Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, there was a young man whose words fill one of the most sold books on the planet to this day.
And he had a particular way of sharing his message long before logos and marketing and social media were ever a thing.
What's more is that he built a brand that kept working long after his death.
One that had far less to do with book sales and marketing than we might think.
So today I want to talk about what the greatest example of clear identity and purpose the world has ever seen can teach us about the work we do as Christian writers.
I'd love for you to come and sit with me a while friend.
This one might just open your eyes to a whole new way to reach readers with your books.
This is the Anointed Scribe Podcast.
I'm Urcelia Teixeira, ex real estate agent turned award winning Christian fiction author.
When I wrote my first novel on a bucket list whim, I had no idea it would spark a spirit spiritual journey that would redefine my calling. But you know what friend?
Self publishing wasn't easy. I got caught in the hustle chasing rankings and sales while desperately trying to stay rooted in Christ.
Now by God's grace, I'm building my author business his way. And now he's called me to help you do the same.
Welcome to the Anointed Scribe Podcast where faith meets business for Christian writers.
Lets write, publish and grow our author business God's way. Are you ready? Well then, let's get started.
Hey, it's your author friend, Urcelia, and welcome to the show.
I'm excited that you're here for today's topic, friend. I think you are going to get real value from it today because I know I did when I explored it through my preparation for this episode.
So if you're new here, welcome. I'm thrilled you found your way here. I do my best to create a space where we talk about building our writing lives and author businesses God's way, holding the honest tension between wanting our books to reach readers and sell and wanting to keep God at the center of it all.
And today's episode actually sits right in the middle of that. So I hope you decide to follow or subscribe.
I'd love it if you stayed.
And of course to my regulars, thank you for being here again today. I am so blessed. I'm so grateful for you. If you haven't yet signed up to my Friday Manna emails, perhaps you want to do that today.
Because each week I give you spiritual wisdom and practical tools you can use straight away. That'll help you write, grow and thrive in your author business.
You'll find that signup link in the show notes okay, so today's topic came out of something I was sitting with recently that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.
So let me share it with you.
Before I started writing fiction novels, I was in corporate sales and real estate pretty much all my life.
And the one buzzword that kept circling, no matter the industry, was this word brand or branding.
I thought I was rid of this word forever when I started writing books, only to have it pop up the moment I started writing for a L.
And it's always kind of rubbed me up the wrong way because what does that really mean? I mean,
really for us as writers, as authors.
And here's what I realized annoyed me about it because it sounds worldly. It sounds like marketing and logos and self promotion,
like something that sits awkwardly next to a divine calling that's supposed to be all about God and not about us, right?
So I decided to find out more about where this came from.
And when I traced it all the way back to what branding originally meant, I found something really surprising waiting for me.
Long before any of us ever set out to build a brand of our own,
we were already branded.
And the one who branded us knew exactly what he was doing.
So let's start with where this whole idea of branding came from. And this is going to just blow your mind,
because actually it's not from marketing agencies or social media or business books.
Historically,
branding was used to mark ownership.
Farmers and herders would brand their livestock,
a mark which was burned into the animal so that everyone could tell whose was whose goods were branded the same way in a crowded marketplace or out on an open range where animals mingled together.
The brand was how you knew what belonged to whom.
The brand said, this one is mine.
And here's what I find beautiful about this.
We still do a version of this today.
We recognize the things that are valuable to us. We mark them, we know them,
we buy them.
As kids, we mark our pencils in school, our book bags.
As adults, we buy certain food items or clothing that represent something we trust and relate to, be it quality, taste, or function.
A brand at its very root is a sign of belonging and worth.
So before brand ever became a logo or a color palette or an aesthetic,
it meant ownership.
It meant, this is mine, this belongs to me, this one is valuable to me.
Now hold on to that for a minute because it changes everything about how we understand this next part that I'm about to share with you.
If branding is a mark of ownership and worth,
then we as believers, we are already branded.
And here's the truth.
We were branded by God himself.
