The Publishing Performance Show

Isabelle Knight - PR Secrets: Building Your Author Brand

• Teddy Smith • Episode 4

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Isabelle Knight is a publicist to the stars, having worked with high-profile clients such as JK Rowling and the BBC. As the founder of Build Your Author Brand, Isabelle now helps authors develop their profile, grow their readership, and increase book sales. Her expertise spans traditional and digital marketing strategies, offering unique insights into the world of author branding and publicity.

In this episode:

  • Understanding the concept of building an author brand
  • The importance of identifying and connecting with your target audience
  • Effective strategies for author publicity and PR
  • Using newsletters and social media to engage with readers
  • Collaborating with businesses and organizations for book promotions
  • The difference between PR and paid advertising
  • Case studies of successful author branding campaigns
  • Tips for pitching yourself and your books to various platforms
  • The value of consistency in building your author brand


Resources mentioned:

  • Build Your Author Brand course
  • Facebook groups for author networking
  • Newsletter platforms for reader engagement
  • Bookshop partnerships for book launches


Book recommendations


Connect with Isabelle Knight:


Connect with Teddy Smith:


Join our Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/publishingperformance/

Teddy Smith (00:01.881)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Publishing Informants Show. I'm here with Isabelle Knight, who's former publicist of the stars with clients such as JK Rowling and the BBC. She's also the founder of the Build Your Author brand, which helps authors to build their profile, to grow their readership and sell more books, which is basically what this show's all about. So thanks, Isabelle, for joining us.

Isabelle Knight (00:21.698)
Thanks for having me Teddy, it's a pleasure to be here. Great to be here, thank you.

Teddy Smith (00:24.537)
Yeah, great. So building your author brand. So I think building a brand is something that a lot of authors are kind of a bit scared of. You people always talk about what do mean by building a brand? It's not a business. You know, I'm just talking about myself. So maybe tell us a bit about that building a brand and what that means.

Isabelle Knight (00:41.729)
Absolutely. yeah, people or authors, I should say, especially indie authors, self -published authors particularly, who are coming to the world of publishing without any prior knowledge of marketing, PR, all of these quite scary concepts, I think, for people that are brand new to them. So the reason I started working with authors in self -publishing and indie publishing

was because I saw that we had people putting out fantastic books and obviously pouring their heart and soul into their books. But then falling at the kind of first hurdles of, how do we, once our book is published, how do we find an audience for it? How do we find a readership? And how do we raise the author's profile so that they become known in their genre?

they find more readers and they really start to actually sell some books. Ultimately, most writers don't want to write books that they're not read by anybody. Even if they're not imagining themselves becoming the next kind of, know, top 10 Sunday Times bestseller list authors, we still want to feel that our books are going to be read, are going to be enjoyed, we're going to have an audience for them. So the building your author brand,

comes from my position of being a publicist for a really long time. And a publicist is, in short, somebody that creates opportunities to get people and their work known in the public eye. So it's about building profiles first and foremost. And it's about getting audience, building audiences and getting them excited about the thing that you're bringing to.

Teddy Smith (02:28.889)
Yeah.

Isabelle Knight (02:40.362)
to them that you're releasing. So I've worked in music, I've worked in film, TV, books. So I kind of was bringing all of this experience and seeing that we had huge gaps of knowledge in self -publishing and in the indie publishing world. So how do we go about starting to create a profile where people are gonna, readers are gonna know who we are, they're gonna fall in love with our books and then they're gonna be

eager for the next book to drop. Most of the authors I work with would really want to be in that position where they know they're writing the next book and they know they've got readers out there ready and waiting. So we build the brand and by brand, again I know that that term in itself scares a lot of people. Yes, that's it. So first of all we have to kind of understand that

Teddy Smith (03:11.514)
Yeah.

Teddy Smith (03:29.687)
Yeah, a lot of authors forget that they are the products basically, you people want to buy into them as an author. Yeah.

Isabelle Knight (03:38.557)
You know, as you said at the top, authors don't want to feel like they're running a business. But once we get our head around the idea that writing books and selling them, we have to put ourselves in that frame of mind of when we're now thinking of this as a business, because we're putting products on the market and we want to sell them. But what I don't mean by building an author brand is turning everybody into celebrity and everybody into a kind of all singing, all dancing.

social media influencer, we're not talking about any of those things. What we're simply talking about is what are your readers going to know you for? What are going to associate with you? What's your reputation going to be? When they hear your name as an author, where is their mind going to go immediately? Preferably, we want their mind to go to your books and we want them to have an idea.

