Authors: Do You Write About More Than (1) Topic?
Most prolific writers/authors write about more than one area of expertise. You might have a main area of expertise, and then multiple sub-topic or different topics that you write articles about (some to pay the bills and others to feed their creative spirit).
To avoid personal author brand erosion and solidify your expertise in front of the target niche that you write about, you must come up with a strategy to separate your various article topics.
Why Protect or Isolate Your Author Brand?
Example: Can you imagine if you were reading an article about financial investing matters by an author we'll call "Susan" for this example... When, all of a sudden, you find that Susan also has written expert articles about basketball. Inconsistencies like this force the human brain to at least sub-consciously question if the person is an expert in finance or in basketball. Consciously, we know a person can have multiple areas of expertise, but it's typical that we can only take an author seriously on (1) single area of expertise. It's just human nature.
Multiple Author Brands Recommendation:
Create multiple versions of your name or pen-names that you write under so that each one is locked in on a particular area of expertise.
Here's a fictitious name I picked out of the air to illustrate an example as to how many separate author names could be created out of a single persons name:
Suzanne Jo Parker
Suzanne J. Parker
Suzanne J.P.
Suzanne Jo P.
Suzanne P.
Suzi P.
Suzi Jo.
Suzi Jo. P.
Suzi J. P.
S. Jo. Parker
S. J. Parker
S. Jo. Parker
SJ Parker
S. Parker
You get the idea. Each of these author names is STILL the same person, yet you can choose to lock each variation of the name to a separate topic to write your articles about. When you do this strategy, if a person reading your article attempts to read others that you've written, they will only see other related articles about the same topic as what you've written so that there will be no author brand erosion.
Example: "Suzanne J. Parker" would write articles about Financial investing, and "Suzi Jo Parker" would write articles about basketball.
Some Authors Disagree With Me On This Concept:
It's true. Some authors think I'm nuts to be taking this position and they believe that it creates 'author brand strength' when you write about multiple un-related topics. They would be wrong. Why confuse your reader? They want to believe you are the expert about the topic they are reading of yours and it's up to you to not let them down.
Another Variation On This Multiple Author Brands Strategy:
Rather than separating your author brands by topic, you can also separate by writing styles or perhaps even a fiction vs. not-fiction basis.
Some authors even use a unique signature line at the end of each article that ties them all together in subtle ways that does not disturb their desire to present a united message of expertise in whatever their chosen topic.
Conclusion:
In the offline world, this multiple author brands issue is also a factor, but it is even more important for the online world where a reader can quickly identify other articles you've written when they are hungry for more. Give them more of the same quality original articles that they are already reading, but isolate their attention by only writing about one topic of expertise under one single author name or variation of your author name. This will strengthen your message and your author brand at the same time.
As a bonus to this "authors with multiple brands" strategy, it will be easier to track your articles by each unique variation of your author name that you used instead of finding all of your articles of every topic under one author name.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Knight
