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Tag Archives: publishers
How to Tell a Compelling Brand Story by Clifford Chi
Last year, a buzzword ripped through the content marketing space that most marketers were surprisingly thrilled about and eager to implement. Shockingly, it didn’t start with “virtual” or end with “intelligence”. Instead, it was what attracted most marketers to the industry in the first place — “storytelling”.
Content marketing’s steady adoption of storytelling is an exciting new opportunity for content creators. The human brain is wired to respond to well-crafted narrative — neuroscience proves that storytelling is the best way to capture people’s attention, bake information into their memories, and forge close, personal bonds. Your audience is programmed to crave and seek out great stories — that’ll never change.
However, since we’ve spent the majority of our careers optimizing content for algorithms, it can be challenging to flex a creative muscle that’s slowly withered away from inactivity and, in turn, move people emotionally and sear your brand into their memories.
So, to help you strengthen that creative muscle and write compelling stories again, we’ve created a guide about the fundamentals of brand story structure and provided examples of three small-to-medium sized businesses who have leveraged their brand story to resonate with huge audiences, despite their comparatively small size.
What is a brand story?
A brand story recounts the series of events that sparked your company’s inception and expresses how that narrative still drives your mission today. Just like your favorite books and movies’ characters, if you can craft a compelling brand story, your audience will remember who you are, develop empathy for you, and, ultimately, care about you.
When HubSpot first started, we noticed traditional, interruptive marketing didn’t appeal to consumers anymore. Due to the digital age, people were in complete control of the information they consumed — and they were sick and tired of receiving direct mail, email blasts, and cold calls. People wanted to be helped, so we started creating educational content that aided people in solving their marketing problems.
Today, we’ve built a passionate community of inbound marketers, expanded our inbound marketing approach to the sales and customer service industries, and strengthened the inbound movement more than ever before.
This our brand story — a simple, digestible narrative that explains why HubSpot began, and how this reason still serves as our purpose today.
How to Write a Brand Story
1. Highlight your story’s conflict.
Check out the following story. Does it resonate with you?
A girl wearing a red-hooded cloak is strolling through the woods to give her sick grandma some much-needed food and TLC. She passes by a wolf on the way. They exchange a slightly awkward soft smile-nod combination that random colleagues usually greet each other with as they pass in the hallway. She makes it to her grandma’s house without a scratch. They eat lunch and play a game of Clue together. Grandma wins by deducing that Colonel Mustard killed Mr. Boddy in the Billiard Room with the candlestick — what a shocker! The End.
So … what’d you think? Did this story keep you on the edge of your seat? Or does it feel … off? For some reason, it doesn’t work, right? That’s because there’s no conflict. Despite the intense game of Clue at the end, there’s nothing at stake. There’s no tension. The wolf didn’t try to eat the girl. He didn’t even go to Grandma’s house. He barely acknowledged Little Red Riding Hood.
At their core, stories are about overcoming adversity. So if there’s no conflict presented, there’s no drama or emotional journey that people can relate to. And if your story has no drama or emotional journey, it won’t hold anyone’s attention — let alone resonate with and inspire them.
Unfortunately, in the business world, brands are horrified to reveal any adversity or conflict they’ve faced. They believe that spinning a rosy, blemish-free story about how their company only experiences hockey stick growth will convince people that they’re the industry’s best-in-class solution. Any adversity or conflict during their company’s history will expose their imperfections, deterring potential customers from buying their product.
But, in reality, this is a huge misconception. Nothing’s perfect. Everything, including companies (especially companies), has flaws. Plus, people don’t relate to perfection. They relate to the emotional journey of experiencing adversity, struggling through it, and, ultimately, overcoming it. Because, in a nutshell, that’s the story of life.
Conflict is key to telling compelling stories. So be transparent about the adversity your company has faced, and own it. The more honest you are about your shortcomings, the more people will respect you and relate to your brand.
2. Don’t forget about your story’s status quo and resolution.
Read More Here
Industry Standard Group for Indie Publishers
As a Independent Publisher which is a Limited Company, I always tell my author friends and clients to make sure they don’t pay first and to look at prices…some are horrendous. A deposit is one thing, full payment…Hell no… they tend to be Vanity Publishers. Needless to say if you have a set of standards for one then you need them for authors as well. Not all authors are great to work with. I’ve had some damn right nasty ones who nearly made me give up helping others.
