How to Create Great Author Taglines

I’ve been thinking about taglines lately and that maybe I need an author tagline to help strengthen my brand(s). By the way, taglines are those short, snazzy sentences you see on some author’s websites that encompasses their brand. It’s the feel of their stories. It’s an instant, “Oh, I get it” for the visitor and reader. You read a good tagline and you immediately know what the author is about, what they write, the feeling you are going to get from their books and basically, exactly what you are in for.

(You may hear of taglines being called loglines. Loglines usually apply to your story, or your movie/TV script and not your website or brand. But some folks use the terms interchangeably. Personally, I think there is a difference, but we won’t get into that today.)

Three Good Author Taglines

Cynthia Herron: Heartfelt, Homespun fiction

Heather Thurmeier: Heart, Humor, and a Happliy Ever After

Pat Ballard (Queen of Rubenesque Romances): Romance novels with big, beautiful heroines

Those three taglines give you an immediate feel for what they write, don’t they? That’s what you want. Short. Concise. Evoking good things.

Why Do You Need an Author Tagline?

Author taglines (or even writer taglines–you don’t need to be published to use one!) help readers, editors, publicists (hopefully!), and stumblers immediately recognize what you and your brand and your site is about. It should be memorable, short, and encompass what you are and what you write about, and in doing so, let folks know what you are not.

Right now my blog tagline is “Always learning. Always writing.” That about sums up my blog and website at the moment. When you come here, you probably figure you are going to read about what I am learning in terms of writing. However, when I publish my fiction, that tagline will need to change–at least for my website where my readers land. My current tagline may still fit for my blog. (It’s okay to have two taglines.)

A good tagline, when you are a published author can be whipped out all over the place. It can go on your business card or promotional bookmarks, your email signature or a sign out front of your house, your website/blog or your social media profiles. Everywhere! You hand out something to potential readers that contains your tagline all front and center, and immediately they know what your stories are about and if it is their “thing.”

Why use your tagline everywhere? Brand recognition. They may not remember your name (doh!), but they may recall your tagline and what you are about.

What a Good Author Tagline Can Do For You

• Good taglines create immediate feelings in your reader.
• They make you memorable.
• They help focus potential readers, site visitors, etc., immediately categorize you (in a good way).
• They help publicity folks know exactly where you fit in and what they can do for you.
• They help people setting up talks or book signings know who you are and what they are helping sell. They may be able to figure out whether a black table cloth or doilies are going to be best for you at the book signing table. Yes, a good tagline is that good!
• Instant recognition.
• A good tagline can help you retain your focus when it comes to projecting your image, deciding on your publicity, and even writing future books, etc. For example, if your tagline is “dark” something, and you know that is the essence of you, your brand, and your platform. Therefore, you probably aren’t going to go and pursue reviews from conservative religious bookclub mags, right?

What Do You Encompass?: Brainstorming Your Author Tagline

If, right now, you are like me, you may be writing and aspiring in several genres as you settle into who you are in the writing world. That’s normal. However, you may be noticing trends in terms of your story settings, the feel of your novels, the types of characters you create, the problems they must overcome, as well as your voice.

For example, you may write kids books, mysteries, and commercial fiction. But in all of your stories you are a bit dark and all have a spiritual feel to them. Voila. You write dark spirituals. (Er… okay… dark spirituals. Work with me here!)

For me, I have noticed that my stories tend to be light due to humour and tend to be set in small towns. So my future writing tagline may end up being something like “small town fiction with a dollop of humour.” (Ugh. Maybe not. Going to have to work on that tagline! But I think you get what I am saying here.)

Create Your Own Tagline: A Primer

But how do you really get to the meat of what your tagline should be and what you encompass (or want to encompass)?

First, do a little brainstorming. Basically, all those adjectives you don’t get to use in your writing, you’re going to write down… now!

1. How you want your readers to feel. (Ex. inspired, scared, hopeful, etc.)

2. Common themes in your stories or types of stories. (Ex. coming of age, romance, good overcomes evil, believe in yourself.)

3. What image you want to convey. (Professional? Goth? Religious?)

4. Who is your audience? (This will help you direct you towards what will appeal to them and help you figure out how to aim straight at them.)

5. What makes you, you? (How do you differ or standout? Humour? Sassy?)

Now that you have a list of things you would you like to evoke, circle the top 5-7 that really speak to you or that you connect with. Are there synonyms that might evoke a stronger image?

