Is an Author More Than The Person That Wrote a Book? #MFRWauthor

An author works to write the best book they can and once it’s written they then release it to the world. The problem comes in for an author with letting the world know it’s out there and driving people to the places where they can buy a copy.
An entrepreneur is a person who creates a product and assumes the risk for driving that product to market.

Can you see now how the two relate?

Unfortunately, the ability to write a good book is not the same as being a successful business person. Yet, every day authors are working to develop the skills required to market themselves and their books.

Let’s  see what the business world does to make a product successful.

Branding – this has been a buzz word in the writing community for a while now. Chose a style and make it your own. This is a good plan if you only want to write one type of book. If you like different genres or on a wide variety of topics, the brand you’re trying to create might be more like Target than Nike, one offers a range of items, the other sport shoes. Know which one you want to be and plan accordingly.

Marketing Plan – know what you hope to achieve and develop your plan accordingly. Is selling a hundred books enough, a thousand, a million? What is required to reach each one of these levels? What are you will to sacrifice to reach your plan? How much are you willing to spend? What kind of time will this take away from your writing? All these questions and many more need to be answered before you start. If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you expect to get there?

Make sure to set down on paper your budget, books you have to sell, venue that you will use to sell your books. (Publishers website, amazon, etc.)

 

SWOT Analysis -

1. Strengths – what things can you do well and how can you use them to sell your book? What makes your books unique? Many authors see all books in a select genre as their completion. This may not be the case. Example a romance by one author might be humorous while another might be dark, one about babies, another about step-children, one a historical, one contemporary. Now what makes yours different than every one’s else? Can you use that difference to market your book to a select crowd?

2. Weakness – Define what you weakness are, then you can work to overcome them. Some examples are not good at marketing? Hate writing a blog? No time to do social networking? Not good with computers?

3. Threats – what type of things are going to cause you problems? Are commercial ads too costly for you to afford? Can you not think of anything to say on twitter? Does someone have a book out that is very close to yours?  Understand the areas where you will struggle and work to find a strategy to overcome the problem.

4. Opportunities – what type of things are happening in the world that might help you? Example - your book is about politicians and this is an election year.  This is about looking for ways to promote your book that no one else is using.  Try to think outside of the box.

Professionalism – remember you are a business person trying to sell a product. Don’t treat your book or the commitment to be successful as a hobby. If you say you are going to do something, do it in a timely manner without excuses. No one wants to hear why you can’t do it, only that you get it done.

Authors and entrepreneur have a lot in common, so feel free to learn from the business world what is working. Authors may not have investors but we still need to understand what makes our books sell, how we can build a better product, what our clients are looking for, what will increase sales, and market strategies. The business of being an author is not easy so while working to develop your craft also study to become a better entrepreneur because you need both to have success in the publishing world.


Best of Luck,
Tina