What's Your Author Brand and Why Do You Want One?

EmpoweredAuthorS01E33 Ilan Cooley

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

brand, author, people, workshop, bradley cooper, work, process, book, essence, creative, writers, thinking, marketing, part, step, public, person, alam, thought, exist

Introduction (various voices) 00:03

Welcome to the Empowered Author podcast.

Discussion, tips, insights and advice from those who’ve been there, done that, helping you write, publish and market your nonfiction book.

Being an author is something that you’ve got to take seriously.

I’m proud I’ve written a book.

What does the reader need, first? What does the reader need, second?

What happens if you start writing your book before you identify your “why”? What’s the problem that?

You’re an indie author, you take the risk; you reap the rewards; you are in charge of the decisions. You’re the head of that business. 

Every emotion you’re feeling when you’re writing is felt by every other writer.

The Empowered Author podcast. Your podcast hosts are Boni and John Wagner-Stafford of Ingenium Books.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 00:54

Hello. If you – like so many authors – find you’re struggling with marketing your book, maybe the issue is related to whether you’ve done the work to articulate your author brand. As authors, we put so much of ourselves out there: first, onto the pages, and then for our friends, family and fans that it can sometimes feel like we’re running down the street naked, shouting, “Look at me!” Working on your personal author brand might be what you’re missing. Ilan Cooley is a marketing professional with 30 years’ experience in the media and entertainment industry. She is founder and president of Loud Mouth Communications and she’s passionate about the importance of the arts as the foundation for what inspires, moves and influences our culture. Ilan helps independent creative artists like musicians and authors develop personal brand strategies that reflect their heart, soul, strengths and essence. And Ilan joins us today. Welcome, Ilan.

Ilan Cooley 01:54

Thanks, Boni. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 01:56

Now one of the first questions many people think about is, what is an author brand? What are we talking about? 

Ilan Cooley 02:04

Well, the first thing I would say is an author brand is not much different – or isn’t different – from any other brand. A brand is the representation of a product, a service, a person or in these days, an influencer, which I think all authors are. But the brand is really a carefully curated depiction of the author. It should speak for the author and tell the author’s personal story so that the author doesn’t have to do it themselves. It will apply to every aspect of the author’s public image, representations and marketing materials. And it will be an authentic portrait of who the author is, what they write, and what they stand for. It really will help to give them their true and authentic place in the literary world. So it’s them but it’s really the true and authentic depiction of them as an author, representing a brand.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 03:01

So it’s not the same thing as airing all our dirty laundry.

Ilan Cooley 03:07

Well, I have been giving this some thought because somebody asked me, you know, “Does a brand, by its nature, take away from authenticity?” And I actually think it should enhance authenticity. I don’t think that any brand, if it’s trustworthy, memorable, impactful, if it has all of the elements that we put into a good brand, it should be the best version of the author and of the creative individual. It really is just the thought-through process instead of just throwing it all out there. So you know, we don’t put our colors with our whites, usually, in the laundry; it’s about separating out the things that will work best for the author and making them work publicly for the individual so that all of the different materials and depictions – whether it be public speaking or the books themselves, the social media elements that we all have come to develop and utilize these days – we’ll have all of them working together in tandem, as opposed to being bits and pieces that really maybe don’t have cohesion.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 04:09

So this is not something necessarily that can happen. I mean, maybe it can. Can it happen by accident? Or is there a process – a thinking process – like an action step series of things that an artist, author, musician, whatever the creator, wherever the creator – a place it has to go through? Do people come up with a brand without having done some work?

