author Brand

Interview Transcript:

Emma:

Well, hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Be a Bestseller 5.0, how to Be An Entrepreneur. And as you know, the purpose of this series is to help you not just start, not just finish, but publish your book so that you can start your own Authorpreneur journey. And today's guest is the lovely Tiffany Grimes. And Tiffany is a writer, a book coach, and an author, website designer, and she's on a mission to amplify marginalized voices through unflinching and inclusive book coaching and design. She's the founder of Burgeon Design and Editorial and hosts the Art of Self-Editing, a free writing community, Revision Alchemy, an online editing course for fiction and memoir writers and the Burgeon Mastermind, a six month writing collective. Busy lady. So today we're going to be talking about crafting your author brand, the power of authentic branding and messaging for Authorpreneurs. So welcome Tiffany, great to have you here, and what a great topic.

Tiffany:

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here!

Emma:

Yeah, me too, me too. Really am, because we haven't chatted for a long time. We were realizing it's maybe sort of two, three years ago now, but this is a great topic I think for entrepreneurs, whether you're indie published or traditionally published, we need to think about brand, and I'm hoping I'm not alone on this, but when that word sort of scares me a little bit, just like marketing does, when I think of the word brand, it makes me think of those big brands. The big ones have big marketing departments and advertising people. And so I'm really keen to be talking to you about this and learning more about it and you're going to demystify it for me a bit, so I'm looking forward to that.

Tiffany:

Yeah, absolutely!

Emma:

But before we delve into that, for any of our viewers who haven't met you before, I wonder if you'd just give us a little introduction to who you are and how you got to be a writer, a coach, and all the things you do.

Tiffany:

Yeah, my journey starts back in elementary school. My school had this young authors program, so every year they brought in, I think they were local authors, but you had to write a book and one person from each class got selected and I got selected every year of course, but before that I hated writing, I hated reading. I was a foster kid and I didn't get adopted until I was 10, so school just wasn't really a priority or anything like that. But once I finally found my way to books, they changed my life. I was reading, I think I won the most accelerated reader points in sixth grade. I know a lot of people dunno what that is, but you had to basically read books and get points for them. And I read the most books and got the most points. I got a little trophy basically by fourth grade.

I was very adamant that I was going to be a writer, and I actually really resisted turning to editing for a really long time. I went to school for writing, grad school for writing, and everybody kept telling me, my professors and advisors kept telling me that I would make a good editor, and I was like, no, I really want to focus on my own writing. But then the more I edited, the more I kind of fell in love with it. And I actually like editing more than the writing, the drafting. I love being a writer, but drafting as a chore and editing is the fun part. So I'm one of those rare people who will not tell you to not edit while you're drafting if I do it because it's the only way I can get through it.

Emma:

I think that's fascinating because yes, no editing is it. What is it that you love about the editing process as opposed to the drafting process?

Tiffany:

I feel like crafting something from nothing is just impossible, even though we do it all the time, but it just feels so impossible. But when you have something there, even if I will use a text to talk to text feature or something and just get something on the page, then I can play with it and puzzle it and piece it out. And it's like surgery more than this. I don't think I've ever heard a writer call it surgery. I don't think I've ever called it surgery, but that feels the most accurate right now. It's just like you get to make something so much better and that's really fun and I like it.

Emma:

I just exemplify so well how we are all so different and what lights us up is different and the way that we work in our process, I'm completely the opposite in that I love the first drafting it is that the alchemy phase to take your word, but I do like the fact that, oh my goodness, something surprising could happen and then later on I'm like, no, now I've got to make it make sense and piece it all together. So I'm very glad editors exist.

Tiffany:

Well, not all as weird as me, but we all have our different weirdness I guess.

Emma:

We do. We definitely do. We definitely do. So now you're hosting these different, your editing, your coaching and your hosting your different communities, and do you like having that sort of a mix of job roles in your life?

Tiffany:

I do. I think working one-on-one with authors is really great, but it's not always accessible and not everybody needs it. And so when you get a bunch of authors together, they can help each other so much too. Just one person. And I just have one opinion and it's so collaborative and I just think that writing communities can completely change lives and yeah, they've changed my life. I learned so much from my writers in communities and I love it.

