You may resist the idea that as an author you are a brand. It sounds so commercial, so corporate, so corny. But remember publishing is a business, and people buy books based on what they think about an author. Your brand becomes your reputation. “A brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room,” Jeff Bezos is credited with saying. How you present your books to the public and represent yourself as an author IS your brand. Even if you aren’t intentionally creating a brand, you’re still leaving people who currently follow you and your prospective readers with an impression of who you are. It’s in your best interest to become more intentional about branding yourself as an author. From your dust jacket to your social media efforts, your brand represents you and your book. Your brand helps you cultivate name recognition, but more importantly, it communicates to audiences whether or not you are trustworthy. It’s one thing to write from the perspective of an unreliable narrator in a work of fiction and an entirely different thing to be an unreliable author. Good strategy for the former, lethal for the latter. For more than a decade it’s been important to include an author head shot in your book proposal. The image you present of yourself is important to aquisitions editors because it’s important to readers. Your photo will be used in all publicity and marketing materials. If you’re the author of a children’s book, and…

For nearly 20 years, Margot Bloomstein has shaped the content strategy industry. She’s the author of Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project (Morgan Kaufmann, 2012) and the principal of Appropriate, Inc., a brand and content strategy consultancy based in Boston. Bloomstein developed the message architecture-driven approach to content strategy now popular with many practitioners. Recognized in 2015 as one of Boston’s “40 Under 40,” Bloomstein shaped the communication of corporate social responsibility at Timberland, content for crisis response at Harvard University, and strategy for cultural tourism in the state of Nevada. She has spoken at events worldwide and teaches in the content strategy graduate program at FH Joanneum University in Graz, Austria, and earned a BFA in Design and Anthropology at Carnegie Mellon University. She also guest lectures at universities, where she especially likes to focus on her work for Lindt & Sprüngli. It offers a vital lesson: if you get the opportunity to work for a chocolate company, do it. Trustworthy: How Smart Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap by Margot Bloomstein will be released in March of 2021 from Page Two Books. To regain the trust of consumers and citizens, marketers talk about empathy and authenticity. But how do you get beyond those buzzwords? Empower your audience to earn their trust. Smart organizations teach their audiences to evaluate product options, engage in continuous self-education, and make more informed choices and confident decisions. Airbnb, the FBI, TED, the United Kingdom Government Digital Service,…

When you write a book, it needs to be about something. When someone asks what your book is about, how do respond? Do you stumble over your words trying to describe your book? Time to pin down your premise. The perfect pitch means you need to hone your premise statement. Premise: The central idea, situation, or set-up which provides the foundation and pushes the narrative forward. What happens as a result of actions is another way of describing the premise. If point A is where the conflict or problem arises and point B is the outcome, then the premise is A leads to B. Perhaps another way to get a handle on the premise of your book is to determine its main point or take-away lesson. What’s the moral of your story? A premise is usually one sentence. “When Dorothy is caught up in a Kansan tornado, she visits a magical place called Oz, only to discover there’s no place like home.” Expressing your premise — your driving idea — helps you while you write. It keeps you from wandering too far astray from the organizing concept and your narrative arc on a steady path. Consider your opening scenario, central characters, the inciting incident and how the stakes are raised. Your premise may be stated in the form of a question. “What if a group of school boys stranded on a desert island work to govern themselves?” A premise should be brief, provocative, and include the central characters, a conflict,…