Ilan Cooley 04:37

Well, the built-in part is that the author is the artist. So that part of the process already exists. It’s not like creating a product that is intangible. The tangible piece of the artist, musician, creator piece is that the artist exists so you already have your authentic, you know, hub: you are the hub in the center of it all. The part that’s not accidental is thinking through the process. And yes, there’s a process for any brand. Well, and these days, you’ve just, you know, hear about social influencers. I believe that long before there was that, that writers – and, you know, I’m an artist, I’m a writer – people that can communicate ideas and that speak to people in a personal and fundamental or emotional way, whatever, however they’re connecting, they are, you know, influencers that have existed for a long time. But a lot of times that the writers don’t think of themselves as a brand, they don’t think of themselves as the entity that goes out and influences the, you know, the tactile part. The book or the written work is what they feel represents them. And it does. But they are still where that came from. So it’s about it, I guess, acknowledging that the creative center is the person and working through the process to make sure that all of those aspects, the best parts of the of the author are communicated.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 06:14

So it sounds to me, like you’re saying that just like the, as you said, the book came from the person, the brand is within the person. And the work is involved, really, with identifying and deciding how best to put that brand forward in all of the other – whether it’s marketing activities or any other kind of public activity – but so that there’s consistency, both with approach, message and any visual elements. Does that sound about right?

Ilan Cooley 06:47

Yeah. And I think, as artists, we have the work inside us, you know, raging to get out. You know, I’ve been writing quietly for most of my adult life and have really carefully worked on the work. But it wasn’t until about a year ago that I realized that my all my work had no home. So I created a brand for my – even my own work. And that involved, you know, the scary process of getting out from behind the work and being the face of the work and having all the elements that were thought through. So I even did it for myself, even though I’ve been writing for 35 years. So it is about taking the steps and acknowledging the best parts and creating all the representations for – I mean, the very last step after you think about what – and I use heart, soul, strengths and essence, it’s just like working through the brand strategy part of a business plan. Some writers probably do the work and then they have to go back and maybe think through the business planning of how to get out there with the work: you know, even get a publisher or get, you know, noticed. A lot of art, we’re not used to being the loud and proud part of our work. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 08:10

Exactly. 

Ilan Cooley 08:11

And these days, there’s so many channels to be able to get that on our own and also use the tools that are out there. But really the visual identity and the part that people see is the last part of that process. It’s about thinking through what are the best parts: What represents the author authentically? How do we communicate that to the world? And what channels will we use? And what will it say?

Boni Wagner-Stafford 08:38

Yeah, that makes total sense. I’m going to ask you – we’re going to dig into your heart, soul, strengths and essence process here in just a second. But it’s just occurred to me that there’s another analogy that might help and, you know, we – the authors that we work with at Ingenium Books: it’s a very internal process of working privately. Even if it’s with an author coach – you know, we work to develop the manuscripts – but it is a very internal process: private in the sense of it’s not public yet. Once the book is published, it really is a switch in mind space. It’s like, “Oh, my goodness. Now, you know, I just want to keep my head down.” Many of our authors say, “I just want to keep my head down. And, okay, the book is out there. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to – you know, I’m scared to actually put myself out there.” But as a consumer of the materials: if you think about an artist – an actor, let’s say – and you see them in a movie and you – it’s … We get curious about the people behind the performances and we go and, you know – I find myself doing this; I’m ashamed: you know, oh, there’s a cute actor. Bradley Cooper, one of my favorites. So I’m watching any movie with Bradley Cooper in it. And then I’ve got my phone and I’m going, “Bradley Cooper,” you know, doing the research on Bradley Cooper. So when readers are reading our books, there are readers that want to know who we are as the authors and want to engage with us as people. So when we have done our author brand work, we can craft – we can be conscious about what it is that people find.

Ilan Cooley 10:11

Well, it’s the other part of the story. You’re crafting the story about you as the author, really. And we are great storytellers as writers, so we should be the best people to do that. Unfortunately, much like an artist – and Bradley Cooper is a great example: Bradley Cooper has people. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 10:28

Yes.

Ilan Cooley 10:29

People – the people decide who Bradley Cooper is depicted as, you know, publicly. And even the things that maybe people don’t – Bradley Cooper doesn’t want to know about him, he’s got people to manage that, too. So Bradley Cooper has a brand team. And …

Boni Wagner-Stafford 10:44

Yeah.