Emma:

Well, you're going to be talking to today about something that's sort of one, well, let me ask you actually the question. Is brand something that we don't need to worry about until we've published that book or we're close to publishing that book? Or do you feel that actually it's something that we need to think about as we're drafting or editing writing the book?

Tiffany:

Yeah, I know a lot of people kind of think that they should just wait until they have a product because they're like, brand is selling a product and sure, that's part of it. But if you think of it as creating a kind of following or community or just a group of people who respect and like you so that you can sell to them when your product is ready, you need to start as soon as possible basically. And also, we don't really think about this, but we all have a personal brand that's just as a human being existing in the world. We already have a brand. It's just how other people see us and how we want them to see us. So if you think about it in astrology terms, it's like your moon sign versus your sun sign, but basically it's just kind of curating how you want someone to see you.

And so if you take that a step back with your author brand, it's how you want your reader to feel and see your kind of authorship as a whole. I have a little analogy. If you think of brand as the DNA of your authorship, it can be really helpful. It has different elements that go into it, not just the logos and the pictures and the typography, but all of these different things that we're going to talk about today. And they form this very vague word called your author brand and your brand builds trust. It establishes your credibility, it makes your work more memorable. I think that a lot of authors have an author brand and they don't even know it and they're not utilizing it to their full potential. And then there are some brands who are author brands who are absolutely killing it. And you can see exactly why when you kind of study it.

Emma:

Yeah, yeah, no, everything you're saying is sort of making sense to me, and when I think about it in sort the big world thinking, I go, yeah, yeah, that makes sense, that makes absolute sense. Then I think about myself and I think I've no idea how to start applying that to myself. So what might be, I think, do you know what it's making me think when we look at our own work, it's really hard to edit our own work objectively. So now it's like, okay, well how do I look at me, my personality, my style, my voice, and kind of put words to that in an objective way? Can you help me?

Tiffany:

I super can. I first want you to remember that I know that we love writing and that's why we've become writers in the first place, but we have to remember that our goal is to sell our books. And when you kind of put it in that angle, even when you are drafting, your goal at the end when you finish is going to be to get this book in the hand of consumers. So you have to understand yourself and who you are, but also your reader and your ideal reader because when we talk to everyone we talk to, no one, we'll see that quote all over the internet when you're talking about brand or anything like that. But we want to hone in on our ideal reader. I like to think of them as a character in a book, makes a little easier to kind of analyze them a little bit more.

And we want to kind of create an ecosystem that helps us show up authentically and creatively and meaningfully and just connect with our readers so vaguely, that's where we're starting. And then to get there, start with your core values. These are the themes, beliefs, causes that resonate with you. This is what you stand for and who you are. I'm going to be sharing a workbook and I list a lot of core values and I kind of just recommend reading them all and highlighting the ones that really resonate with you, like Burgeon Design and Editorial. Our core values align with being authentic and unflinching, but me as a person, I'm going to talk about brand archetypes too, I'm a caregiver and so I'm all about being your warm best friend. I'm going to therapize you a little bit, make you feel safe. But Burgeon, my brand, is very much about smashing the patriarchy and glass ceilings and all of that.

So your personal brand and your author brand might be a little bit different in that sense, getting out of myself, but basically knowing who you stand for and who you are, what you stand for, and who you are, and then what your reader stands for and who they are and their target demographics even. It helps to know exactly what age they are and where they live and what their interests are and where they shop, and all of these things that you would know about your character in a book. And then we're going to create everything to fit around that. And so I've got some exercises in the workbook too, but essentially it's a lot of almost journaling and getting it onto the page to kind of hone it and see what happens.

And I have some examples. I use Chuck (Palaniuk), I never pronounce his last name correctly, but I use him how he might apply this to his brand.

He's very much about being outside of the box and writing the things that are really edgy and interesting, but we're not all like that. Of course, some of us are, let's just actually talk about brand archetypes now because I keep talking about them. So there are 12 archetypes. We have these archetypes that tap into universal themes, and they're everywhere. We see them in stories like Yoda, the Sage and the adventurers, Indiana Jones. These are classic universal themes that are everywhere. So we have the outlaw, the magician, the hero, the lover, the jester, the every man, the caregiver, the ruler, the creator, the innocent, the sage, and the explorer. And so just listing that, that doesn't do much. So I have a couple of examples. So the Magician is a pretty popular one for writers, especially those who write more magical worlds and fantasy and whatnot.

