Building The C T Mitchell Brand
A fellow author said to me “C T, you’re everywhere. Your brand is growing” Hmmm I had to think about that for a moment. The C T Mitchell brand is not something I am conscious of. In fact I’m not overly convinced a person can be a brand.
Coke is a brand. The biggest soft drink company in the world. People associate fun, beach and laughter with Coke but on the dark side it’s a drink that can rip the gunge off a two cent coin. Imagine what it’s doing to your insides. Thankfully I gave up drinking Coke in 2005.
So a brand doesn’t always have to be good for you to be successful. Not sure I want to be known as somebody who is bad for my readers either. In looking at the C T Mitchell brand today, you could say I’m a mystery writer, an Australian author, a creator of Detective Jack Creed mysteries and a book marketer. But that’s what I do; is it really me?
A brand therefore in my opinion needs to be about who I am, the good and bad, warts and all. So a brand must be honest and authentic. Crikey that’s just evoked a whole lot of fears. But being a long term player in this writing space, I want to explore this brand thing and grow it. So I googled ‘building a personal brand’ and read a number of articles. Here’s a summary of what the experts say I should do. Let’s see if I’m on the right track.
Discover who you are
If the C T Mitchell brand is about me as a person, then I better be really sure who the heck I am. People including readers I’m told could buy into my ideals, but they need to buy into me first. And the way to do that is to be vulnerable, authentic and real. That’s pretty scary, wouldn’t you agree? We all put up masks to convey a certain perception to the real world (is there such a thing – real world).
Think about a photo of a happy smiling couple who 3 months later were slugging it out in the Family Court dividing up the family jewels. Did their whole relationship disintegrate in three months from being the world’s most happy couple. No I don’t think so either. They just had a mask on the day the ‘happy’ photo was taken.
Gary Vaynerchuk is a brand. Mr. Social Media is probably most famous for his use of the ‘f-bomb’ but that is the authentic Gary. It works for him for the large part. But I get really tiffed by wannabes who are now trying to be Gary Vee mini-me’s and dropping the f-bomb everywhere. No prizes for coming second copycats.
So who am I? Father of two, twice married, traditionalist, centre right conservative, comfortable in my own skin and self aware.I’m aware of my short comings and play to my strengths. That’s why with my limited command of the written word, non-avid reader, I have stuck mainly to short reads to date. I’m expanding my reading and therefore endeavouring to increase the size of my books to mid sized novels. Murder Secret is around 250 pages and reviewers have loved it.
Be Authentic
That means showing my imperfections as well. I’ve got plenty. Slowly I’m letting some of them out of the bag and readers seem to like them. It’s our connection as it shows I too have issues. It’s not all about writing Amazon bestsellers. Yep I have failures to.
I have a constant battle with my weight. It’s been a fight for the past 58 years. At school I was constantly reminded of it. I couldn’t make the six stone football team when I was eleven because I was too heavy. It worried me at the time but I don’t think I really missed out on a great deal except my knowledge of the finer things in football which precludes me from many ‘boy’s conversations over beers on a Friday night’. Yep not a bad thing in my opinion.
(Losing 16 kg in 2015) (Before 2015)
I am a natural born worrier. My mum was the world’s greatest worrier; my Dad more of a ‘go with the flow’ man. He had a fuller more enriched life while my Mum sat home and ruminated in self pity. Sad for my Mum but she was still a great lady – just didn’t experience her best self for a large part of her life. I have Mum’s worrying trait. I’m concerned for my kids, I worry about my next book, whether it’ll be a bestseller or a flop. I worry about the future but I’m doing my best to make it a good one.
Creating good art
I’m trying to improve my writing and provide my readers with good art. Hopefully each book gets a little better. Hopefully my covers are more inviting (I’m currently revamping all my covers). I trust my editors are improving my readers reading experience. I am aiming to do better.
Giving away my ideas
I want to help others. I want to enrich the lives of others by producing entertaining books. I hope that a reader can lose themselves momentarily in one of my books and forget all their troubles. I hope Jack Creed’s quirky mannerisms and Australian sayings can put a smile on a reader’s face.
And I’m happy to give away my ideas in this blog, on social media, during interviews or in some short reads for free.
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Engaging with people
I love engaging with people. I do it at every chance I get. I was in a service station last week waiting for my coffee when I noticed the lady standing next to me had just purchased a dozen Krispy Kream donuts. To me that was a cue to strike up a conversation ( I was secretly hoping she would offer me one but alas no they were for a morning tea she was attending).
While I have a decent social media following (over 40,000 ‘fans’) where my posts reach around 20,000 people each week, it’s my email reader list where I engage mostly with people. I get hundreds of emails every week from readers commenting on my emails and asking further questions. I love hearing their stories and I’ve got to know some of my readers very well.
I have a genuine interest in people and it therefore makes my engagement easy……and enjoyable.
So that’s how I’m building the C T Mitchell brand. It’s not a conscious thing. I’m just trying to be authentic and engage better with my audience. Hopefully you agree. If you have any comments, please leave me a comment below.
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