Teddy Smith (04:19.983)
Your online reputation basically.

Isabelle Knight (04:37.771)
of what they're going to get from your books. So the first thing I take authors through is identifying, well, what is it that we want people to associate with us as authors? What are those things that are going to be able to uniquely identify each author? And we base that on, and this is a fairly big concept,

to start with but we base it on what are the values of that author and what are the values that are in their books because everything that everything they are as an author makes it into their books whether consciously or not so by getting to know the author we get we're getting to know the books without having to read all the books first to have an idea of well what's this about and where is this author coming from and where are these books coming from does that make sense

Teddy Smith (05:36.687)
Yeah, I think so. because we're talking about your basically talk about your online reputation and it's how you can use publicity to essentially grow that. So you're talking when we started, you're telling us about how you did a lot of that publicity for, you know, J .K. Rowling, BBC, like big brands like this. What sort of activities would it be that you were doing for them that would that would be growing that that that reputation?

Isabelle Knight (05:44.995)
Yes.

Isabelle Knight (05:52.314)
Mm.

Isabelle Knight (05:58.256)
So when we're talking about doing professional publicity and PR, a lot of it is talking about media relations at that level. we're looking at what are the ways that we can, a lot of it is down to networking. kind networking is the sort of first rule of doing PR and publicity at that level. So who is paying attention to

to these brands, to this work. So for example, I worked on the team with JK Rowling to bring her strike books to TV with the BBC and US broadcasters. So, you know, one of the big things you have to say is, first of all, who's the audience? you know, we've got a TV watching audience.

Teddy Smith (06:44.773)
Mm

Isabelle Knight (06:50.936)
And we've got the readers of the books that we're hopefully gonna try and bring them to TV to fall in love with the TV series as well. And then we have to think, well, how are we going to reach those people? So we start to think through what media are they going to consume? So we look at magazines that people are going to read, we look at newspapers they're gonna read, and when we're talking on a...

big brand level, we're talking about national news, we're talking about international news. So we start to look at where are the opportunities that we can secure and then we get into what ideas we're going to use. So are we going to give them exclusives from the books, from the stories, from the TV filming, are we going to do behind the scenes? Obviously reviews plays a part in that.

interviews plays a part in that. So these are all, know, at big level publicity, this is what we do.

Teddy Smith (07:51.557)
That's really interesting because although you're talking about huge brands there, the stuff that the actual individual tasks aren't necessarily things that smaller people couldn't do on a smaller, much more niche level. for example, if your book is about parenting, for example, it's a non -fiction book about parenting, maybe your target audience is parents. So how do you find them? Is it particular Facebook groups or is it particular, where are people hanging out that are going to talk about it? Yeah.

Isabelle Knight (08:02.804)
Yes, yes.

Isabelle Knight (08:14.7)
That's right, that's right, that's right. So the first question you want to ask is, well the very first question you want to ask is who is my reader? And that's where a lot of authors already start to struggle because when they're writing the book, often they're not really thinking about who is the reader going to be at the end of that process. So I like to get authors thinking about this stuff whilst they are writing the book and not waiting

until certainly not waiting until they've pressed publish to then start thinking about, right, who's my reader going to be and how am going to reach them? So even when you start writing the book, thinking about who do I want to read this? And if it's a parenting nonfiction book, then we have a fairly clear route to, well, this is going to be for parents. And then we can start, we start to get more specific. So what

age group of children are we talking about? Are they parents of small children, teenagers? Are they women? Are they men? Where do they live? Are they in the UK? Are they elsewhere? So we start to get really specific. Because I work with fiction and non -fiction authors, I work across the board. certainly I think fiction authors often struggle with this a lot because often they'll say to me, but I've written a book set in space and it's about love and it's about, it's got monsters.

Teddy Smith (09:39.279)
Ha

Isabelle Knight (09:42.004)
and they say, you know, no idea who my book is for. So when we're at these, you know, kind of concept fiction, that kind of thing, this is where coming back to, and I call it your author brand story, and that's the first thing I work on with authors. So we come back to who are you as an author and why have you written what you've written? So what are the kind of motivations, what are the things you're interested in and where have those interests come

come from and we look at the values behind your author brand story. So rather than saying, all right, we need to find fans of monsters for my book, we can say, okay, well, the book is about love, it's about peace, it's about freedom, it's about, know, so we start to look at what's the book actually about? What's the message that you want your readers to take away? And then we can start to say, okay, so these kinds of people might be interested in this kind of book.