So if we think of Karen Russell as the Magician, she writes these amazingly weird, awesome short stories, but as the magician, the goal is to make dreams come true, leverage the laws of the universe. Some like brand words might be mystical, informed, reassuring. Big brands like Disney, TEDx and Sony are magicians, so it can kind of be helpful to think of that. And so Karen is a magician because her work invokes enchanting worlds, the exploration of the surreal, the seamless blending of reality and fantasy. So she fits it really well. Her online presence, if you look at her website, kind of fits these vibes. And then her social media and the word choices that she used all fit this kind of vibe. So even though it is this, I'm going to talk about astrology again, even though it is this really vague wide box, it's like a starting place to give yourself some walls, a container to fit in, and then you get to do whatever you want with that container.

So Karen is on one end, we have Leigh Bardugo, and Adrianne Young, I feel like they're both slowly turning into little witches on their social media and readers love that. They're like, yes, I want to see all these weird bones and things in jars. I feel like Leigh is always posting lots of body parts in jars and that's perfect for her brand. So she's not quite on the same spectrum as other magicians. 

And then the creator, I think that Charlie Jane Anders would be a good example of the creator, but the creator is the goal is to give new ideas to the world and create structure by bringing something that doesn't previously exist into being. And I wanted to use this one. I feel like a lot of people would argue that that's what we do as writers, but the creator kind of takes it to the extreme.

This is like Lego, Apple, Adobe, those are good examples of creators. But Charlie fits this as a spec fit author. She's known for her imaginative and inventive storytelling. She explores unique worlds characters concepts. Her website is super funky. She has all these beautiful colors. Her signature hair color is hot pink. She's always got hot pink hair. So everything kind of fits like this creator kind of archetype. So starting with that broad angle and then honing in and then creating everything from there is a really good place to start. We want to immediately think of brand as our logo and our website and maybe kind of our little tagline. Maybe those are the top three things that people think of and they're like, what? But you can't even start there. We have to start really broadly with our core values, our target audience and our brand archetype, and then our compelling messaging, and I'm only going to talk about this a little bit right now and then I'm going to talk about it a little bit later.

But your messaging basically guides your interactions with your readers, your publishers, writing community as a whole. It's a little bit like a guidepost for how to show up, and we're going to talk about this later, but with Burgeon for example, there are words that Burgeon will never use. We're not really big on teaching hustle culture. We're never going to tell you that. One time a professor told me that I had too many jobs and I needed to stop working so many jobs, and I was like, you are so out of touch. I'm not working three jobs because I want to, I literally cannot afford grad school. I have to be working through jobs. But she was like, no, you can't. So we're never ever going to tell someone that their lifestyle doesn't fit writing. And then we do have words that we use all the time, like I mentioned unflinching, that's one of our big words, audacious kind of things like that you'll see pop up all over Burgeon. I feel like I talked for a really long time. Does that all make sense?

Emma:

No, it's great. No, it's great that you're doing all the talking because that's what you're here for. We want to learn from you. Please don't apologize, but let me just think. I will just pick you up on, not pick you up, just ask you about a couple of things. So one of the things you said I thought was interesting is that our personal brand, if you like, our personal core values and things, they're not necessarily the same as the author or the business values that we want to embody. And I find that interesting because there's such a lot about just being yourself, but it's making me think of when you were talking, I kind of thought, ah, Sasha Fierce and Beyonce, the wife and mother and daughter is very different to this sexy lady who gets on stage and does all those things as Sasha Fierce, but they're the same person. And thinking about your Charlie Jane Anders who with her shocking pink hair, that's her author brand and stuff. And whilst she may still have pink hair in her day-to-day life, she's probably quite a different person as a partner, as a mother, if she is, and all those kinds of things. So I think that's really interesting and a good one for us to think about. So thank you.

Tiffany:

Yeah, I think it also helps with boundaries too. You get to decide how you want to show up online and how much you want to share and how much access people have to you. Especially today with TikTok and all sorts of other social media where everybody demands, they want to know exactly where everything that you have in every photo comes from, and they want to know your opinion on everything. With all of the unrest going in the world, people come into my dms all the time and they're like, you need to take a stand on this. And I'm like, okay, very interesting that you're telling me what I need to do. And you haven't seen the things that I have shared so far because stories are only 24 hours. So people can be very demanding. And so when you have your guidepost, your boundaries, we're going to talk about this when we talk about the power of authenticity in your brand, but basically you get to decide all of that and you get to be authentic in a way that feels good and safe, especially in today's age.

