This was an excellent panel at the LDS writer’s conference. Any misinformation is the fault of the note taker.

– What are the events I need to decide on the creation of my band?
– What are the goals?
– What feelings do you want your body/product to give your customers?
– Your book product and its genre
– Your personal appearance brand? Have your appearance brand also on your website.
– When coming as a public brand, stick to it
– A brand needs three things
– It needs to be high quality no matter what you do.
– Needs to be targeted where does your target audience hang out? Get a picture of a person who represents your target audience and put it next to your computers.
– Be consistent that may influence what media you concentrate on.
– Tools needed for branding:
– Be consistent with your colors. Use the same colors each time, the same with fonts. Save your notes on what colors and fonts you use. so you can use them consistently.
– guideline on colors: if your brand is exciting than your brand uses Red. Friendliness > orange, green > peaceful, creative > white, Look for color charts online and see what they represent.
– You need to know the colors of your genera> fantasy> use gold. Look at Amazon and look at leaders of your genre of what colors they use. Have the same colors in all selected colors.
– Coolors.co> software you can pick give matching or coordinating you put in that code hex code > it will give you coordinating colors. Use a space bar to export your pallet. Good uses extensions have color pick eyes color> will give you the code. (https://coolors.co/)
– Other sites provided by the chat: https://bookbrush.com/ https://spark.adobe.com/ https://www.canva.com/ https://coolors.co/
– Royalty-free images are Pixabay.com and Pexels.com
– As an author, you need to brand yourself as an author, not as a book. Have your name. Make sure social media matches that. Go to the social palate form and get the handle on that social platform that matches your website.
– Customer aviator > If is a woman fans 35-55 use Pinterest.
– If your customer is around age 15, you use Instagram
– Children’s book> reader is 9-12> you are not marketing to. You market to the parents. Market to the parents. Two ways to market a middle-grade book. You do on Facebook because that is where the parent is.
– Concentrate your efforts on one social media platform and continue with quality and consistency. If you cannot’ manage more than one social media, stay with the one when you can provide quality content.
– Need to be collecting information from your customers. We don’t own our media page. Social media can take down your page. So keep contact info so you can communicate with them directly.
– Provide a newsletter on your website. You need an incentive for them to join your newsletter. Make sure you are doing something consistent eon that newsletter. Do not send a message every day. It will irritate your target. Ask yourself, can you can do a post or blog once a month? You need to consistently provide quality. It may not be your article or your event.
– What are the different purposes between website, newsletter, and social medial.
– Social medial is a social site> social you engage with your fans. Don’t hammer them about your book.
– Your website is collecting info on customs and tells people of your books. Also, do a blog.
– A newsletter is a place where it is ok to buy my book, tell personal info about yourself.
– The big goal of marketing is to get a customer’s contact info. Provide a lead magnet that aligns with your branding. Romance author may provide the first chapter.
– Note from the chat: The Lead Capture is that little box that says “Get your free gift here” or whatever verbiage you want to use
– Have a five-second test on your website> ask the person > who am I? What do I do? What is the visitor invited to do when they come? People will use 2-5 seconds to decided to stay on a website or leave it.
– Q: who am I (or what is the name of my business?)
– Q: What do I do? Or what does my business do?
– If you use wicks on your website don’t sue the free one or it will give ads to buy wicks. Don’t let others use our website real-estate. If you allow others to take over your website.
– A good example of a website that maintains a theme: the official Eric Carle website. He is consistent on his style are the same? Even book covers should be consistent. https://eric-carle.com/
– Canva website: create logs, social media posts, invitation, etc. https://www.canva.com/
– Coolors.com crate a coordinate color palette
– fonts.google.com: find fonts you like and recommend font pairings
– Google extensions: color pick eyes dropper matches
– Each picture is different in size according to the specific social medial used.
– Know your business, know your customer, be consistent, and be targeted. Be where they are. Follow through with quality.
– A/B testing: create two websites and see which one your audience likes.
– Go by your name as your domain. You can buy cheap domains.
– On website> what is your purpose, audience and what do you want them to do. When you are on your website talk to your audience.
– You will need a different size of photos. Canva.com will show you sizes. Want to make a Facebook banner. It gives you royalty-free choices. $10 a month > you can do different social medial from one source. You can edit the pictures in Canva.com. Only use pictures that are commercial free and legal to use. All pictures on Canva.com are free.

My Two Cents:
Since I am a storyteller as well as an author, I hope to cross-pollinate those two objectives. Many tellers will have books of their stories.
One author who seems to do well in maximizing his branding is Brandon Sanderson.
I see that my website is very busy. I need to have a very simplified front page and then indicators to point to the desired info. Panels like this are great. I’m thinking of a pen quell for my writing which will be framed by a mic on each side for storytelling and presenter.