So that's the first thing you want to work on. Then it's about saying, okay, once we've identified who this reader could be, how are we going to reach them? So what social media platforms are they on? I mean, the number of times I get asked, another author told me I should be on TikTok. Do you think I should be on TikTok? And I always say, well, are your readers on TikTok? Are your readers on Instagram? Are your readers on Facebook?

Like where are they hanging out? Because if your readers aren't on TikTok, you're gonna get very disheartened very quickly. And then we can look at what podcasts do they listen to? What radio do they listen to? What TV do they watch? Do they read newspapers? Do they read magazines? Do they read news on the internet? Because now we have so many ways of reaching potential readers.

what we want to avoid is that kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall effect, trying things out and you know, mean, yeah, lots of authors do this, I know, know, they think, I'll try this, I'll try this, I'll try this. And eventually they might hit on something that starts to work. But what I want to do is kind of leapfrog people over that process and say, right, well, let's really think about where are those readers going to be? Let's work out where we're going to find them.

Teddy Smith (11:38.393)
Yep. See you all next.

Teddy Smith (12:00.675)
Right, so rather than just going straight for a particular tactic, it's more about thinking about the values of the book really, or the values of you as an author and how what you think your readers will be listening to or reading as a result of those values. So creating that author profile and building it out. And then so when you're creating that profile, especially for like fiction authors, as you mentioned, you said, you know, don't want to be just finding people that like monsters or spaceships. So when you're thinking about those values, do you think it's...

Isabelle Knight (12:13.935)
Yes. Yes.

Isabelle Knight (12:26.616)
Mm -mm.

Teddy Smith (12:29.881)
the sort of things that would be represented in the book? Or is it maybe what the author wants to, the sort of people he wants to approach with the book?

Isabelle Knight (12:38.255)
Yes, yeah. So like I said, the author's values and motivations, we see them in the book, whether they have consciously said, right, I'm gonna make this book about love or about freedom or about education or about saving the planet from humanity, whether I'm gonna overtly make it about those things or not, what we start, we always start to see.

that the author's motivations, we start to see them in the book, what happens with all and for all of us, we all have our own stories about what motivates us to do the things we do in life and to be passionate about the things we're passionate about. We all have this, but it's so difficult to see your own story because you're so close to it. the first thing I do with authors is help them to see what might

others see when they're looking at that author's story. So to help them to see it from an objective standpoint, because that's really hard to do for yourself. Yeah.

Teddy Smith (13:46.265)
Great. So you sort of help them build out those values and then they can build that ortho profile themselves. That's really good. Once you've done that, where's the best place to find your audience? Because I know when I speak to people in these sort of calls, a lot of people talk about different Facebook groups. It's a great place to meet people. Or sometimes it's newsletters which are about your niche. Where do you usually, what's the best places to start to find that audience?

Isabelle Knight (14:07.223)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Isabelle Knight (14:11.78)
So one really good way, because I always say to my authors, some of my authors have worked with me now for three or four years, and I still say to them, remember to get to know your reader. How well do you know your reader? And one really good way, if you're starting out and you've got no idea, think, I don't know my reader, I've no idea who they are, is ask them. Ask your audience.

Speak to them, communicate with them. So if you're on social media, ask questions. What kind of books do you like to read? Are you a non -fiction person? Are you a fiction person? Are you a books about cats person? There's so many ways that you can find out things about your readers. So one of those ways is through newsletters. a newsletter should be seen as a communication tool.

Teddy Smith (14:51.557)
Ha

Teddy Smith (15:02.437)
Are you talking about your own newsletter or other people's newsletters?

Isabelle Knight (15:04.333)
So if the author has their own newsletter, I always say to people, start your newsletter as soon as you can, like start building an email list as soon as you can as an author. So one of the best ways to use a newsletter is to not see it as an advertising, a kind of billboard or a sandwich board, but to see it as a two -way communication tool.

So it's a way of your readers getting to know you, getting to know more about you. The more we know about a person, the more invested emotionally we become. So the more loyal we become as readers. And that's how you build up your core fan base is by allowing those people to get to know a bit about you. And that doesn't mean that they have to know everything about you and it doesn't mean that they have to know all of your secrets and all of your personal stuff. But just showing them a bit about who you are as an author.

is gonna start to help them to become invested in you. So one of the ways you can do that, it definitely is through a newsletter. You know, you've got a captive audience, so start building up that email list. So not only are you letting them know about when the next book is out, but you're letting them get to know you, and in turn, you can get to know them. You know, make it reciprocal. Invite people to email you back, yeah? I think that's one thing that think lots of people don't do, is...

invite their readers to reply to their newsletter.

