The Process of Building an Author’s Persona and Why You’d Want To
It’s time to get interesting — for the sake of the reader
I use a pseudonym — for both fiction and non. I don’t advertise is a lot, but I don’t hide it either. I tell my readers my name is the only thing I keep secret. I’m pretty vulnerable in my work and I only share true stories. My pen name has helped me write more vulnerably.
There are upsides and downsides to pen names.
I’m a very private person. I’ve still got a day job in neuroscience. My real name’s published on dozens, if not hundreds of journal articles, book chapters, and poster presentations. In the scientific community publishing is social currency. I don’t very much enjoy being part of that community anymore, but I’m using my best work to dig myself away from the golden handcuffs.
Why I use a pen name:
- The internet is creepy as hell and creepier every day. I wanted to hedge the safety of my family, should the day come when my work is well-known.
- The whole day job/science publishing thing.
- My last name looks stupid on crime thrillers. I took Lee Child’s (real name Jim Grant) advice here and picked a name higher on the alphabet.
- A pen name helps me open-up to my audience.
- It sounds freaking cool.
- A pen name helps me develop my author’s persona (more in a minute).
Downsides:
- Some days I feel like a phony.
- Most people have no idea I lead this double life as a writer. I’d like to share it more, but I don’t like being judged.
- Some people have a really hard time with it and call me a liar. Which, I’ll admit, a pen name is a form of controlled lying.
So, I wrestle with the downs and revel in the ups. It’s not a perfect decision. Not one I took lightly, and not one should should either. There is no perfect answer to the pen name debacle. But I’m not the only one. Many well-known writer and movie stars have traveled the same path. I’m not too worried about it. I can’t go back now. August Birch is here to stay.
But this isn’t a story about pen names. The table is set. It’s time to eat.
What’s an author’s persona?
Earnest Hemingway played Hemingway, this man’s-man, shotgun-wielding, drunk, world-traveling, adventurer-genius. He posed for pictures just the right way. He put himself in photo-worthy situations. Earnest was one of the original selfie experts. He understood the power of marketing and he ate it up.
No one wants to see us making coffee in our bath robes or taking out the trash.
They want the Abraham Lincoln version of us. If we want to hear a bunch of whining and complaining we can listen to ourselves, or our friends talk for five minutes. We want to follow someone bigger than life.
It’s like meeting a movie star, which can be a real shoulder-drooper.
These are people too. They poop. They pick their noses when no one’s looking. They burn dinner and make bad choices. But we don’t want all that. Sometimes it’s fascinating to watch them fall from grace, but we don’t give two Tennessee Shits if Tom Hanks uses Old Spice body wash in the shower, or Samuel L. Jackson’s hat size it seven and a half.
We want to see the star. Because stars aren’t like us. Their made of magic and unicorn dust.
We don’t really want the real version of the star — the human one. We don’t want them to be just like us. Us is boring. Us is holes in our socks, dishes, and cable bills. We want to be delighted.
So, here we land on the author’s persona. You get to be on the star side of the velvet rope, instead of the peon side. You can make of this persona what you wish. You can take it where you want.
The idea of an author’s persona isn’t to dupe your audience into making them think you’re someone your not. Think of your persona as an amplifier.
An amplifier works by taking whatever signal is already there and making it bigger. An amplifier can’t make you better looking if you’re ugly. It can’t make you fly without winds, and it sure as hell can’t make your work better if it’s bad. The amplifier boosts what we put into it and nothing more.
Sometimes the amplifier gets feedback and line hum. We have to tweak the knobs a little. Move the mic away from our face and try again. We adjust and we re-deliver. This is how you develop your persona.
This idea of persona is on my mind, because I’m working on launching a podcast this year (and possibly re-launch my YouTube channel).
When you speak publicly you can’t just be yourself. That’s the worst advice. Nobody wants to see or hear you in your natural state for long. We’re just not that great to look at nor listen-to in our natural environment. We need some sprucing-up for sound and camera-worthiness.