Ilan Cooley 10:45

Publicists and managers and all those things. And – as do many writers, or musicians. But I’ve worked with creative people my entire career: I worked in TV news; I’ve worked in the music, entertainment side of business for 20 years. And the people you meet are still people but they aren’t the exact same as the person that you think they are. And some of them are excessively private: they’re introverts; they don’t like the public side. And immediately, you can tell by meeting them that their warm, fuzzy, public image is very developed and that they’re still that person. Because their art speaks for themselves; the music speaks for itself. But in private, they aren’t quite – you know, they’re not quite comfortable with people knowing everything and getting access to them and touching and feeling and hugging and taking pictures. So all of us have different, I think, thresholds of comfort with what comes with having public work for the masses. And I think we’re – any artist is truly blessed to have their work appreciated in the now. And I think more than ever, we have the ability to really be in control of that process and use the tools that exist through digital media opportunities and social channels and being able to connect worldwide in real time with people and be able to work through the process properly, so that by the time it comes to be public, really kind of protect the parts that you don’t want out there. And you’re very, very confident in the parts that are. And you use those tools to follow your story that you’ve then put some thought and effort and time into.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 12:40

Cool, that’s fantastic. I meant to say at the beginning – but for our listeners who don’t know and that, you know, there might be half a person who might know – but you and I go way back, 25 to 30 years ago working together and television: you were in marketing and I was in news. And that’s kind of how we kept in touch over the years. And it’s kind of cool that you’re now doing this stuff that aligns with the stuff that we’re doing. But anyway, on to you have some workshops that you’ve developed: webinar/workshops for individual creator types like authors, on how to develop their personal brand – and we’re talking author brand. And I love your four-step description or labels on your process: heart, soul, strength and essence. So let’s – would you mind walking us through? Let’s start with heart. What is involved in that step?

Ilan Cooley 13:36

Well, essentially, there are – there’s still point A to D in any brand strategy. And because I’m also a creative person, my steps, I feel, are just a little bit more on the – yes, being in depth in a person: how we feel about the process, as opposed to just really being … 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 14:02

(Indiscernible.)

Ilan Cooley 14:03

Yeah, like it’s all still business and we’re all in business. But I feel that we need to get to the heart of the matter first. And with – you know, you could look at the corporatey speak of “Vision, mission, mission, mandate,” and, “I’m an IMT,” whatever that means: you know, like, I don’t like that stuff. It’s – you still need all those things. And if you do a business plan for any kind of business, even an author business, you’ve, you’ve decided what you’re trying to accomplish. But when we look at the step that might be missed, which is the brand strategy which most people skip over because they’re like, “I don’t know what that is, really,” – and you know, sometimes we don’t have the people, the finances to hire the answer – but really, it’s about, it’s sort of about your “why”, you know: it goes down to the heart of your “why”. And you then you fill in those, you know: what is it that I am trying to accomplish? How do I want to portray myself in the world? What is the vision? You know, vision is a great thing to be on top of. So all those things are important. I just like to frame it a little differently because the heart is beating inside us. And that’s really what drives us forward. That creative passion is the heartbeat of what we do. And I think we have to decide that first.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 15:20

Awesome. Okay, so then soul is the next thing: how – what do we, how do you talk about that? 

Ilan Cooley 15:25

Well, it’s – again, there’s steps to follow in defining a brand. And, you know, there’s values attached to any entity, any company, any individual. And those values, often, as a creative will collide with the person. But they might not be identical. So, establishing your guiding principles, your values, your pillars, there will be – you know, every author is working in a different genre. Many are different. So what are the things that are holding the whole thing up? You know, are you self-help? And self-help and motivation are the pillars: those are the things you’re going to stand on top of. And, you know, what are the values in that? Are you trying to be trustworthy? Are you based in holistic healing? There – you know, what are the true, soulful things within the brand that need to be defined so that they exist in tangible form and they’ve been defined, explored and dated, so that you don’t have to wonder when someone asks you to do something, “Does this go against the values of me as a writer brand?” You would know that you’re not going to do a detergent endorsement if you are against, you know …

Boni Wagner-Stafford 16:55

Non-eco-friendly …

Ilan Cooley 16:56

Yeah. You’re going to really work through…

Boni Wagner-Stafford 16:57

Products or whatever. 