Teddy Smith (16:33.445)
Yep, 100%. Because also, your newsletter, it's a good place for other people to maybe get in touch with you. you might even be able to make some money out of other people advertising on your newsletter later on. It's a, yeah.

Isabelle Knight (16:43.443)
Yes, absolutely. mean, yeah, loads of ways that you can monetise it once you kind of start to get your list going. Yeah, yeah.

Teddy Smith (16:50.681)
Yeah. In terms of building that list up in the first place, have you, so one of the good tactics I use is to maybe put like a QR code or a link in your book where people can get in touch with you. Have you got other ways which are good for getting people in contact with you?

Isabelle Knight (17:00.032)
Mm.

Isabelle Knight (17:05.398)
I think often giving readers something. So this is one of the big things that professional publicists and PRs and marketers use all the time. Give your audience something for free, yeah? So that they can start to hook them in. So for example, you can say to people, you know, could use your social media accounts to say, I'm gonna be giving, you know, the first 50 people that sign up to my newsletter are gonna get the first three chapters of my next book for free, for example.

Teddy Smith (17:34.981)
Great. Yep.

Isabelle Knight (17:35.51)
Yeah. And there's a million different variations you can do of that. It could be, I've created these amazing new bookmarks. The first 20 people that sign up are gonna get a bookmark with the next book or whatever it is. There's so many different things you can create as an author to go alongside your books. It could be a little short novella. It could be an ebook that then sends people not only to your newsletter list, but then to your books.

Teddy Smith (17:59.844)
Yep.

Isabelle Knight (18:05.617)
It's kind of creating that, you you hear marketers talk about that customer journey. Well, it's starting to think about what are the sort of touch points that your reader has with you before they are invested enough to say, I'm actually, I'm going to take a punt on this person's book. Yeah.

Teddy Smith (18:23.577)
I know James Blatch, I was speaking to him a couple of weeks ago, he actually includes flight logs in his books, which is a really interesting way of it. In my non -fiction books I try and include things like extra PDFs or checklists, which are great for getting downloads, and also maybe extra videos. So I've got one book which is about yoga and I've got videos where someone helps me to show those positions because I can't touch my toes.

Isabelle Knight (18:29.402)
Yeah.

Isabelle Knight (18:36.326)
Yeah, yes.

Isabelle Knight (18:44.296)
That's good. Yeah, mean, I mean, that's the thing. Non -fiction books, you've got even, I would dare to say even more ways of kind of creating things that can go alongside your book, you know, audios, visuals, extra kind of materials. Having said that, I've also got some of my fiction authors doing exactly the same thing.

For example, I've got one also just releasing a new children's book and she's created a whole load of educational material for teachers to use in schools, for example. So there's still lots and lots of things that you can do with fiction as much as you can with non -fiction, yeah.

Teddy Smith (19:25.817)
Yeah. With your reputation that you're building up, a lot of people have pen names, and sometimes even have multiple pen names. Do you ever work with people who have more than one pen name and how they manage having those multiple different reputations online?

Isabelle Knight (19:34.579)
Hmm.

Isabelle Knight (19:40.849)
Yes, yeah, yeah. And this is question I get asked a lot and it's a great question because I think lots lots of authors struggle with this. So, yeah, I'm working with several at the moment who are writing under different, you know, they've got these books under this name, these books under this name, and they're writing in multiple genres. So this is where, so the author brand story stuff that we've talked about a bit, this is where that really comes into play.

Because what we want to do, what we don't want to do is to either to fracture your brand by having it split into lots of different little sections. And so readers of these books having no idea that you've also got these books over here. And where you've got somebody writing say in two wildly different genres, so they might be writing books for grownups and books for children for example, that's quite a common.

combination for authors. So what we want to do is let our readers be aware that we have different kinds of books under different names and that you are one. Well, it's sort of being upfront about it, but being upfront about it in a clever way. So it doesn't mean to say that, because when we're marketing those books, obviously we're be marketing them differently. We're gonna be speaking to different audiences, going to different places, using different media, using different techniques.

Teddy Smith (20:51.375)
So just be upfront about it. Like, literally.

Isabelle Knight (21:09.157)
But when we want to think about the author profile and the author brand, we want that to be a strengthened, strong brand. And it's perfectly all right for that one brand to be an umbrella for different sub -brands, for want of a better term. So the author brand's story is gonna show us who you are as an author, and we're still gonna see those things about you as an author in those different kinds of books.