Listen to Ephesians 2:10 that says, for we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Other translations say his workmanship, his masterpiece, or a work of art, meaning that we are unique,
we are not an accident or an afterthought. We are something God made on purpose,
with intention,
for a purpose.
And Isaiah 43:1 says, do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are mine.
There it is, the brand,
the mark of ownership.
God looking at you and saying, this one belongs to me.
This one is valuable to me.
I made this one on purpose and I called them by name.
We, dear friend, have been set apart,
branded, if you like, for his name's sake.
His signature is on our hearts. And here's something I've thought about.
If God had a logo,
a single mark he stamped on us to show whose we are,
I don't think it would say talented or successful or best selling.
I think it would simply say one word, redeemed.
That's the brand you and I already carry.
Before we've sold a single book,
before we've grown a single follower, before we figured out our genre or our cover or our message,
we are already marked as God's own redeemed,
set apart,
called by name,
made on purpose and friend.
That is where our author brand has to start.
Not with a colour palette, not with a logo, with a settled knowledge of who we belong to.
Now, let me connect this to the practical work of building an author brand, because this isn't just a lovely spiritual thought,
it's the foundation.
Everything else in your author business rests on.
So many Christian writers try to build their brand from the outside in. They start with a logo, the aesthetic, the colors, the image.
And then they wonder why it never quite feels like them,
why it never quite lands or sits right,
why it feels like they're performing a version of an author they're creating rather than being one.
It's because they skipped the foundation.
They started with a packaging instead of what's actually inside.
They polished the outside before they ever got clear on the identity and purpose underneath it.
But when you start from the truth that you are already God's workmanship, already redeemed,
already called by name, already made on purpose,
your author brand stops being something you invent and becomes something you unwrap.
You're not inventing a Persona.
You're revealing who God already made you to be and letting that show up consistently in your work.
That's the difference between a brand that feels hollow and a brand that feels true.
One is built on performance and worldly norms,
and the other one is built on identity and authenticity.
Now I want to turn to the clearest example of identity and mission the world has ever seen.
And I want to do this with the utmost of reverence, because I'm not reducing Jesus to a marketing case study.
I'm simply looking at how he carried himself as an example for how we should live and what we as writers can learn from him.
Because when you look at the life of Jesus, you see three things held together perfectly.
He knew who he was.
Never once did he doubt his identity. When he was tempted, when he was questioned, when he was mocked. His sense of who he was never wavered. It was settled.
Number two, he knew his mission.
He knew exactly what he came to do.
Every message he shared,
every parable he told,
every miracle he performed served that one mission.
Nothing was random. Nothing was off purpose.
And three, he knew who he was reaching.
He wasn't vague about his audience.
He sought out specific people. Fishermen, tax collectors, farmers, the sick, the outcast.
The ones who were always overlooked.
The ones everybody else overlooked. Prostitutes.
He knew exactly who he was there for. And he went to them.
Identity,
mission, audience.
The three things every author is told they need for a clear brand.
And Jesus held all three of these perfectly. Not as a cleverly concocted strategy for fame or riches,
but has a natural overflow of who he was.
But here's the part I recently realized that I haven't been able to shake with all that clarity, that perfect knowledge of who he was, what he came to do, and who he was reaching Jesus never once did.
The things we are told now are absolutely must haves to do if we want to make it in the indie publishing world.
He never set up a display table in the marketplace to sell scrolls. He never drew clever graphics on papyrus and nailed them to the trees in every town.
He didn't have a platform. He didn't even have social media. He didn't have a content calendar or an ad budget or a launch strategy. He simply went to the people he was sent to.
He shared his message.
He was authentic.
He relied completely on God to empower him. And he never, ever doubted who he was.
He built his entire following by word of mouth,
by showing up being exactly who he was and trusting God with the spread.
And to this day,
the book that carries his words is the best selling book in the history of the world.
Now, I'm not naive about the world we are writing in. Please don't, don't misunderstand me.
Times have absolutely changed. We have the Internet, we have social media,
we have AI and a publishing landscape that can feel cutthroat and crowded and relentlessly competitive.
