The 8 Parts to the Indie Author Business Plan
If you’re an author on the brink of finishing that first novel, or maybe looking to branch out and release your collection of completed projects to the world, but not sure where to begin, Authorpreneurlaunch is debuting an 8 part blog series that may be just the guidance you need to broaden your market.
Designed to help you legitimize your attempts and develop a structured business plan, this series will provide clarity and help you train yourself in treating your written works as products. These products are unique to each author. They provide something of importance that a specific audience of consumers is in demand for, be it entertainment, knowledge, humor, or any number of countless other benefits. And if your goal is to supply this demand you need to have a solid strategy. Just like any business. You need to know who you are, what you are providing and what you are setting out to achieve. This is where we will begin in our discussion on the 8 Parts of Developing and Executing a Business Plan for the Independent eBook Author…
Part One: Company Purpose
By completing your eBook you’ve laid the groundwork to build upon in the first steps of what is to become an exciting journey for your brand. Take a moment to revel in this achievement and get ready to transition into the world of marketing. This is a time for excitement, a time to for carrying over momentum, a time for hard work, and a time to create a serious strategy for receiving serious return on your brand new endeavor.
As I mentioned, this is a journey of raising brand awareness and capitalizing on that awareness by converting it to the highest return on investment to your brand name – and in this case, the brand name is your name. You must operate as though the brand is you and the message you are sending to the world. You are funneling yourself and your voice into a digital copy in the form of an eBook for distribution.
Define Your Core Values
A great place to start constructing a business plan to boost your eBook awareness is to define yourself. In order to sell a product you must know the product. As the author, you essentially are the product. So start defining your motivations and values. What drove you in writing this eBook? What is the main message you are trying to get across? What picture are you trying to paint in the minds of your consumers? What are your personal values that will always be evident in your work? Knowing these things about yourself and your brand (again, yourself and your brand are one-in-the-same) will make it much easier to distribute a message from a digital marketing perspective as well as in the realm of word of mouth communication.
Once you have these motivations and values defined to yourself they become real talking points to put out to the world. They will always surround you and your eBook and will lead to a bigger and more focused presence in the minds of consumers. Gather three of the most important values that you want to be associated with this project and write them down. This will help you when you begin to lay out your goals and objectives.
Set Goals and Objectives
So, now that you’ve begun defining core values, you need to define your direction and create a north star. This is where you begin to ask yourself, how will I measure my success? Is this a dollar value? Is this a certain number of downloads tallied? Is this a mission to raise the profile of your name as a writer? Is this to gain social media presence? You have an incredibly valuable product that can be used in many different ways to achieve success, but first you have to decide what is important to you and how you want to leverage this valuable product you have at your disposal.
Create a Mission Statement
You owe it to yourself to get the most out of this project that you’ve already invested so much time and energy to. Keeping this in mind, scribe a formal mission statement that states what you set out to provide and how you set out to provide it in a tone of voice that you feel aligns with your persona as a writer. No matter what type of content you’ve created, show the consumer that your work is close to your heart and the authenticity will translate nicely and go a long way in creating a real relationship with your audience.
Now that you have completed the creative and artistic process that it takes to write your eBook content and are re-channeling it into your campaign to drive awareness, beginning with developing a company purpose, you are well on your way to an exciting and successful campaign.
Be sure to check out Authorpreneurlaunch’s second installment to its 8-part Indie Author Business Plan!
Happy Writing,
Marquina
8 Part #Indie #Author #Business Plan – Part 1: Company Purpose via @Marquina – plz RT! https://t.co/bEg3XFjiY1
— Marquina (@Marquina) May 17, 2016
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