Yeah? Because you're not turning into a different person to write each of those books, even though they might be completely different in content and everything else. Yeah?

Teddy Smith (21:39.247)
Right, okay.

Teddy Smith (21:44.012)
Yeah.

Teddy Smith (21:48.631)
Yeah, okay, it's about just creating that profile for that persona in many ways, isn't it?

Isabelle Knight (21:53.9)
Yes, for example, then, know, so then if, if, you know, if somebody worked with me and, you know, we're building up their profile and then we get, we're getting them opportunities to be interviewed in for national magazines, newspapers, literary journals, for example, you know, when you're being interviewed, you want to be able to speak about your different, the different things you're doing. Yeah. You're not going to be one day be interviewed as John Smith and the next day as, you know, Eddie.

Johnson, you know, we're not gonna have different names, different people. So you want to be able to present your author brand as one brand. And that's really important, yeah.

Teddy Smith (22:30.553)
Yeah, yeah, that's very important. It's all about bringing back to you're creating a brand, you have to remember that it's about the consistency. So what you just touched on was really interesting because you're talking about some of the different tactics. So it was like being interviewed by newspapers, that sort of thing. So that kind of brings it back a bit to PR, which you which I know you're saying it's different, but what so what are some of those tactics that people could be doing, such as like, yeah, getting interviewed by magazines?

Isabelle Knight (22:36.471)
Yeah, yes, yes.

Isabelle Knight (22:45.999)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Isabelle Knight (22:56.501)
Yeah, so being interviewed is a really, really powerful way of readers getting to know you, because remember, it's always thinking about how am I reaching my readers and how are they going to get to know you best quickly. So if you're going to be interviewed, if you manage to get an interview in a national newspaper, a national magazine, radio station, I've got several authors now who have done so many radio interviews.

Teddy Smith (23:24.879)
You

Isabelle Knight (23:25.013)
that they're actually being asked back to become regular guests for particular radio stations, which is awesome. I mean, that's amazing. To take someone who's never done media at all ever before, and then a few months later they're being regularly interviewed on radio is fantastic. So that's the kinds of things that my authors are managing to do. And they've been interviewed in, like I said, national newspapers. They're doing it.

Teddy Smith (23:28.862)
great.

Isabelle Knight (23:53.612)
in -store book launches, so Waterstones are actually inviting them to come and do your book launch in -store. These are self -published authors, indie authors. They're speaking at events, festivals, speaking on podcasts. that's kind of, mean, so many ways that you can do those kinds of traditional -type media opportunities. Then there are

Teddy Smith (24:02.938)
Wow.

Isabelle Knight (24:23.724)
lots of other kind of techniques that we would use that authors can do for themselves. So collaborations is one thing. So for example, if you, we talked about doing, like giving your audience something for free. So for example, one thing that I used to do a lot as a pro publicist is to collaborate with another business or organisation where you can set up a promotion or a competition, giving away something.

Teddy Smith (24:31.631)
Okay, well, just, yeah.

Teddy Smith (24:37.156)
Yep.

Isabelle Knight (24:52.937)
So for example, yeah, exactly. So one example is if, and I always say to authors, who have you name checked in your book? This is always a good place to start. So I've had authors who've name checked particular venues in their books, for example, you know, like the detective goes into XYZ pub, for example, yeah. So then you wanna contact that pub and be like, actually I've talked about you in my book. This could be some nice.

Teddy Smith (24:53.163)
Singers do it all the time, don't they?

Teddy Smith (25:08.815)
Right, okay.

Teddy Smith (25:12.995)
Yep. Yep.

Isabelle Knight (25:20.807)
extra publicity for you, why don't we do a launch event at your pub or we run a competition or we do something on social media or we approach a local magazine or newspaper. Get them to run a competition, can win a night in hotel. For example, wherever you've name checked, win something and win a copy of your book. So that's one really good way of doing a kind of promotion as a collaboration. It's not gonna cost you anything.

but all it is is time and being bold enough to approach people. Like I said, networking is one of the top rules of PR. Yeah? No, no, not at all, no.

Teddy Smith (25:52.975)
Yeah, you def -

Yeah, you definitely wouldn't need to be famous to do that sort of thing. No. Before you talk about some of the more traditional things like getting interviewed in national magazines and stuff, would you expect all these to be free? Or you wouldn't have to pay for them? Because I know, for example, things like Forbes 30 under 30. That sounds like great publicity, but those guys just pay to be on there. They're not particularly special. They can just afford the...

