One of the best examples of book title positioning and personal branding I’ve found in a long time is Jennifer Lee’s The Right-Brain Business Plan: A Creative, Visual Map for Success.
I was immediately impressed by the book’s positioning, it’s excellent execution, and its strong sales. The more I looked and read, the more I liked. There are over 400 business planning books listed on Amazon.com, but when you search business plan, Jennifer’s Right-Brain Business Plan currently shows up as Number 3.
More important, a you’ll see when you visit Jennifer Lee’s Right-Brain Business Plan and Artizen Coaching websites, the personal brand she created with her book has lead to growing stream of back-end products, services, and speaking opportunities.
This is author personal brand building at its best!
Origins of personal branding success
So, what can we learn from Jennifer Lee’s book positioning and personal branding success?
I tried to “reverse engineer” the steps she may have gone through. Here’s a possible scenario:
- Identify the competition. Start by identifying as many competing books in your field as possible. Create a list, mind map, spreadsheet, or stack of index cards with author and title information, plus online links, for as many competing books as possible. Include a rough indication of each title’s sales, so you can gauge the popularity of each title.
- Look for patterns. As you review competing books, look for patterns, characteristics, or attributes, shared by many of the titles. Be sensitive to your reactions as you analyze competing books. Use subjective terms like academic, dull, easy-to-understand, too detailed, hard-to-read, simplified, can’t relate to, etc., to describe each book.
- Group the titles into categories. Next, organize the titles into categories reflecting the patterns you’ve discovered. What are the characteristics you’ve discovered that apply to most of the books? More important, what are the characteristics associated with the most successful books? What are the characteristics associated with the least-successful books?
Writing your book & building your personal brand
Once your research has helped you understand the strengths and weaknesses of existing books, and the limitations of currently-available books, it will be easier for you to locate a fresh position for your book and your brand.
Locating the right position for your book and your personal brand will be even easier to the extent that you have previously targeted your ideal readers and created reader personas describing their characteristics.
Use visuals to support your brand
Next, look for ways you can create a unique visual identity to reflect your book and personal brand.
Visuals play an important role in brand building success. A few carefully-created visuals can the story of your book, create an immediate resonance with your intended readers, and set your title apart from the competition.
More important, the right graphics will create a family resemblance relating your book to your information products, i.e., worksheets, and your coaching, consulting, and speaking events, as you can see when you visit Jennifer Lee’s websites.
Once you’ve established an appropriate graphic style to support your position, use it consistently throughout your marketing and personal brand building. The graphics you use will rapidly become an important part of the equity associated with your personal brand.
Takeaway
It takes more than words to write a successful book and build a lasting personal brand. A lot of the work takes place before you begin to write. Success requires positioning your book relative to existing books in your field. Success also requires choosing a way to visually set your book apart from the competition. What are your thoughts on positioning books in a crowded field. Do you have any suggestions, or favorite examples, of equally well-positioned books you’d like to share as comments, below?
Author:
Roger C. Parker is an author, book coach, designer, consultant who works with authors, marketers, & business professionals to achieve success with brand-building books & practical marketing strategy. He helps create successful marketing materials that look great & get results, and can turn any complex marketing or writing task into baby steps. Visit his blog to learn more or ask a question.
