Self Publishing Tip #2 – Branding

 

Ok, guys, here it is – tip #2.

Tip number two is dealing with branding. One of the things that as I go on this self-publishing journey, one thing that I find is that it’s the same exact thing as in my other business. Although this is as an author, it doesn’t seem like the traditional business world, it really is. 

Let me tell you what I mean by that. Don’t think that just because you’ve written a book, and it could be a great book, but don’t think that it’s automatically going to take off on its own.

Don’t think that you’re automatically going to sell tons on Amazon, the other platforms, or get it in the stores, because no matter what you still need people. You still need people to find your books and gravitate towards your books.

You have to treat this like a business and this is one of the things that a lot of authors tend to not like.

Me, on the other hand, I really like this part because I like the business sense of things. In fact, I kind of enjoy this part a little more than the other part. The other part you know, you could get in there and write a book and you could write a children’s book pretty fast.

But this part takes time, it takes you time to learn new things, it’s actually creating and making you into a better person. Believe it or not, you need some public speaking skills even when being the author.

So, where some people shy away from, this is where I really gravitate towards.

Branding — this is the tip right here.

Make sure that you have uniformity in all of your social media platforms.

You may have many different books, you may have many different things that you can promote, that you can sell, that you can provide, like some kind of content or help for the world.

But the only way you’re going to expose them to everything is if you brand yourself, you brand a character, or you brand a title, you have to brand something.

For instance, with me, Bright and the BullyLive Bright. I really want to influence children to live bright. I really want to make the world a better place and this isn’t just for show, this is something that I really want.

So, in creating a brand I’m creating my brand around this fact alone — Live Bright. Hence, my pen name, TW Bright, because that’s what I stand for, living bright. 

I’m a person that believes that every relationship you have, you should be providing value to people, to your work, to whatever, and I want to teach kids these same fundamental principles.

So, that’s why I’m branding the character Bright the Superhero.

Now, of course, Bright is a children’s book, but eventually I want Bright to venture off into different things.

Originally I wanted Bright to be a cartoon, so the buy-in part is Bright the book, but it’ll go beyond that. It’s going to go past that. I plan on having coloring books and all different things that represent Bright and teaching kids, instilling these fundamental principles about living a bright life — you don’t have to wear a cape to be a hero.

That’s one way to get in there. If you go to my Instagram – Twitter – it’s Bright the Superhero. I couldn’t get the same name on everything, but if you go to my website – it’s TWBrightBooks.com, you’ll see it’s all centered around Bright.

So they’re going to see the same picture, same character in some kind of way in every single place. That’s what branding is about.

You could brand yourself. If your a person who doesn’t want to be in the front, you don’t have to, brand a character. But, you have to brand something. You have to have uniformity so that people can recognize your brand.

That’s why you know what Pepsi and Coca-Cola are, you just know that, you’ve been ingrained to know that because you saw it so many times and this is how we have to think, even as authors, writers, and illustrators.

In this day and age, anybody can have success using online platforms, but you have to start thinking in the context of branding yourself, even as authors.

That’s my tip for the day – take care – take charge and God bless!

TW Bright

 

Picture Book Publishing Tip #1 – The Illustrator

 

 

Since I put out my book, a lot of people have been asking me about how to go about doing it. It seems like everyone has an idea about wanting to write a book.

Right now I’m talking mainly about children’s books, picture books. I even have a sister who’s asking me about getting an illustrator, which can be a pretty daunting task.

I wanted to give this little bit of advice to save you a lot of time and money.

Make sure that you and your illustrator are on the same page.

When you’re looking for an illustrator you have to make sure you can really connect with that person because they have to tell the story through artwork. Just because your friend is a good artist doesn’t mean he’s going to be a good illustrator.

I wanted to make sure I left you with that tip because I spent a lot of money and paid two different illustrators to work on my story and not that they weren’t good artists, they were actually really good artists, but when it came to illustration they didn’t fully understand it.

For an illustrator, it takes a very special kind of person to have the deeper level of understanding when it comes to illustrating. They are the ones actually telling the story and their job is even a little more important than the person who wrote the book.

But, that’s my opinion and I wanted to leave you with that piece of advice and I hope it helps you. I’ll be doing more videos on self-publishing and I wanted to give you that as a first tip – make sure that you find the right person.