Even if you’ve got a ‘face for radio’ there are things you can (and should) do to enhance your voice via body position, the proper mic, acoustic treatments, and correct mixing. Radio DJs don’t sound as much like DJs away from their perfect environment.
The same is true for our author’s persona — the face we present to our readers.
The rest of the world doesn’t matter as much, but our tribe — the people who read and love our books — these are the folks we’ve got to keep captivated. If we do our job correctly, our tribe will always be on the hunt for more. They want more books from us. They want to hear more about our upcoming projects. They want more short stories, more life hacks, more inner-circle wisdom.
In order to give them more, we’ve got to make ourselves worth paying attention to.
There are plenty authors who give less of an impression than a wet pizza box. Sure, we can declare ourselves the rogue artist who does nothing but write for ourselves and never ventures into the world — I get it.
But most of us, even if we’re introverts, enjoy the company of others. We’ve got an audience to serve. So why not serve them the best way possible. Let’s give our readers a writer worth paying attention to. It’s not just the books anymore. We’ve got a public persona, no matter how small it may be right now.
Let’s put a spit-shine on that face of yours.
How to develop an author’s persona
You don’t have to go as far as Hemingway to make good on your author’s persona. Remember, this is an amplifier, not a bank robber mask. We’re going to put a bullhorn in front of our best traits and put those not-so-great ones in a drawer.
I’m still working on this myself, which is why I wrote this story.
I’ve discovered a few key parts to a good writer’s persona and I’ll share them here. If you never want to make your face public, I get it. But even the way you present yourself in print can be adjusted.
Five steps to a great author’s persona:
- Find a uniform — now, this doesn’t have to be an actual uniform, but at least a certain look. Some author’s go the ‘dad’ route and wear Hawaiian shirts every time they go on camera. Some authors like to look comfortable, some want to look like rock stars. The uniform is your armor against anxiety and the parts of yourself that don’t need advertising. My non-fiction persona is the Book Mechanic. I’ve got an embroidered name patch with ‘August’ on it, and I bought a one-piece mechanic’s suit for all my video work. This way I’ll have the same look every time a reader engages with my work (and I can shoot multiple videos in one day without a costume change). Please don’t steal this idea. I’m just sharing to make a point.
- Find a voice — similar to choosing your writing voice, we’ve got to work on our public speaking — even a little. This is the age of audio and video. Maybe you want to record your own audiobook. Learn to speak with authority, clarity, and purpose.
- Find a name for your tribe — ever hear a YouTuber say “what’s up, Book Mechanic Nation!” or something like that. When you name your tribe and you pick a name unique to your work, this links your readers to you. If they want this connection they can only get it from you. Your persona is tightly connected to your tribe. Why not give these loyal fans a name? Having a name makes it easy to address them in your emails, speeches, podcasts, and videos.
- Carve a niche — your persona doesn’t have to be clown-like or a joke in order for it to be unique and attention-worthy. Like your author’s voice, enhance what Mother Nature gave you already and amplify the person you are. There’s only one you. You don’t have use a phony accent like Madonna or Johnny Depp. You don’t have to be condescending or cartoony. Find the best piece of yourself — the one they can’t take from you — and amplify it.
- Be fun to watch — if you spend most of your day as Eeyore, like I do, you’ve got to turn that frown upside-down if you want readers to pay attention to your message. We don’t want more downers in our life. There’s plenty of that at work and home. If you want your audience to stay fixed on your message you’ve got to give your personality a little tune-up. Give yourself a mirror test. Record yourself speaking into your phone. Film yourself talking with your phone. Replay the tape and adjust your expressions and mannerisms. Yep, there’s some acting involved here. You have to try harder. Your reader has many choices for entertainment. We want her to choose you.
That’s what I’ve got for you.
I’m not a persona expert by any means. These are the five features I’m working on to develop my author persona. I’ll report back if I learn something new. As writers we can’t hide behind our keyboards anymore. Our readers want to see us. It’s up to us to give them something worth paying attention to.
We’re waiting for you.
August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. A self-proclaimed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indie authors how to write books that sell and how to sell more of those books once they’re written. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.
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