Isabelle Knight (26:04.17)
Mm. Mm. Mm.

Isabelle Knight (26:16.923)
Yeah, yeah.

Teddy Smith (26:23.461)
20 grand or whatever it is to appear on the list. So would you usually?

Isabelle Knight (26:24.655)
Yeah, yeah. this is a really good question because I think this is coming up more and more as we see the rise of like, you know, online on social media, we're constantly seeing people get, I can show you how to get PR, I can show you how to get, you know, how to do publicity and what they're, and I get messages, I get spam messages all the time to my own inbox and I've stopped bothering to reply saying I'm actually a professional publicist. don't need anybody else to get me to pre -PR.

Teddy Smith (26:52.655)
Yeah.

Isabelle Knight (26:54.244)
But they'll say to me, you we can get you free PR, just pay XYZ fee to the magazine. If you're paying fee for something, kind of de facto, is not PR. PR is in its true form, PR is a third party endorsement. That's what publicity is. PR is reputation management, is creating reputation publicity.

is getting third party endorsement from somebody. So that's an endorsement that comes from them either being willing for whatever reason to say, do you know what, this book's great, go and buy it. Or for magazine to say, actually you seem really interesting as an author, we think our readers would be interested to find out more about you, we'll interview you. They're not gonna charge you for that. You're not gonna pay them money for that.

Teddy Smith (27:48.879)
Yep. Yep.

Isabelle Knight (27:51.951)
As I said, in its pure form, PR is not something you pay for. So you might pay to work with someone who's gonna help you to get these opportunities, so you're paying the person to help you, but you're not paying for the opportunities themselves. So when you get interviewed on a radio station, they're not gonna say, right, here's the invoice, that's not how this works. So if you're, like you said, the whole Forbes thing.

Teddy Smith (28:12.836)
Yep, no.

Isabelle Knight (28:17.543)
which seems to have really taken off in the last few years, whereas people are essentially paying to be featured. So that's a whole different thing. That's not PR or publicity. Essentially that's advertising. If you're paying for it, it's advertising.

Teddy Smith (28:23.525)
Yeah.

Teddy Smith (28:28.334)
Right, okay.

Teddy Smith (28:33.263)
great. And so in your, obviously you wouldn't recommend people do that sort of thing, but with them, with some of the authors you've worked with, you've obviously had some really good successes. So even if you can't name the authors, what generally good case studies for some of the things you've done and how that's impacted the authors work.

Isabelle Knight (28:50.018)
Yes, I mean I might, I can probably mention a couple of people because it's always nice. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, so I'll mention two authors who've been working with me for a while. So one is, she writes children's books and suspenseful romance novels and her name is Pauline Tate, go and look her up, she's fantastic. And she's Scottish author and you know.

Teddy Smith (28:55.075)
Yeah, we'll put links to their books in the note as well.

Isabelle Knight (29:16.217)
This is an example of how using PR and publicity in your long -term strategy, because this isn't about just doing something once or doing, you know, right, I'm gonna do PR for three months and that's gonna be it. It's about saying, right, I'm always using publicity in my book marketing strategy. So, exactly, exactly. So Pauline, think she is, yeah, so she's published two books in her,

Teddy Smith (29:34.565)
So it's about committing to building your brands on an ongoing basis. Right, okay.

Isabelle Knight (29:45.537)
Marin Bay series, so that's her romantic novels, suspenseful romance. And they're set on the Isle of Skye, she's a Scottish author and Pauline has managed to create really solid relationships first of all with bricks and mortar bookstores in Scotland, with festivals in Scotland, she does regular speaking, she's been featured in newspapers and magazines up there. So she's a great example of someone that's using PR and publicity.

all the things that we've kind of worked on together, she's using those now as part of her ongoing strategy.

Teddy Smith (30:21.797)
And it sounds like she's just built that up through building a network. Like, you know, she's gone to one festival, she might meet someone there who runs another festival or who invites them. And it's not always active work where you're saying, let's, it's about, as you said, build out that reputation. It's not necessarily, what's the main tactic I can use to get into this festival. It's more about committing to being that sort of brand online. Yeah.

Isabelle Knight (30:24.823)
Yes.