Almost There! Putting it Together to Make a Stellar Tagline

Take your 5-7 words and play around with them. Do you have a few taglines popping out at you already? Write them down. All of them. Don’t go with the first one you like because you may (believe it or not) decide it isn’t the one after all.

Have a few? Ask others what they think. Which ones do they think fit you best? Listen to their suggestions. Sleep on it.

Hone it down until it is short and concise.

A Tagline is Not Forever

A few years down the road you may look at your tagline and realize you have evolved and your tagline isn’t quite right any longer. Don’t be afraid to modify it!

As well, you may notice that bestselling authors are using their taglines less and less on their websites. Why is that? Because their name has become their brand and their tagline. Their readership knows what they stand for and what they are going to get from reading their stories. However, they still use taglines in their promotional material for reaching out to new audiences as well as keeping their eye focused on the ball.

Don’t forget–you can put your tagline everywhere! Use it! It’ll be one of your best tools. You can even use it when folks ask what you write. If it’s good, it’ll intrigue them and open the conversation.

This might be one of the hardest things you do (right up there with query writing) but it will be well worth it!

You can do it!

How about you? Have you seen some good ones out there?

Do you have a tagline? (Share it!) If so, could you hone it in even more?

Why I Feel Used: Transparency and Marketing

I’ve been reading a lot about marketing and what-not lately as I attempt build a platform for my nonficiton work. One of the things that keeps coming up is the idea of ‘transparency.’ While you may wonder what this has to do with you and writing… hang on. I’ll get there.

When I speak of transparency, I mean it in the sense of don’t hide the fact that you are marketing. If you are giving something away for free in hopes of a review, say so. If you are reviewing something for a friend–say so. If a publisher gave you a book and said please review this when you are done, say so. You know, all those little things we do as readers and writers. And things we may plan to do when we publish. (And I have not always been good at mentioning when I am reviewing a book I got for free or for a friend. I didn’t realize it was vital, but people want to know this in case it has skewed you and your review. I promise I will be better about that in the future!)

For the most part though, being transparent seems sort of obvious. At least in the big picture way.

The other day though, I got burned by someone not being transparent. And yes, I may be over-reacting, but here’s what went down…

On a social media board somewhere, I contribute content. I add content to my own space as well as on a community space I found when someone followed me. This person had similar content and was building a community where others can contribute, so I figured hey, why not contribute? I can be a part of this get a bit of exposure for my own board and meet more people and get some fun ideas. Win-win! Right?

So, I emailed this person so I could become a contributor. I asked about it and how it worked, etc. The board owner never once mentioned that they had a book out by the same name. NEVER ONCE. Not even in their email’s signature. It sounded good and simple and I jumped in. Then, yesterday I discovered on the community board that someone referenced reviewing this person’s book. WHAT?!!

I check it out. Yes, a few months ago this person released a book. This community board is a way to help publicize this publication–the community board is the same title as their book. I feel used. Very, very used. (This is the part I want writers to take note of–right here. I will never buy this person’s book now. Never, ever.)

Like Dr. Evil only not transparent, not funny, and not as nice.

And no, I did not do due diligence before joining, did I? A simple Google search probably would have revealed this info. It just never occurred to me to do so–that I would NEED to do so.

Long story short, I no longer trust this writer. The content I am placing on this community board–will they use it in book two (if there is one)? Because I plan on using my content in my own book someday–I hope.

What do I do??

Do I pull my content? Do I out her on the board? Do I milk it for what I can and ignore her?

What would you do? Please help!

How Authors And Writers Can Use Social Media For Promotion

I’m reading Chris Brogan‘s book, Social Media 101, at the moment and I came across a great blog post of his while surfing the net. It’s a fantastic list of things authors or writers can do to use social media to their benefit while promoting themselves or their books–without being annoying.

It is a must read article. Here are a few appetizers from his list before I send you to his blog for the full course:

Start an email newsletter. It’s amazing how much MORE responsive email lists are than any other online medium.

Seriously, I did not know that. Yet, I almost always read the newsletters that come in from authors, etc. Makes sense to create one, doesn’t it?

When people talk about your book, good or bad, thank them with a reply. Connect to people frequently. It’s amazing how many authors I rave about on Twitter and how few actually respond. Mind you, the BIGGEST authors always respond (paradox?)