Emma:

Before we move on to that, I just wanted to say I love archetypes. I absolutely love them and all their different shapes and forums that they come in and for all those different elements of life. So I'm really looking forward to delving into your workbook. In other areas of my life, I've just found them to be so useful, and whilst not everything might be perfect and spot on for me as an individual, most things are. And the other thing I love about archetypes is it makes me realize, oh, I'm not such an odd board then because someone's recognized that this is a behavior type, therefore other people must be like me as well. So I've taken a lot of reassurance from that.

Tiffany:

Yeah, that's why I wanted to share the different companies too, because for example, the lover, we have Chanel on one end and Godiva and then Hallmark. So those brands are completely different. So you get to put your own spin on your archetype and do whatever you want. And also just because I'm saying that I think a brand fits this or an author fits this, doesn't mean that they actually do. You might argue like, oh, I think this brand would actually be over here or this author would be over here. 

So all of it is very subjective, just like everything else in life and your spin on it is going to be your unique spin on it and how you show up and what you're obsessed with is going to kind of play into it too. So I don't ever want it to feel limiting. I just want it to feel like taking away that blank page for people like me who don't like blank pages and having a starting place and then going from there. I think when we look at what came before us, we can save so much time and energy then trying to just, I feel like if we don't do that, then we'll just never create an author brand. So having a template will help so much.

Emma:

Especially when you're at new to in as a new concept and it's a little bit overwhelming. This is great, and would I be right to think as well that people's brands evolve and change as they do, and so it's not set in stone. You don't need to decide this, and then you can't ever change it,

Tiffany:

Especially if you write in different genres and whatnot. That is another thing to talk about. If you already know you're going to write in different genres, it can be helpful because you can kind of elevate your brand so that it's larger than you. I think that's a pitfall that people have when they make their entire website match their book. I'm like, that's great. What happens when your next book comes out? Do you have to make your next book cover match that too, or is it just all going to clash? So your kind of brand transcends your one manuscript or your one thing that you're writing, and it's always evolving. My brand for Burgeon used to be all light blues and light colors, and I really embraced the caregiver aspect because that's who I was. And that was my starting, I think before I even named my business Burgeon, I was kind of going by Tiffany Grimes, editor, so it was just “me.”

And so as I kind of have made it larger and I have a team now, I'm like, we're not all caregivers. We are changing the world. We want to make an impact on the world. We want it to be bigger than just me. So that is when I turned to the outlaw archetype, actually Burgeon is an Outlaw. And so some brands that are outlaws, Uber, Diesel, Harley Davidson is a really common example of an outlaw, but Burgeon is nothing like Harley Davidson. So that is a good example of how you can put your own unique spin on it. But yeah, it just has changed so much. And then since I rebranded, I think I rebranded at the end of last year, I've already kind of tweaked and tailored and thought of new ways of how I can change my messaging to fit the people I'm trying to talk to. So it's all trial and error and seeing what makes sense and getting that feedback from your community. If you're not landing well with what you start with, we have to adapt and change. We're not going to just hunker down and keep doing the same thing that's not working. Yeah,

Emma:

And you've mentioned the power of authenticity before, but I'm guessing because we're looking at maybe using those archetypes as a starting point, then that is coming from us and this is already a good authentic place to start developing that brand. So when you mentioned the authenticity, why do you feel that authenticity is so in our branding?

Tiffany:

I think that authenticity is actually powerful just in our lives as a whole. Everybody wants to strive for originality, but originality doesn't exist. What does exist is authenticity. You are the only–if we gave 10 authors the same book prompt or even a title with a full synopsis and everything–you would have 10 different books because everybody has their own stuff that makes up who they are, for lack of a better phrase, we have our own journeys that got us here, our own challenges, our own triumphs. But as a culture and as a whole world, I think everybody just really loves authenticity. And I think that's a big reason why Colleen Hoover has over a million followers on TikTok and Instagram. She just gets up there and starts talking, and she's just sharing her normal life and she has a normal house. I think she's finally bought her mom a house or something like that, but she's just a normal person and we love that.

