Tagline ideas for authors
A tagline earns its place by saying the one thing you want remembered. Ten angles here, not ten rewordings of one.
Ten of them follow, written for authors rather than filled in from a template. Your customer is a reader, an editor, a festival programmer or someone writing an introduction for you, and what they are weighing up before they get in touch is giving a book hours they will not get back, for a writer they are not sure about.
The service, plainly
Novels in [your town].
Use this when people search for the service by name and you just need to confirm they are in the right place.
The promise
The bio comes in three lengths, so the right one is always to hand.
Use this when the commercial promise is the thing that wins the job.
Reliability
The author who has a bio ready in the length the form actually wants.
Use this if doing the basic thing consistently is genuinely rare in your trade.
Credential
A published author. [Your town].
Use this where the licence or registration does the persuading.
Local
The author [your town] keeps recommending.
Use this when you serve one area and intend to keep serving it.
The worry, named
I name the books and who published them — every time.
Use this when your whole market has the same fear and nobody says it out loud.
The differentiator
Writing that earns the hours it asks for.
Use this when you can name the standard you hold in a few words.
Specialist
Novels. That is the whole list.
Use this if you have narrowed deliberately. It reads as confidence.
For the customer
For a reader, an editor, a festival programmer or someone writing an introduction for you.
Use this when naming who it is for does more work than naming what it is.
The invitation
Tell me which book you have read and what you want to ask about it.
Use this where the tagline sits directly above a button.
Writing for authors: what actually matters
What should an author’s website say that a generic one does not?
Three things, in this order. That you are published. That you understand the thing people are actually worried about, which for authors is giving a book hours they will not get back, for a writer they are not sure about. And what happens next: tell me which book you have read and what you want to ask about it. Everything else on the page is decoration by comparison.
What does a reader, an editor, a festival programmer or someone writing an introduction for you check first?
The credential, then the proof. For authors it sounds like this. I name the books and who published them. I keep the bio in three lengths, because every form wants a different one. I say what I am working on now. Put at least one of those above the fold rather than on a separate page nobody opens.
What is the most common mistake on an author’s website?
Writing about the business instead of the customer. "We have been established since 1998" answers a question nobody asked. "Tell me which book you have read and what you want to ask about it" answers the one they are actually holding. If you only fix one thing, fix that.
How long should the copy be?
Shorter than you think, except where trust is being built. An About page of 120 well-chosen words beats 500 vague ones. The exception is anything explaining giving a book hours they will not get back, for a writer they are not sure about — there, specifics earn their length.
Everything else for authors
Tagline for other trades
- Plumber
- Electrician
- HVAC Technician
- Roofer
- Carpenter
- Painter
- Landscaper
- Handyman
- Therapist
- Chiropractor
- Massage Therapist
- Personal Trainer