It’s time to update your author profiles and give it a Spring makeover. You can do this by still keeping with your brand colors and themes. I’ve included my banner as an example.
1. Choose a color and stand by it!
Of course, you see the color purple. When one of my students saw my Instagram page, she commented, “Purple must be your favorite color. I love your Instagram.” I explained to her that my intention was to change the color of my pages every time that I have a new book released. Color has great meaning and symbolism for Sweet Potato Jones, so purple had to be it! No questions that this was an intentional author move to brand the book. When the student responded so positively to my page I wanted to pat myself right on the back for it! That was the audience I was hoping would notice! They did!
2. Include all of your works or create a subheading that lists your accomplishments!
Make sure that you list your books. So, I decided to make one banner and include it in another banner. That might seem weird at first, but for me, I like the visual look of it. All of my Bible devotionals are placed on one banner with a butterfly, representing my Monarch business platform and publishing company, Monarch Educational Services, L.L.C. for indie publishing. I decided at the last minute to add the Jen Lowry Writes podcast logo, so I covered up the butterfly and replaced it on the side. Sweet Potato Jones is my traditionally published book that will be released September 10, 2019 so I made sure I had her as my standout, with the publishing information included.
3. Resize to fit your different platforms. It will cut off if you don’t.
What I love about Canva’s paid subscription is that I have the resize function. That means nothing is cut off, and the image is trimmed without any customization thought that I have to do. It’s easy. I typed in LinkedIn banner, Twitter banner, etc. and sure enough my Facebook banner is resized in seconds, and I’m updating across the board.
4. Allow for seasonal change to refresh your look.
Every season, let’s challenge ourselves to update our banners. If you have a special book birthday coming up, let your banner reflect the Facebook Live event party you are going to throw. That’s just one idea of how you can refresh base on what is happening around your book to generate book flair excitement.
5. Keep our social media site banners updated.
Not only do we need to update our bio every now and then by adding new info, we should also keep our headers updated. It was so wonderful and surreal to type “Best-Selling Bible Devotional Author” today. That is a huge milestone for me that I have prayed over since I started this author journey in 2014. Happy Renewal Year made the #1 best-selling ranking for self-help this year, and it just so happens to be my favorite challenge devotional journal book yet! Celebrate your successes! Claim it! Go after it! Mark it on your calendar to change your social media banners periodically. I already have mine marked in my Google author calendar to update closer to the release date of Sweet Potato Jones when my pre-orders are ready! It will be a specific pre-order celebration banner! I CAN’T WAIT!
6. Research other author banners.
I love looking at the way other authors are presenting their work digitally. The big time authors that are banking have their own social media managers and PR teams that have also done their market research. Trust me! Since I am doing all of my work myself and DO NOT have a digital media background or visual eye for anything of the sort, I trust what others are doing and try to model that. Then, I just go with my instincts, like I did this morning. That banner you see as a sample might not be the best of the best, but I am proud of the result. I found a premade banner template and just worked from there. I can always modify it later.
7. Stay consistent with your brand.
Being consistent is a key to connecting with your audiences. They will see who you are across your settings and know that your platform has a particular style/feel to it just based on the images, bio, and descriptions you provide. You can’t pull it off on Instagram as being dark and edgy on Instagram and then go to sunshine and happiness rainbows on Twitter and not have that as a blaring contradiction of your author platform. Stay consistent across the social media world and keep the same banner. You don’t need a banner for every platform to be different either. Yes, I see authors doing this, but it is my humble opinion that we can create one seasonal or event banner and mass use it simply too save time and energy. I’m going to change it up closer to the Sweet Potato Release in September, 10, 2019, so this one won’t be around too long anyway!
So, your challenge today is to update all of your banners on your social media sites to represent your brand or mark the season of Spring. I tried to do both!
Hugs,
Jen Lowry
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Sweet Potato Jones – Release date September 10, 2019 – Check out my girl on Goodreads!
Monarch - Dr. Jen Lowry 