When I was an acquisitions editor, I would see all kinds creative and weird names authors would use to identify themselves or their work, each different across various social media platforms. Then if I was able to locate a website, their contact info wasn’t easy to find or available. Their itinerary wasn’t up to date. They didn’t make themselves easy to find, and their online branding didn’t make a good case for why I should consider publishing them. @ericsmithrock’s tweet this week inspired me to restate some things I’ve said before and will say again until all is right with the online author branding world.

So a few #pubtips here:

  1. Use your name or something very close to it for the name of your website and all social media. If you want to attract publishers, make yourself easy to find and contact.

  2. Create a special landing page with your book’s title to promote a new book, and let it lead to your main website named after you or your main brand. Don’t make your one book be the name of everything. You will write more.

  3. Keep your itinerary up to date to show that you have a platform or are growing one.

In nonfiction, an author’s platform is everything, even before the concept. For fiction and memoirs, concept and excellent writing are everything, with author platform as a big bonus. So don’t muddy your social media presence—your online brand—with complicated handles and website names. Keep your socials fresh, clean, and simple so the folks you’re looking for can maybe find you first.

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