Authors hesitate to hire public relations firms because PR efforts do not directly translate into sales. But building your brand is a step before the publicity and marketing work! And we can get started with a strong brand to support your PR and digital marketing strategy later. Join Your Publishing Professor and Executive Director of WriterFest, Sara Wigal in this dynamic workshop.

This course includes:

• Introductory seminar sharing theory and best practices for beginning a cohesive author brand. We’ll answer the questions posed above, and help you:

  • Choose which sites or apps you want to employ to communicate your brand

  • Learn time management strategy for working on book branding

  • Decide what services you need to hire out and which you can do yourself

• One follow up one-on-one consulting session with me (after you’ve done a little prep work) so we can set you up for brand success!

• Option to contract for more consulting hours or other work, or get references to colleagues who work in book branding, PR or marketing

See details and register here: https://www.yourpublishingprofessor.com/authorbranding

Join WriterFest at North Wind Manor for an evening of conversation, creativity, and community. Gather around with film and TV storyteller and producer Paige Collins, singer-songwriters and musical duo Jenna and Chris Badeker, and novelist Claire Gibson. 

Featuring a light, engaging program and plenty of time for conversation, this event offers a chance to connect with fellow creatives who cherish art, faith, and building communities that do good.

RSVP here!

Learn more about the speakers:

PAIGE COLLINS

Paige Collins is a lifelong dreamer, author, screenwriter, and entertainment publicist with more than 20 years' experience marketing to faith and family audiences. As founding partner of ICON Media Group, a premier PR firm specializing in faith and family entertainment, she has spearheaded high-impact publicity campaigns for Kingdom-driven brands and major faith-based films such as GOD’S NOT DEAD, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, WAR ROOM, SOUND OF HOPE, and I CAN ONLY IMAGINE 2

She is the author of The Awaken Dream Journal, which she created to help people understand the language of dreams through a biblical lens.

Paige is also founder of Honeybee Entertainment, a company seeking to elevate stories of women of faith in all forms of media. And though she has several film/tv projects based on existing IP in development, her current creative focus and passion is her screenplay ARISE, which is a bible epic about the story of Deborah from the book of Judges - the only female leader of ancient Israel.

CHRIS & JENNA BADEKER

Wild Harbors is comprised of husband and wife singer-songwriters Chris and Jenna Badeker. Formed in 2017, the alternative pop outfit creates gutsy, lyric-driven songs laced with intricate vocal harmonies. Drawing energy from acts like The Head and The Heart and JOSEPH, Wild Harbors pours life into songs informed by their relationships and faith. Their debut full-length album, Monument (2019), landed songs on multiple “Best Of” lists for 2019 and was produced by Andrew Osenga in Nashville, TN, where the band resides when not in Paris. Their most recent releases, produced by Jacob Early, are available on all streaming platforms.

CLAIRE GIBSON

Claire Gibson is the author of Beyond the Point, a 2019 Book of the Month Club pick now in development for television with Lionsgate and Bonniedale Films. Her essays and journalism have appeared in Marie Claire, The Washington Post, Garden & Gun, and more. Her forthcoming novel, BURST INTO SONG is a multigenerational family saga rooted in questions of adoption and belonging, and will publish in 2027 from Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House. The novel has also recently sold in 10 international territories. She  serves on the board of The Porch, a literary arts nonprofit in Nashville, where she lives with her husband and children.

To get details about WriterFest Pros events you must be an approved member of our WriterFest Pros Newsletter List. To apply, submit HERE.