We don't want you to be this larger than life full makeup showing your private jet. I don't know. We can't relate with that to that. We just want to see real people doing real things existing in the world, being real and relatable. And so just thinking of that and then thinking of who we connect with as authors that we like and follow online. One of my favorite people to follow is Victoria Avi Yard. She shares her outfits of the day and her avocado bagels and shows her trips, and her doctor, husband, I don't know, she just is very fun to follow. She's just sharing her normal life and she absolutely has boundaries. We talked about having boundaries to keep you safe. I think it's really helpful to think of two or three niche topics to talk about and then use those as your guiding post.

You're only going to share those three things. If we're looking at Victoria Aveyard, she's always sharing her food. They're big foodies for her husband, and so they make pasta from scratch all the time, and that can be fun to watch. And then she shares her travels, and then she will share some behind the scenes of writing. And I know that that's a really common one for people to fall back on, but you do not have to do that if you don't want to or you just, I don't know. I know some people think of other writers as their competition, which I don't think is the move, but I've seen people like Rainbow Rowell being like, no, I'm not going to give you any advice. Here're my competition. Don't do that necessarily, but have your two or three things. I mentioned Leigh Bardugo earlier with her little witchy jars.

She shares her gothic jewelry. Her house has these really cute little just displays. She has this chandelier that has snakes on it or something like that. I don't know. But she shares her kind of three things. Plus she's promoting her book so you can kind of analyze any author I feel like, and find that Celeste ing, she creates these little miniatures and she's always sharing those. So have your three things that you share and then have the things that you don't want to share. I think it can be so vulnerable and scary to show up online and get more and more followers and have the constant need to be checking likes and comments and all of that, and that can spiral and become really dangerous. 

So just creating boundaries upfront is going to help so much what you're willing to share, what you're not willing to share. You have your three topics and then kind of go from there. You can share other things. I know that Leigh Bardugo has a chronic condition, and so she'll share pictures of her with her cane. She writes characters like Kaz Brekker has a cane, really, she cares about advocacy and inclusive media representation and whatnot. So what you're obsessed with and what you care about and what you advocate for in the world is going to kind of leak its way into your brand, and you should stand up for what you believe in. Absolutely.

Emma:

Yeah, some wonderful advice there. And I think it will surprise people to know that they can just share themselves in normal kind of thing, and people will still like it. I think that we feel that we've got to put on a persona when we are doing our social media or photographs or whatever, but actually seeing those lovely highlight moments of being an author is great. But then we also want to see that people are just normal too. And if people like Les and Colleen Hoover are doing it, then we can do it too. Well, it just seems it's part and parcel of being an entrepreneur these days that those are kind of old days where you didn't have to do this, have gone, and those of us that are a bit older have to embrace it and just kind of do what we can. And it gets easier, I think with time and less intimidating and less frightening.

I think you've probably grown up with it. This is just second nature to you, but for many of us, this is a learned skill, but we can learn it. We can learn it. I am just conscious of time, Tiffany. It's been so fascinating and I love your examples and how you're sharing things and really encouraging people to stand up for them, be themselves and put those boundaries in place, but also feel free to share what we care about. So I'd love it if you tell us just a little bit about the work, the worksheet, which you mentioned, the workbook crafting your author brand, it's called, and I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about it and if it does, in fact, does it have anything that might help us craft the messaging in it?

Tiffany:

It does, and it has some, I'm looking at it now so I don't miss anything, but I have some questions to guide you through. And then I have examples. So for example, we want to develop a short one sentence statement that encapsulates the core of your author brand. And so I use Chuck Palahniuk to show an example of what that looks like. I know that we'll just be staring at that box for a really long time. So have kind of three different things to go through. And then it can be really helpful to create a mood board for just your messaging to give you emotions that you want to convey and whatnot. And then, yeah, just one thing to remember is just that you want to tailor your messaging to your target audience and not just think about yourself. Because remember, we're selling books here.

Emma:

Yes, we're selling books. Oh, I hate to cut those kind of off, but it is just gone so quick. But listen, thanks so much because I think this is a really important topic for everybody, and you've explained it so well and certainly reassured me that this is a journey I can start going down and start learning about, and it's not as scary as it maybe first seems. So I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Tiffany:

Thanks for having me!