In the blog post titled “The Importance of Online Brand Publicity”, the following important points were raised:

• More and more readers are buying books through online book retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Authors should try to attract potential customers across different online platforms and through different online means.

• The competitive digital economy should push self-published authors to wear more than one hat. They should now play a more active, hands-on role in their own book marketing and promotion campaign.

• Authors are called to be more than writers. They are encouraged to become thought leaders, entrepreneurs, content creators (not just authors of books), social media influencers, etc.

Publishing a book is only half the battle won; the other battle, perhaps the most important one, is making it successful. You cannot just write and publish a book; you have to sell it too. Keep in mind that readers no longer just purchase according to book titles; they purchase according to author brand.

Dana Kaye, a founder of a full-service public relations agency that specializes in publishing and entertainment, says it best about author brand:

…Even as an individual author, you still have to view your work as a brand. There’s a reason that people—there’s a reason that Nora Roberts and James Patterson sell really well with every book they write. It’s because they are a known quantity. When people pick up a James Patterson novel, they know exactly the type of story they are going to get within those pages. It eliminates risk.

But what this risk really is? Readers are hesitant to spend their hard-earned dollars on unknown authors. So many books are getting published everyday and people have limited funds and limited time to read. For readers, it’s not worth taking the risk, being unsure what they will be getting from an unknown author.

This is where online brand publicity comes in. By maximizing the different online publicity platforms (please read the previous article if you haven’t), you help eliminate the risk for your potential readers.

And in doing so, you create an author brand that is easily recognizable. It is a brand with a message that will connect with readers. It is the reason that readers will pick your book among the thousands, if not millions, others that are available.

Everything you use in this world is determined by brand play. The reason you choose a certain product or service over the other is a great example of determining exceptional quality through brands.

Readers also determine what books to buy based on author brand. Famous authors give their readers a particular kind of reading experience. Readers love them and buy their works due to the quality of storytelling that stands out all through their stories. Think of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Sidney Sheldon, or Nicholas Sparks.

So, to speak, having an author brand does not mean having a flashy book cover. It is your overall image and reputation as a writer, as a storyteller or expert in your field and, above all, as a brand owner and creator.

Having a well-defined, properly-structured online brand publicity campaign, you can convey your brand and message across different online platforms to readers choosing their next best read on Amazon.