Isabelle Knight (30:33.919)
Yes, that's right. Yes, yes, exactly. That's it. And yeah, and knowing really clearly how to present your author brand and knowing how to pitch yourself. You the art of pitching, which is something that I'll be working on with people on my next course, that's one big thing that we work on. know, knowing how to pitch yourself, whether it's to press, whether it's to agents, publishers, whether it's to book.

festivals, literary festivals, awards, know, like lots of my authors are pitching themselves for awards, all of these things, it's all, that is something that you learn and it's something you get better at the more you do it, yeah.

Teddy Smith (31:15.449)
But pitching is not just like Dragon's Den where you're sitting there and there's loads of investors. It's actually just how you compose yourself in life, isn't it? It's how you talk about your books, how you talk about your brands, that sort of thing. Right.

Isabelle Knight (31:23.488)
Yes, that's right, that's right. so really, getting to grips with it, not shying away from it. I've said before, I've been quoted as saying, authors shouldn't be hiding behind their books. They've got to come out from behind the book and show who they are in a way that they are comfortable doing. Like I said, this isn't about dragging personal details out into broad daylight. This is about deciding.

who am I as an author, how am going to show up and doing that consistently? Yeah.

Teddy Smith (31:55.747)
Yeah, because a lot of people, say like high level things like, what is your why? You've got to find out what your why is. And I always think that doesn't make any sense. I don't know why why is but this actually is your brand, isn't it? It's like finding out why you're doing it. And that's the reason why people buy into the your story. Yeah.

Isabelle Knight (32:06.645)
Yeah. Yes.

Isabelle Knight (32:12.285)
Yes, yes, that's it, exactly.

Teddy Smith (32:15.843)
And you said you had another case study you thought was a good one to share.

Isabelle Knight (32:18.441)
Yeah, so I've got one other. So this is Dr. Catherine McAleese, so completely different, she's a non -fiction author and she wrote a book called Enough, which essentially helps you with your mindset, know, kind of wellbeing, mental health mindset for business. And we did a fantastic book launch for Catherine. So her audience was based on the other side of the Atlantic in the main.

Teddy Smith (32:28.879)
I know that but.

Isabelle Knight (32:47.681)
So she couldn't kind of be anywhere in person to speak to her readers. she identified that it would be an online launch so that she could communicate with them and get them on board. And she created, first of all, a Facebook group that everyone joined in and there were kind of events in there, activities in there, and she encouraged her readers to go to their local bookshops to order her books.

So whether, you know, if a bookshop is not stocking your book, can, a reader can still go and ask them to order it in and the vast majority of bookshops will do that if they think they're gonna make a sale if they have a reader that wants to buy a book from them. They will order that book. So she asked her, encouraged her readers to do that and they would take a selfie with themselves with the book to share with the rest of the group online.

Teddy Smith (33:15.854)
Okay.

Isabelle Knight (33:41.681)
and in turn a lot of the book shops got involved and got on board and then they would kind of repost these posts so they were tagging the book shop in the post. So it was a kind of win -win for everyone. Book shops were happy. The author has her readers helping her to promote the book in kind of real time and sharing that online. So that was a really great online launch. Yeah, yeah.

Teddy Smith (34:01.541)
Alright.

Absolutely love that. So an author here did something quite similar. I can't remember her name, but I'll put the link into the chat. But it was a local children's book reader to where I am in Leeds. And she basically went to all the local book shops around here and set up book signings, like in their books for like all these. And she was like, I'm from Leeds, this is it. And she got really good turnout for them. And each of the people who got a signed book got a little pot of honey because the book was about bees. And it works really well.

Isabelle Knight (34:20.52)
get.

Yeah, excellent.

Isabelle Knight (34:27.263)
I love that yeah that's great that's great I wonder if I've heard of that also yeah yeah yeah do yeah I love that.

Teddy Smith (34:32.185)
Yeah. I'll see if I can get it in front of the notes. So let's just before we wrap up, for people that are starting out, maybe they've got one or two books, let's think about some of the main tactics that they should be focusing on first in order to build that sort of online brand.

Isabelle Knight (34:41.609)
Mm.

Isabelle Knight (34:54.789)
Yeah, so like I said, kind of recapping, really get to know the reader, figure out who is the ideal reader, never think, just want everybody to read my book. That's never the answer to that question of who is your reader. So figure out who they are or figure out who they could be or might be and then start to figure out how am I gonna communicate with them. So using social media platforms to ask them questions, get to know who your reader is.

get them on your newsletter by inviting them to join the newsletter, give them something in return. So these are all the first things that I think every author should be doing. Yeah? Yeah.

Teddy Smith (35:33.721)
Yeah, brilliant. So what about things like teacher maybe a building a website or anything like that at first or do you think there's smaller tactics they should be focusing on?