It does cost to get published. It doesn’t matter if you go trad or Indie. Traditional take part of your royality for the life of the book, which could be millions and they will only publish you if they can make a profit from you work. Also remember they have control of your manuscript – you don’t! Indie Publishers get paid a one off amount so if you make millions you don’t need to pay them anymore.
What I would like to see is a list of or group of Indie Publishers who assist each other like Indie Authors do. They must have at least five 5 star reviews/testimonials …remember we all have to start somewhere.
In fact, I’ll start a group on Facebook of LLC companies with 5 or more positive testimonials. Let people know and we will build this together for everyone to look at and use.
What information I will need.
Professionalism
Proof of LLC
Proof of your reviews and testimonials.
Genre you work with
Royalty Share – if you work that way
Deposit Amount – if needed
Contact details
Companies without Reviews/Testimonals will be added as pending
when they start up.
Amazon Buy Basket – ADD TO CART
Most of you know by now that the Buy Basket isn’t necessarily going to mean you are buying a book from Amazon. You could be buying from a third-seller and not get paid. This is where the panic starts.
There are several things a publisher and a author can do, depending on how they are set up. Most of us on Amazon use Createpace as our PRINT Supplier. This is where we get paid our royalty. First of all when you publish your book most authors tick all the sales channels which include extended distribution. This extended distribution is generally the third-seller or re-seller. At some stage someone somewhere had to buy your book and you would have been paid your (CRAP) royalty – it is cents rather than over a dollar. Suppose you un-tick those channels? Then you sell only via Amazon and Createspace. SHARE THESE LINKS OR INSTEAD. This means the list of re-sellers disappear – to a degree.
What I have noted is that most books are in AMAZON PRIME, which usually means they are on the BUY BASKET, though you can check by clicking on NEW/USED before you share your link.
However, there will always be those who buy new books and sell to other re-sellers, and we all know you don’t get paid royalty twice. The only other way for them to get your book is if it is pirated and most books that are pirated have ASIN numbers in them. This means they were eBooks. If you are that worried, then take down your eBooks. I’m not overly worried, because I keep an eye on my amazon e-book links. Anything that comes up I immediately take action. Read SCAM Blog for more information
Also noted if you book is in Amazon Prime...It will generally be at the top aka Buy Basket seller. Not always the cheapest.
Another way for Publisher and Authors to help themselves is when they share BUY LINKS on social media…They need to pick the Amazon Link (if it isn’t at the top) rather than just sharing the book page. It may take a few more clicks for you, though it will save your reader who is unlikely to do the same.
SPOT PANICKING AND START THINKING OUTSIDE THE SQUARE!
A Lesson Learnt – SAVE YOUR FINAL MANUSCRIPT
Save Your FINAL Manuscript
Yeah I know we’ve all heard this one before! However, it is strange we all still loose full or parts of manuscripts. Yes I have done it as well. This time I was ready to publish, book cover done and do you think I could find the whole manuscript…NO
DAMN! I am so mad with myself. I know why this happened, I even know when it happened. Right at the end of January 2016 when I accidentally wiped my computer. Yeah, I hear you all saying “DUH.” Problem is I didn’t realise until it was to late. How can this be, you may ask. It’s called Windows 10 and my computer is a Lenovo. That’s my excuse anyway. In reality it is technology which caught me out.
In the past when you have needed to go back to factory settings or find a spot to jump to in time on you computer – you did just that. I’m not sure if it is just Lenovo or if Windows 10 contributed as well. Anyway it’s not called Factory Settings anymore…NO, aha…not this time. So yes I accidentally wiped everything. HOWEVER I’M GOOD...Well so I thought.
I save my manuscripts in dropbox, onedrive some in google drive, send them to friends via email and chat or just email them to myself. YAY ME. Off I went asking all my wonderful friends to send me copies back. Which of course they did. The rest of my stuff was on back up Memory Sticks or in emails. So very happy. Well that is until the day before Valentine’s Day
Opening a manuscript and found the last part missing – DAMN. It was an older version. Never mind i’ll have to re-write it again and publish later. BAH HUMBUG. Then I noted another was missing the last bit too, not that it worried me since this particular novel hasn’t been finished yet. Today!!
Today I found my latest work to be published…and nearly cried. SOB. Not only was the majority of it missing, all I had was a short story instead of a novella and it was one of the few books…well never mind. It was a good story and I doubt I can re-write it as good as it was.
So what happened to them. It’s simple I never saved a FINAL COPY of the manuscript on drop box, onedrive or google drive. No copies on my memory stick or emails. So here I am sending out a warning to you all.