I love it when authors reply to my tweets about their books and feel greatly disappointed when they don’t reply. I LOVE twitter for giving a little shout out to published authors. (I can’t wait to be on the other side of that tweet and make some connections and new friends!)

That’s a little sample of Brogan’s smorg list of 21 tips. Here’s the link to the full article.

Enjoy!

And if you have some tips or ideas that you think would rock the social media world, feel free to shoot them into the comment section.

Creating a Brand and Going Too Far

As a writer hoping to create a brand someday (Jean Oram–the author of a certain type of book) I keep my eye open for how people create their ‘brands.’ Over time I have picked up little tips on what seems to work and what doesn’t. Or to put it more aptly other words, what pisses of the potential buyer and what doesn’t.

In the past 24 hours I have discovered a method that plain and simply pisses me off.

Okay, let me back up a bit.

First of all, I live in a town of about 11,500 people. If you have even a whiff of famous on ya, I’ll hear about it. You can’t keep a whiff of fame under wraps around here. For example: OHMIGOD! Did you hear? Joe was in the same room as Wayne Gretzky!!! I know! Instant fame status for Joe.

So, you take someone who is working to build their music career and guess what, the whole town is going to know about it. Especially when you have your own charity golf tournament in town. You sing for free at the local dealership (still haven’t quite figured out why on that one–I think it may have been a fundraiser). You are in the paper every other week for something or other (no, seriously). You have your name plastered on this, that, and the other thing. For example: OHMIGOD! You donated five dollars to the library, we’d better put up a sign touting your famous support! (Okay, he hasn’t donated to the library yet. Probably because another singer has her name on the library’s coffee shop. And get this, when she popped by the other day for a latte–they made her pay! How completely and utterly wrong is that?)

Anyway, recently this guy has been popping up like he’s the mole on the hardest level of whack a mole. Which was okay. He’s got a business to run, a family to keep, no hard feelings.

Until this week. We’re talking over-the-top, annoying, spamming the town. Why? Because he wants to be voted fan’s choice or something. (I have been trying exceedingly hard to block out everything to do with him.) The town paper put out a special commemorative paper on shiny paper–sort of a collector’s item type thing–and he’s in there three times. I open my mailbox and there is a flyer asking me to vote for him. I drive into town there is a sign asking me to vote for him. I go to the grocery store, there are flyers under windshield wipers asking us to vote for him. I pay for my groceries and the cashier hands me my receipt and a flyer to… yeah, you guessed it.

I wish I was exaggerating. And while I know it makes me petty to admit this, but it is to the point where I want to go online and vote for someone who is NOT him.

So, the lesson I’ve learned by watching this guy is that there is a fine line somewhere between getting your name out there and being an annoying bother. I have seen some authors do a fabulously fine job of getting their name out there as well as the name of their book without it all being, ‘my book, mybook, mybook, ohmigoddidyoureadmybook?’ And there have been some where every tweet, blog entry, conversation and online post has been ‘my book, mybook, mybook, ohmigoddidyoureadmybook?’ Again, that fine line.

Where do you think that fine line is between just enough and too much?

Story Concert: Robert Munsch

A few weeks ago I heard one of my all-time favourite authors do a story concert. Canadian childrens’ author Robert Munsch. He is the author of fan-tab-ulous tales such as The Paperbag Princess (kick butt princess who saves the prince), The Mud Puddle (what would happen if a mud puddle jumped on you), Angela’s Airplane (what would happen if a five-year-old accidentally flew a jumbo jet), The Playhouse (when decorating a playhouse gets a bit out of hand), and about 30 or 40 more other fun stories.

If you have ever heard Robert Munsch tell a story (I started with LPs, but these days you can hear him online–drag Mortimer (about a boy who won’t go to sleep) onto the listening spot to experience Robert first hand), his story concerts are pretty much exactly like that. He has so much emotion, voice, character, actions, and audience involvement that hour whizzes right by. If you close your eyes, you can still see it.

As an author, how can we make our readings that much fun? Seriously, it was FUN! (And not just because I am  totally still a kid inside.) How do we get out audiences involved? How do we get them predicting the next line so they say it out loud with us? How do we make them laugh and want to dance? How do we bring them down to that quiet place and the next moment bring them so far up they feel as though their chest is going to burst open from all that love and joy that’s pushing out of it? How do we do it?

That’s what I want to know. How.