And we are told constantly that these platforms are the best and maybe the only way to reach our readers and sell our books.
In many ways, the tools have simply replaced the dusty roads Jesus walked.
They are how we get the message to the people now. And there's real wisdom in using them. Well,
I'll be honest though, the verdict is still out for me on exactly how much of it is essential and how much of it is just noise we've been told we can't live without.
Watch this space.
But I'm not here to tell you to delete your accounts and rely on word of mouth alone. What I'm saying is this.
The world changed, but the foundation didn't.
I want to also be careful because it would be easy to take this the wrong way in both directions.
This is not me saying you shouldn't market your books.
Jesus was intentional. He was focused. He knew his audience and he went to them deliberately.
That's not passivity, that's clarity in action.
Marketing done well in is simply going to the people you are called to reach and sharing what God put in your heart.
There's nothing unholy about that.
But it's also not me saying you should hustle and grind and build your whole identity on a platform.
Because Jesus didn't. He didn't manufacture his influence through relentless self promotion. He knew who he was. He stayed faithful to his mission. He. He went to his people and he trusted God with the rest.
And that right there is the honest middle I keep coming back to. On this podcast.
You are allowed to be intentional about reaching readers. You are allowed to want your books to sell. You are allowed to want to make money to pay your bills.
But you build it the way Jesus modeled. From a settled identity with a clear mission and purpose,
going faithfully to the people you are called to serve and trusting God with the increase.
Not striving, not hustling, not performing,
but not passive either.
Faithful and focused with God at the center. That's what I'm saying.
So let me bring this home practically for us.
If you want to build an author brand that's both effective and faithful.
It starts with the same three things Jesus held Know who you are.
And don't start that with what genre you write or what the market wants, but with knowing you belong to God. You are God's workmanship, redeemed through faith in Jesus Christ, called by name,
set apart,
anointed to do good works,
empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Let that be the bedrock. Your author identity is built built on and I promise you everything else will get steadier.
Number two, Know your mission. What has God actually called you to do through your writing?
Not what's trending, not what's working for someone else, not what's going to bring in the most money.
What is the message he's placed in you to send out into the world?
When you know your mission, every book,
every social media post,
every business decision can serve and support that mission.
And number three, know who you are reaching. Know your audience.
Get specific about the reader God has called you to serve.
Not everyone.
Not someone,
a particular person, that particular person who needs that particular thing you've been given to write.
And then go to them faithfully, intentionally and without apology.
That's a brand built on a rock and it's that kind of brand that will hold up in any storm.
Friend, the most important thing I can leave you with today is don't start your author brand from nothing.
You start it from something that was settled long before you wrote your first word.
So when you sit down to build your author label to mark who you are and what you are yet to do,
you are not trying to force create an identity out of thin air.
You are starting from the most secure foundation there is and simply letting who God already made you to be unique, one of a kind to show up in your work.
Know who you are,
know your mission,
know who you are called to reach and then go and do it the way Jesus did. Faithfully, intentionally and fully relying on God.
Because the same God who spread those words,
the same Holy Spirit who rushes upon you to equip you and enable you to carry out his plan,
still writes through faithful surrendered people today.
People like you and me.
May your pen stay faithful, your roots grow deep, and every word you write bear fruit for his glory.
One more thing before you go. If you are ready to get clear on who you are as a Christian author,
your message, your mission, and the unique voice God has given you, I want you to consider grabbing my free Discover your Christian author brand guide. The link is in the show description and if you know the issue goes deeper than your brand, if you're tired of second guessing every decision,
chasing strategies that don't feel right, and trying to build your author business from pressure, from fear or comparison,
then the Revive to Thrive Way™ was created for you. It's my self paced,
scripture rooted online program that helps Christian authors and writers just like you surrender the pressure,
rebuild their God given identity, and get clear direction for what to build next.
You can learn more and join at anointedscribe.com/revivetothrive I'll leave the link in the show notes for you too.
Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time.
