Following the interest sparked by Lifetime Value of an Author and Authors Need to Plan, I thought I would add to the business discussion of what it takes to be an author with the premise that writers must act like entrepreneurs who are business, market and technology savvy.
Typically entrepreneurs are willing to take risks, seek independence and are both decisive and adaptable. They are driven by an idea – a service or product that will capture the market – and are disciplined self-starters who juggle multiple tasks. A daunting list of attributes.
To provoke your Monday thinking, I offer nine questions an author-entrepreneur should consider.
1. Do you think of yourself as an owner-operator? An owner-operator is a small business owned by the same person who is running day-to-day operations. In addition to the day-to-day business of writing, as an entrepreneur-writer you should be planning the business, managing its financial aspects, and determining your marketing strategy.
2. Do you think of your work as a collection of products and services? Entrepreneurs may begin with one product but most evolve to sell a complementary set of products and services in order to more fully satisfy their customers. The cost of acquiring customers is high; it is much easier to sell additional products (books are a product as are freelance writing, short stories, speaking engagements and blog posts) to existing customers than acquire another set of customers. Have you thought of your writing this way?
3. Do you understand your product development cycle? Every entrepreneur seeks to offer excellent products and services in a cost-effective manner. As market conditions change they adapt with new products, improved services and innovative marketing and promotion. How long do you take to write a new book? New freelance article or blog post? What is your process and why? Do you know your product development costs in terms of time and money? How can you do things differently?
4. Do you know your readers (customers) and the value you offer them? Before launching a business or a new product, entrepreneurs determine the size of the market, test market their products, and find creative ways to interact with customers. Entrepreneurs remain alert to changing market conditions and adapt by creating new products and services. Who are your readers? Why do they purchase your works? How will you reach them?
5. Do you know your competitors? Entrepreneurs know their competitors and how they operate. They know when changes have occurred in their slice of the industry. Both fiction and non-fiction writers should be equally savvy.
6. Do you understand your selling role? Entrepreneurs are passionate about selling their products and if they aren’t born salesmen/women they hire that skill. Publishers have limited advertising and promotion budgets. As the owner-operator of your writing business, building an audience and selling to them is one of your critical responsibilities. Are you comfortable selling?
7. Do you know how your business will make money? At a very simplistic level, revenue minus cost equals profit. Successful entrepreneurs develop good financial controls, know the cost of doing business, seek ways to be more efficient. They also look for ways to enhance revenue generation; for example, some authors enhance revenue through novellas, freelance articles, workshops and speaking engagements.
8. Do you have the traits that foster success? In addition to the traits listed in the first paragraph, I would add the ability to anticipate and handle change, the willingness to hustle for clients (see point 6), and good organization and planning skills.
9. Do you have the financial resources to start your business? Entrepreneurs put personal funds into their business and also seek investment dollars. They must satisfy themselves, their families and their investors that the risk-reward equation is worthwhile. Writers put personal time into their business, time that often reduces their income from other sources. Writers too have to ensure that the rewards outweigh the risks.
The premise is authors should think like small business owners in the context of a changing industry. The questions posed above may sound intimidating, but I believe they are vital to understanding the environment facing today’s writers and helping you plan your way forward.
Questions and comments are welcome, as always.
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M.K. Tod writes historical fiction and blogs about all aspects of the genre at A Writer of History. Her latest novel, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE is set in WWI France and is available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. Her debut novel, UNRAVELLED: Two wars. Two affairs. One marriage. is also available from these retailers.
4 Responses
“I take the author, with whose career I am best acquainted; and it is true he works in a rebellious material, and that the act of writing is cramped and trying both to the eyes and the temper; but remark him in his study, when matter crowds upon him and words are not wanting – in what a continual series of small successes time flows by; with what a sense of power as of one moving mountains, he marshals his petty characters; with what pleasures, both of the ear and eye, he sees his airy structure growing on the page; and how he labours in a craft to which the whole material of his life is tributary, and which opens a door to all his tastes, his loves, his hatreds, and his convictions, so that what he writes is only what he longed to utter.
He may have enjoyed many things in this big, tragic playground of the world; but what shall he have enjoyed more fully than a morning of successful work? Suppose it ill paid: the wonder is it should be paid at all. Other men pay, and pay dearly, for pleasures less desirable.”
Thank you Robert Louis Stephenson. Written in the 1880s supporting my mantra of Writing and Reading for Pleasure as my TIPM posts. Having now nearly given up all work I for one do not want to go backwards and treat writing as work. While working I earned more in a month than I am ever likely to do from writing – given the competition.
Not too hot on number five, although well signed up to the others. I think numbers 1 -4 set out my approach. Another excellent post, Mary
Well thought out, Mary. I particularly like the bit in #9 although I suspect that if authors figured in their time, they’d never write. May I suggest that personal satisfaction, though unquantifiable, figures large in most authors’ reasons for writing.
I’m glad that I stumbled across this article. I’ve recently started referring to myself as an Authorpreneur. I hadn’t read any articles at that time, I just knew that the title fit my role and goals for my business. I like that you ask the reader questions instead of just loading them up with endless information. It really gives you something to think about. Thanks!