Brand Protection 101: The Legal Checklist Self-Published Authors Need

by Kelley Way

This is the next installment in my series on legal considerations for self-published authors. Now that we’ve covered copyrights, let’s talk about branding, or more specifically, brand protection for self-published authors.

In business, branding is how you identify yourself in the marketplace, so consumers know who they’re buying from. A business’s brand includes things like their company name, logo, tagline, product packaging, and the general design and tone of their marketing materials. As an author, when we discuss protecting your brand, this includes your pen/author name, series and/or book titles, visual identity, voice and genre reputation, and website/social handles. In both industries (because an author’s works are a business), if you want to sell anything, you need people to know who you are and be easily identifiable to your audience, which also helps you build a reputation that encourages customers to buy your product.

Below is a basic checklist of tasks related to brand protection for self-published authors:

1. Define your brand and choose your brand identifiers. To protect your brand, you have to clearly state what it is. On a broad level, your brand is the promise or expectation you are offering to potential buyers, i.e., it’s what you want to be known for. Your website and marketing materials will be built around this promise or expectation. Your brand identifiers are features or elements consumers will come to associate with this promise or expectation. Examples of brand identifiers include your name as it appears on your books (celebrities have a head start here, but unknown authors can still build a reputation around their name), the name of your series or story universe, or taglines you use to identify yourself and your books.
2. Research your brand. Again, your brand is what sets you apart from everyone else. In order for that to happen, you can’t use the same brand identifiers as someone else. Take the time to check and make sure someone isn’t already using your chosen brand identifiers. It will be much easier to change things now than it will be after you publish.
3. Use your brand consistently. If you are not consistent with your brand or your brand identifiers, it will be harder to protect them. Use the same branding and brand identifiers in all your marketing, so there’s no question about what your brand is. (And to be clear, you can change your brand and brand identifiers, or have several; just make sure you have clear rules for which brand appears where and stick to those rules.)
4. Protect your brand. Your brand is only as strong as the protection you give it. Once you gain a certain amount of market recognition, people will try to ride on your coattails. You need to keep an eye out for people using your brand or brand identifiers, and you need to put a stop to it before it hurts your sales. This is also where trademark protection comes in – many brand identifiers can qualify as trademarks, so it’s worth a conversation to see if trademark protection is appropriate for your brand.
5. Maintain your brand. You can keep things simple when you are starting out, but as your market grows, your brand may need to grow with it. This could mean updating your brand, adding additional branding, or creating more protection for your existing brand. When you do these things, save any official records, keep your branding consistent, and consider how these changes will impact new or existing contracts.