Do Authors Need Business Plans?
Becoming an author is often lauded as a huge artistic journey. While it definitely is, if you’re looking to create any sort of steady primary or secondary income from your authorial efforts, it’s also a business journey. Whether you are self-publishing or traditionally publishing, book publishing is a business. So as you begin to look ahead at where you want this foray into the publishing business to take you, the question arises: should I create a business plan?
It might seem silly at first. A business plan? For an author? We’re talking about books here. The author gets inspired, writes, publishes, and then begins the process over again. Who needs a plan for that? As it turns out, quite a few authors could benefit greatly by crafting a business plan before taking the plunge into the waters of publishing. So what can a business plan do for you?
Creates a roadmap
Ultimately, a business plan gives you, well, a plan. It’s not uncommon to hear first-time authors bemoan the often arcane practices within publishing, some not even knowing where to start their publishing journey. While a business plan isn’t going to provide you with answers, it can help you look at your publishing goals, look at your resources (both financial and skill-based resources), look at your time and willingness to learn new things, and set a course for publication. By crafting a business plan you can set a course for yourself, and create a general path forward.
Makes Goals Attainable
Many first-time or aspiring published authors will have a rather murky answer when it comes to the question of their goals in publishing. Some might say, “write a New York Times best-seller,” others might want their book turned into a movie or television show, and others might say they just want to make enough money with their books to make writing their full-time job. While those are all amazing goals, and there’s no way to plan for the unexpected, serendipitous moments where someone stumbles upon your book and makes you and your work go viral, writing out your goals and creating a general plan to achieve those goals makes them much more realistic and, most importantly, attainable. When you craft a business plan, you can outline where you want your writing career to take you, and work to fill in the gaps from where you are now and where you want to be by creating achievable steps to get you closer to those goals.
It Highlights Where You Need Support
Self-publishing is often touted as the “easy way out” when it comes to publishing a book. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth! At least, it if you’re looking to self-publish well, that is. It’s true, anyone can slap a manuscript together, pop a cover they made in Microsoft Paint or Canva on the front, and call it a day, but that isn’t going to drive traffic to the book, it isn’t going to build any sort of publishing foundation, and it likely won’t get noticed by many outside the authors’ immediate circle. But crafting a business plan that outlines how an author is going to push a book out to the public and work to get it in front of potential readers doesn’t just help you make a plan forward, it shows you were you might need some help. Do you struggle with strengthening and growing your author platform? Are you in the dark when it comes to cover design? Do you need to find an editor? A marketer? A publicist? Maybe even a business manager or assistant? When you lay out the steps to your personal publishing goal, you can more easily spot the gaps in your skills and availability, and that can empower you to call in reinforcements to help make your book a success!
The old addage is true, if you don’t plan ahead, you’re planning to fail. So take some time to craft a bit of a path forward for you. We’ve got some free resources to help you get started crafting a business plan, as well as a book, The Author’s Guide: Writing Your Business Plan, that you can purchase to really shape your business plan, but we’re always here to come alongside you and help you make your publishing dreams a reality!