Isabelle Knight (35:41.34)
I mean building a website is definitely something they should be doing and you know I'm not an expert at building websites. We know people that are in the author space but definitely be thinking about what's going to go on the website. it's not just, again a website is not just a kind of billboard, a sandwich board, it's not just blaring out information. So it's not just about here's the book, please buy it. It's about here I am as an author, what am I saying about myself as an author that is going to allow my readers to start investing.

in me and that comes down to the, like we said, the values, the author brand story.

Teddy Smith (36:17.441)
Thank you. And in your Build Your Author Brand course, obviously we're covering a lot of these topics, so what would people expect if they were signing up to the course? How does it work? What would be the outcome from it?

Isabelle Knight (36:21.091)
Mm. Mm.

Isabelle Knight (36:28.601)
Yeah. So they get, they learn all of the things that we've been discussing. So we start from the beginning, which is what's your author brand story. They get to grips with that. We uncover what are we saying about the author, the values, how are we creating the brands, we create the brand, then we look at who is the reader, because once we've got the author brand story, then it often leads us directly to the ideal reader. So we look at who the ideal reader is.

Then we figure out where we're find those people. We look at pitching, like I said, that's one big piece is learning how to pitch, looking at the opportunities you want to go for, and then helping people to build from there. So the next course is gonna be bigger than the ones I've been running so far. It's gonna be more, in terms of what we cover, and it's gonna be bit longer, and we're gonna go a bit deeper into everything.

Teddy Smith (37:18.361)
bigger in terms of people or...

Isabelle Knight (37:26.872)
and I'm gonna bring in a couple of guest mentors, so we will be looking at websites and the kind of, what I call the sort of nuts and bolts of digital marketing, so the kind of, the Amazon category is that kind of stuff as well, because all of these things have to sort of work together. So yeah, so we're gonna go, it's gonna be a slightly longer, more in -depth journey for this next course. So yeah, I'm excited, yeah.

Teddy Smith (37:49.221)
Brilliant. And how does it work? Is it like, you do the course in your own time or is it over a set period of time?

Isabelle Knight (37:55.139)
So over a set period of time, you get some things that are pre -recorded so that you can work through those by yourself and then you get time with me and the group. So you basically get access to me, you can ask me all of your questions, I get my eyes on your work, on your brand. So yeah, so you get some kind of intensive work with me and then some where you can go at your own pace, so to learn the modules, yeah.

Teddy Smith (38:22.073)
Yep. And it's all about making sure you're building your author brands over the long term, not just not short term wins. It's more about like long term building your profile and brilliant. Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. think, you know, it's been a great chat. There's been loads of stuff we've talked about. If people want to get in touch with you, where's the best way they can contact you.

Isabelle Knight (38:26.923)
Yeah. Yes. That's right. That's right. It's not just for Christmas. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Isabelle Knight (38:45.25)
So if they go straight to my website which is buildyourauthorbrand .co .uk. If you want to, you can even book a quick call with me if you want to speak to me about what to do next with your author brand or you're just not sure. And you can follow me on I think just about all the social media platforms. I mainly hang out on threads, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn. Okay.

Teddy Smith (39:12.281)
Great, thank you very much. So just before we go, there's just one last question. And is there, what's the book that you recommend that you think everyone should be reading at the moment?

Isabelle Knight (39:19.879)
yes, yes. I did think about this and so I think I've already mentioned, the two authors that I've mentioned, I would urge you to read their books, both very different books but brilliant examples of great self -published books. And another book that I have read, sort of building up my own business, which I loved, was The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix. I don't know if you know that one. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Teddy Smith (39:43.811)
Yes, I haven't read it, but it's on my list of a million books on my Kindle, which I've bought but not read. What did you like about that book?

Isabelle Knight (39:49.537)
Yeah, yeah, good. It's a great one to kind of help you to open up your mind in terms of what's possible for you because I think a lot of this and for authors as well is about working on your mindset, working on what is possible for you to achieve.

Teddy Smith (40:08.069)
Brilliant, yeah, the author thinking big. Well thank you so much for that. has been, it's been loads of great tips for everyone. I think everyone's gonna get lots out of the session. So yeah, hopefully we'll speak again, we'll speak in soon.

Isabelle Knight (40:10.315)
Yeah.

Isabelle Knight (40:17.207)
That'll be good.

Amazing. Thank you, Teddy. It's pleasure. Thank you.

Teddy Smith (40:22.671)
Thank you.