Branding

Free Icons for Your Blog or Website

You can add visual appeal to your blog or Web site by downloading a free mini-icon set, courtesy of WinePress Design.
These icons are perfect for writers, readers, and book lovers. Free for personal or commercial use, these high-quality icons come in a wide range of different sizes spanning from 512px to 32px.
Click here to [...]

Branding

How to Set Up Your Own Gravatar

By Laura Christianson
Guest Columnist
You’ve probably heard of the hot new movie, Avatar. But have you heard of gravatar?
A gravatar is a Globally Recognized Avatar – your avatar is the thumbnail image that appears when you comment on someone’s blog.
If you have a Blogger profile, the image that accompanies your profile is posted whenever you comment [...]

Branding, Social Networking

Bring Color to Your Desktop with FREE WinePress Wallpapers

By Thomas McGee
As a free gift from WinePress’ Graphic Design Team, you can find here a colorful assortment of desktop wallpapers to choose from. Each sports the classic WinePress leaves and division colors.
They’re sure to brighten anyone’s desktop. Enjoy!
Colors Include:
WinePress Group Emerald

WinePress Publishing Violet

Pleasant Word Goldenrod

UpWrite Garnet

Annotation Azure

Download Set for Widescreen Monitors
Download Set for Fullscreen [...]

Branding

Author Web Site: A Necessity, Not a Luxury Item

By Kevin Cochran
Do I really need a Web site to market my books?”
Authors often ask me this question and my answer is “Yes. Most definitely.”
Traditional marketing methods include advertising in catalogs, magazines, newspapers, over the airwaves, etc. Many authors who grew up in the pre-Internet era overlook the importance of having a Web site. But [...]

Branding, Platform Building, Web sites

How to Create an Author Brand

Brand: A trademark or distinctive name identifying a product or a manufacturer. (dictionary.com)
As an author you should brand yourself in a way that represents your passion or your ministry. But how to do that? Start by answering these questions:

What drives your writing (i.e. why do write what you do?)?
What message resonates with you that you [...]

Branding

How to Design a Book Cover Using the Billboard Method

When you drive past a billboard, you get one quick glance as you whiz by.

What do you remember about it?
Does it contain too much content?
Does it help to see that billboard two or three more times later down the road?

Apply the billboard concept to your book, sandwiched on the bookstore shelf among dozens of others. [...]

Branding

Your Brand: A Collection of Positive Perceptions

The phrase “strategic branding” evokes a positive response in most publishers. It is the order of the day for serious, successful publishers to make sure their authors are strategically branded—which translates into increased sales.
Literary agent, Chip MacGregor, gave us permission to share his thoughts about strategic branding (excerpted from a workshop he taught [...]

Branding