Ilan Cooley 16:58

And those kinds of things do exist for creative people. There are opportunities to be included in things that you, you know, you then would have all the answers to those questions if you … You know, and there’s always (indiscernible), obviously, you know, in your in yourself, but if you’ve done the work, I think you have a better chance of it coming quicker and not having to struggle through the answers when the time comes. But you’re keeping everything in your toolbox and being able to pull it out at the right time.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 17:29

I just feel a sense of clarity. Even just in, in having this conversation. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, I can totally see how that will make so many things that come after feel a little bit more clear and easy.” Okay, but before we – never mind that. Back to your process. So the strengths part.

Ilan Cooley 17:50

Yeah. And in order to know our strengths, we also need to know our weaknesses. I – some people who work with me, I think they always think that I’m, you know, the negative person in the room. And, you know, whether it was in corporate boardrooms, or wherever I’ve landed, people are usually looking at me, like, “Why are you talking about what could go wrong?” And the reality is that if you know everything that could go wrong, or at least as many of the things that could go wrong, you – when you encounter them, you have the solution already. So being the devil’s advocate in a situation or thinking through threats, weaknesses and potential challenges, you’ve already done that work. And it’s – you’ve got, you’ve worked through the headspace. It’s not unlike being an athlete, where you, you know, use sport psychology to think through, “What would happen if I got injured? What would happen, you know, if I punched in the face?” You know, you have to think about all these external factors and how they impact you before they ever happen so that when they do, they’re not the sucker punch that might knock you out. You have to really work through those so that they’re not a surprise. And then, you know, I suggest every creative person should do research into who else is in their space. You know, competitive analysis is important. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 19:06

Yeah. 

Ilan Cooley 19:07

Because you don’t want to go out into the world thinking you’re the only one. And you may learn what you don’t want to do by looking at what someone’s doing. You may look at what someone’s doing and think it’s very admirable. It may help you realize that, you know, you have competition. And competition is the lifeblood of anything, I think. Having that someone, you know, out in the space with you. I’ve always said you have to play in the sandbox. In my business, I didn’t need a website early on 20 years ago but I made one because I was going to recommend to my clients to have one also. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 19:43

Right.

Ilan Cooley 19:44

If you want to be in the sandbox, you can’t go in there and then say, “I don’t have a website,” when you’re telling other people to have it. So having – knowing who’s doing what, what they’re doing, how they’re doing it well, how they’re doing poorly, will give you some opportunities for growth in your own space.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 20:00

And ideas about how to position yourself. So if there’s somebody who’s – who you really – maybe they’re occupying a space you really, really want: you get to look at what they’re doing well and, “How can I emulate that in a way that’s authentic to me?”

Ilan Cooley 20:14

And I think competition is healthy. You know, I worked in media and I helped brand and rebrand media properties. And be a new radio station and in the marketplace that switched to your format. And there’s all this chaos. And I would be like, “We’re going to do our job better,” because competition breeds, you know, it brings out the best in us because we – our fighting spirit is ignited. So I always thought of these, you know, these channel switches as opportunities because there was more competition in the market. Because we had to do our job better: there’d be more focus on how to be better.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 20:49

Right. 

Ilan Cooley 20:50

So if we look at the people in our space, we’re not going to copy them. But we – there’s emulation or elements, or, you know, even just seeing how it’s done by someone you admire. Some of them, maybe they have people like Bradley Cooper and those people get paid a lot of money to curate their persona and their public brand. So as individuals, we have access to private resources and private branding processes. I decided, because I’m passionate about entrepreneurship in the creative process, that individuals – influencers, artists – deserve to have access to expert marketing advice. But I wanted to put it in a workshop to give access to more people at a reasonable price point, instead of them having to, you know, dig deep into their pocket to find a one-on-one process. It’s maybe not as in-depth as a one-on-one process but I think the workshopping opportunity’s also positive because you get to bounce your ideas off other, like-minded people. So I think that’s probably the two.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 21:50

