3 Mindset Shifts to Enjoy Creating Your Author Brand

We’ve been discussing building our author brands for the past few weeks. We’ve defined our values, decided on colors, and chosen fonts. Now, comes the hard part – creating your mindset around your author brand.
When you’re standing at the beginning of your author marketing journey, you may feel dread, dismay, or perhaps incompetence. Many of you are experts in your given fields, titans in your industry, but you find yourself saying “I’ve written a whole book, why can’t I figure out this marketing stuff?”

If that’s you, I have good news – you can do this. There will even be parts of this journey that you will love. If you’re giving me a skeptical side-eye right now, stick with me. When you make a few simple mindset shifts, anything is possible!

Mindset Shift 1
I’m not annoying anyone; I’m building a business.
Hands down, this is the most important mindset shift you need to make to have a successful author brand.
You are not marketing to your friends or family; they love you and they will buy your book. You are marketing to your Ideal Reader; they are your potential clients, and you are taking them on a journey with every piece of content you share.
To help keep these two audiences separate (the private vs. the professional), I highly recommend creating business accounts for your author brand. On Instagram, you can do this in the settings. On Facebook, you can create an author page. In X (formerly Twitter,) you can create a different account.

Mindset Shift 2
I’m playing the long game.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about a cube of ice sitting in a room at 0 degrees. The goal is for the ice to melt, and while the room temperature is slowly warming, a degree at a time, it looks like nothing is happening. It’s not until the room hits 33 degrees that we start to see small changes.
It’s the same with your author brand. You may post on your social media platforms every day for months and not see any measurable results. But you’re getting there, one degree at a time.
This means you want to avoid “chasing the algorithm.” Rather than jumping on every trend you see, stick to your content plan. If the trend works with the plan you’ve created, great. If not, skip it.
Having said that, you also want to experiment with how you present your content. See what works and what doesn’t. Stay focused on the what and play around with the how.
When you can shift to thinking about building a body of work, rather than one post on one day, it gives you the power of longevity.

Mindset Shift 3
The goal is not selling; the goal is building community
This may sound counterintuitive but think about the cliches that describe salespeople. Many are negative, and with good reason. The motivation behind marketing is an energy the audience can feel.
When you only want to sell your book, people can sense it. Shifting your mindset to focus on creating a connection with your readers will have a tremendous impact.
This takes authenticity and an appropriate amount of vulnerability. What’s the appropriate amount? That’s up to you. You get to curate what you share with your audience.
Consistently sharing those chosen pieces of yourself will lead you to “your people.” You won’t be for everyone, and that is the point. You’re connecting a community of people who share similar values and interests with you and each other.

Within these three mindset shifts, which parts do you love? Which make your feel excited or at the least, energized?

* Persistence
* Experimenting with types of posts
* Reaching new people
* Creating a professional online presence
* Authentically sharing your quirks, passions, and challenges
* Connecting the people who follow you

Focus on those things and do more of them. That passion and enjoyment will shine through, and your audience will respond to that energy in beautiful ways.

If you’re interested in learning more about creating your author brand, sign up to be the first to hear about our workshops on this topic and more!