If you have any questions, leave it in the comments section and I will make more videos addressing any questions you may have.

National Bullying Prevention Month – TW Bright Speaks at Bookstore

This is Stirling Books and Brew, where I’m going to go and discuss my new book, Bright and the Bully, and another upcoming project. It starts at 7:00 and I’m about 15 minutes early, going to mingle a little bit and see you guys inside.

Inside here, it’s pretty nice, this is the local section, Albion, my hometown. You can see all the different authors who have written books here. Looking around Books and Brews, it’s pretty cool, they have a little fireplace in the lounge area. Saying hello and seeing the authors who are performing tonight.

Now it’s my turn.

I am an up and coming author, with my recent children’s book. The one that I hold in my hand right now is the one I want to talk about that I’m getting published. It’s got about another week more of revisions from the illustrator and I’m super excited about it and I wanted to share it with you guys.

It’s really like my baby and really near my heart because I was one of those kids in school who used to put their head down on the table when it came to English class. I liked math, but when it came to reading and writing, English and all of that, I just put my head down. If someone would have told me when I was younger that I would actually be a writer, I would have laughed at them.

So, I believe that the Lord started giving me these ideas about these stories and it was kind of unbelievable to me. But, at the same time it really gave me this inner joy to do when I started. For that reason, this is my baby. This is one I wanted to traditionally publish, but I didn’t want anybody touching it, I didn’t want anybody changing anything, and I wanted my ideas to remain intact. I wanted the story to remain intact, so this one I’m actually self-publishing.

This one is called Bright and the Bully and it’s a superhero book, but with a different spin on it. From the cover, one of the things I did is I took a group of people, both white and black, and what does this cover say to you. At first it was just the two kids on it and I said “does this look like it’s race-baiting or something?”. Some of them said no, others said yeah, so we ended up putting some other kids in the back just to change it up.

With anything that I do, it comes from somewhere, from an actual story. And in working with kids and volunteering at schools, and things like that, I’ve got a lot of stories.

So, one of the things I wanted to do in this book is I wanted to focus on the bystander.

Traditionally books are dealing with the bully. What I wanted to do was deal with the bystander, because oftentimes what it is, is that the kids around it could make it a lot better. If we have a group of kids here, and this specific kid is being bullied, and all the bystanders are all standing around laughing, they make things worse.

So, what I wanted to do with my story is I wanted to make this a story that focuses more on the bystanders than the bully.

It’s about a kid named Brighton, and he’s faced with this conflict that one of the little girls at the school is being bullied. And immediately, Brighton starts to think in his head, “If only I could use my superpowers, I would twirl him around like a tornado, I would fly him to the moon!”

So, he’s thinking from what we normally think of superheroes, vigilante style.

Then he hears a little voice coming from inside of him telling him to be the light of the world. As he does that, he turns into this superhero, this great superhero and his name is Bright.

This is when he goes forth and teaches the other kids how to deal with a bully and he actually uses five steps on how to deal with the bully, not the violent way. It’s ways that a believer or somebody who has some kind of moral base would do and not vigilante style.

I thought it was right on time, especially with National Bullying Prevention Month coming up, and I’ve been working really hard trying to get this done for about two years. If anyone would have told me that writing and publishing a children’s book would be this hard, I wouldn’t have really believed it. It’s definitely time consuming and you have to put a lot of money into it because you’re paying for each and every illustration, but I say it’s well worth it.

I’m really excited about it and I wanted to share it with you guys. It’s not out right now, but it’s going to be on Amazon and I’m working with some people to get it in Barnes and Nobles. Hopefully before we go it’ll be all over the world. This is just one of the series and I hope you guys will tune in and share it once I get it all up and going.

Thank you.

Q&A

Where can we find out more about it?

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/brightkidhero/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/bright_the_hero

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/twbright_official/

What are your other ideas for children’s books?

The next one is going to be about the origin and how he became Bright.

Brighton is actually my little nephew, Breslin, and he recently got his hair cut. He had the same kind of hair so I was thinking about doing one about him getting a hair cut. Because a lot of kids have a problem with being afraid to go get a haircut.

But the next one will be about the origins of Brighton.

 

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