Yeah, so I’m going to come back to the workshop thing in just a moment. So the last stage in your process is essence. And by the way, the strength one: how fantastic. That just sounds really thorough. So if somebody is thinking, you know, “Oh, an author brand: your woo-woo stuff. Give me some real I can get behind,” well, all of a sudden, if you’re preparing for, you know, what could go wrong and making sure you’re ready for challenges and looking at your competitor, those are pretty tangible things.

Ilan Cooley 22:19

Yeah. You don’t want to go into battle with a sharp stick. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 22:21

Exactly. Exactly. 

Ilan Cooley 22:23

You need to find out what weapons you need. So you got to get ready. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 22:26

Yeah, that’s right. Okay. Essence.

Ilan Cooley 22:27

Yes. Well, we – again, we’re creative people and the essence of what we are and what we do, I think it’s the fun part of the creative process: just like when you do all the hard work of the book and the book gets to come out. This is the – here’s the thing: people often get past heart, soul, strength. And I know they’re called different things by different marketers. But they want to get to the essence because they want to know what the pretty stuff looks like: they want the photo shoot and they want the, you know, to pick their power colors. They want to decide what font they’re going to use and they want to launch their social media platforms. And I call it a really dangerous rabbit hole: that keeping all the other stuff and jumping down into the essence part – the visual identity – without any structural work because then, trust me, the computer and your search engines will know you’re thinking it, let alone if you look for it. It’s dumping you into all these different – down these holes where you’ll get enticed to use templates on – and thought, starter, bubble, content triggers and things. You know, 365 days of prompts. But if you are using things that aren’t for you, then you’re really just taking stabs in the dark. The tools can be very effective. There’s lots of great templates out there, once you have your brand established. And all of those fun things happen at the end, where you really start to think what does represent my image properly? What does that look like? How does it – what are the tangible parts of the author brand? So it’s the fun part, but without the other three steps, it’s literally like, you know, you go into a paint store, grab a can of paint and keep, you know, splashing it on the wall and thinking it doesn’t look very good. Because there’s no cohesion; there’s no thought to the process. It’s really – it really will be guesswork if the rest of the foundation’s not there.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 24:31

And it doesn’t – it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to spend a lot of money translating the essence into visual things. But so how – you know, taking that notion of, you know, indie authors and indie creative artists may not have the budget to bring on somebody individual to walk them through the process. They may also not have the budget to hire the creative director and the videographer and the photographer and all of that kind of stuff. So how does it – how will that thinking help them apply it?

Ilan Cooley 25:03

Well, and there’s probably many – there are many different ways to tackle that next step. I personally, even though I’m, you know, a career marketer, I’m not a graphic designer. And I’m not a professional photographer. So I have made a priority within my own brand strategies – and I have a corporate brand and a writing brand – I took the time to hire those out. So I had to make the budget for some of those things that, you know, the experts that would get the professional materials in certain aspects. Once those materials exist, there are tools to use to apply those. So I do recommend working with, you know, a team of people. I was even recently trained to do YouTube videos. And you’ve mentioned we knowing each other from television. You know, that’s 30 years ago, for me. But I was in marketing; I wasn’t on camera. And everybody always thought I maybe could have, should have been. But until recently, I didn’t feel that part of my voice was to put out visual content. But now I have that as part of what I’m delivering because people love looking at things and videos are really big part of the social world right now. As are podcasts and like we’re doing. And all those kinds of things. So, you know, becoming comfortable with what you put out there and learning it from the right people – you know, the video guys, it was during the very beginning of the pandemic: they couldn’t come to my house and show me how to light my videos. You know, I was doing it with one-on-one tutorials with them and videos that they would send me on how to on the on the internet. So, you know, there’s lots of tools out there: you just don’t want to watch a hundred of them; you might want to work with a professional who could sort of narrow the scope of what information you need for your particular goals. And all that will be established in, you know, in the process.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 27:01

Yeah, very cool. Okay, well, I’m seeing – I can’t wait. I can’t wait to do my to do my workshop. So you’ve developed these online workshops. And part of this is – we won’t go into the whole Covid story because we’re running out of our time window – but Covid, like with many people, it, I guess, was the instigator for having you take a different look at how you were providing your services to people. So online workshops.

Ilan Cooley 27:30

Yeah.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 27:31

And individual branding.

Ilan Cooley 27:33

Well, I work with – my primary work is in the entertainment industry, working with national brands and bringing them into large music events. My music events got shut down because of Covid restrictions but I’m still a, you know, a vital and driven professional. I wanted to use my time for good. And so when I started seeing a lot of people trying to reinvent out there and, you know, I’m like – it’s like a personal trainer going and tapping someone on the shoulder at the gym: you can’t just tell someone their brand stinks or that they’re doing it wrong. But I realized if I develop something positive: I’ve developed what – my workshops are called Brand Camp. So we say, “That one time at Brand Camp.” You know, you’ll learn that it’s kind of just a funny way to structure it. But I’ve developed a – it’s a live workshop. So the way – the structure is that I am working with people in a group. And hopefully, like-minded people: like, you know, like you say, authors. I’m putting together groups that would have like-minded goals. And we work through the different stages together over four weeks, for a couple hours in each session. And then we bring the homework back and workshop that a bit. And at the end, truly, there is still another step after we’ve done the foundational work because the graphic and the visual identity is the next workshop, you know. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 29:03

Right.

Ilan Cooley 29:04

We get to the cusp of what all that should be and you can – I have, the last step is, you know, “Go use this resource to pick this font and try these things out.” So we do a little, you know, a little workshop of how to do it by yourself if you really, truly, you know, honestly want to do it that way. Or you get to the point where you could literally hand it off right to a designer and then it’s so easy. You know, the designer that doesn’t have to ask, “What do you want?” Because we’ve got – we’ve, you know, we’ve created our like, for lack of a better word, a vision board: what our brand should look like to us because we feel comfortable about it by then.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 29:43

Awesome. Okay, where can people find you and this Brand Camp for creators?

Ilan Cooley 29:50

I currently am on my own my website, Loudmouthcommunications.com. Anyone who’s interested in can just book a one-on-one meeting with me through my website and book the service. I’m doing different workshops with different groups. So the workshop that I had online is not currently offered in real time but I can put people on a waitlist for the next one or just find out if there’s someone who could fit into one that is being developed. I could create one for everybody. You know, I could create one for another group too, if there’s a group of like-minded people,

Boni Wagner-Stafford 30:28

Right. So we’ll – I’ll have in the show notes, when this – by the time this podcast publishes, we’ll have a link that we’ll put in the show notes where people … And it’ll – you and I’ll sort that out offline but …

Ilan Cooley 30:40

Yeah, they can connect with me and ask, you know, questions: other questions. And certainly, I can be ready to accept them into the next intake for the next one.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 30:52

Yeah, that sounds absolutely fantastic. Well, Ilan, thank you so much for taking the time ... 

Ilan Cooley 30:56

My pleasure.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 30:57

… to chat with us today. And it sounds very exciting. Sounds empowering and clarifying and how it should be. How it should be. Such a relief that I don’t have to run naked down the street. 

Ilan Cooley 31:08

No, let’s not do that. 

Boni Wagner-Stafford 31:09

Nobody wants that. 

Ilan Cooley 31:10

No, no.

Boni Wagner-Stafford 31:12

Okay. All right. Thank you so much, Ilan Cooley of Loud Mouths Communications talking about author brand strategy. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the Empowered Author podcast, please feel free to share it on social media. We’d also be very grateful if you could rate, review and subscribe to the Empowered Author on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you access your podcasts. That’s helpful for us but more importantly, it’s helpful for other indie authors who are looking for resources to help them on their continuous learning journey.