Business, interiority, and writing are sections of The Author’s Compass. Each plays a key role in an author’s career.
Today, we explore the business section of The Author’s Compass. It will help you see the critical elements beyond writing and interiority. All three pieces are critical to a thriving authorship career.
Having a list of all the aspects of an authorship career laid out helps us to see, at a glance, what is involved, where you spend your time, and where there are gaps.
The business section includes a variety of elements.
· Publish
· Online presence/website
· Email list
· Marketing
· Will & Estate plan
· Tracking
I daresay you’ll find a few of these are transferable to your life beyond being an author.
Publish
Whether you publish traditionally or independently, if you write for public consumption, publication is the final step to get your writing into the hands of the public. Check out Writing is More Than Writing for more information about that category.
Publication is placed in the business section and not the writing section because there are a lot of decisions involving contracts and finances – two activities typically listed under business.
Online presence/Website
These are essential to an author’s career. They are separate but related ideas.
When no one knows your work, they can’t enjoy or learn from it. Don’t be stingy. Share.
Having a website is mandatory in this day and age. It can be simple or complex. Build your own or ask for help.
I recommend Kimberley Grabas—my website designer. She’s skilled and has the knowledge to help you dig deep into figuring out who you are, what you create, and how you want to present it to the world. Yes, there is some interiority there because of all the inner work involved. The website is the tangible aspect of that.
I’ve listed online presence as a separate subcategory as well. Yes, the website is online, but that’s not all there is to being online.
Do you have a LinkedIn account, a blog on different platforms such as Medium or Substack, and use Facebook, Instagram or other social media accounts? Each of these can help you to become known.
Determine which social media accounts you will use and why you will use them.
Through trial and error, I’ve learned what I can accomplish in a day and a week and which social media will help spread my message.
Email list
An email list is the next best thing to talking to someone in person. It is an essential way to have a personal connection with your readers.
I enjoy getting emails from my subscribers as it gives me a peek into their world. It’s a way to show them they matter. I love sharing what I am working on and giving my subscribers an inside track and first dibs on my releases.
Having a conversation with my email subscribers is fun and mutually beneficial. Others, elsewhere on different platforms, have told stories of how they could no longer see their followers and lost all connection to them when that platform changed its structure.
From a purely mercenary point of view, an email list is yours, and no one can take it from you.
You don’t have to have an online presence. It’s your authorship career, and as CEO, you have the agency to set up your business in whatever way you wish.
For me, having an online presence through different social platforms is important. I enjoy the short conversations on my LinkedIn and Facebook pages.
I share my newest releases with my social media followers after I’ve told my subscribers. It’s a way to help them decide whether that book, article, or poem is useful for them in terms of learning or reading for fun.
So be aware of what the platform you use can access (your name is just one thing) and what you want to accomplish with it. Remember, it is their platform, and they can change it to suit their business model.
Marketing
Marketing is not just one activity. It involves how people see you and learn who you are and how you can help them. There are many ways to do this.
Advertising is one small snippet of marketing.
When you have a book reading in a bookstore, library, or school, you are marketing. You become the brand for your work.
There are many people highly skilled in marketing. This discussion is to alert you to its importance. The Author’s Compass workbook will be coming soon. It’s a way to help you determine all the aspects of your authorship career, where you spend your time, and where there may be gaps.
Will & Estate Plan
One very important piece of the business section of an Author’s Compass is your will and estate plan. Really? You ask.
Yes, really!
As soon as you publish a book and sell it, royalties are involved. In Canada, those royalties go to your heirs for 70 years after you die. Check out the rules in your jurisdiction.
Some questions to ask:
· Who will receive your royalties?
· Who will take care of your authorship business after you die?
· Who will shut down your social media pages and authorship business?
A lawyer can help you answer all these questions and more.
I do hope my heirs enjoy going out for coffee on the royalties they will receive after I die. That’s one of my dreams for my books.
Dreams are fun and belong in the interiority category of The Author’s Compass. Watch for future posts on this.
Tracking
This is something many authors already do, at least in part.
Some things to track are:
· numbers of words, pages, and books written
· time spent each day, week, or month (micro slots of five minutes or macro slots of hours, for example)
· the sales of your books and related merchandise
· expenses incurred to bring your creativity to the public
· advertising campaigns
· speaking gigs in the form of book readings
· followers
· subscribers
· posts, blogs, poems, short stories
· submissions to agents for publication
· submissions to magazines
Tracking helps you see where your time goes, what your costs are (emotional and financial) and where there may be gaps.
I will not advise on what to track and claim for income taxes. There are different rules governing businesses in each jurisdiction, and it is best to ask your trusted accountant for help in this regard.
A few last thoughts on business.
For some, business is dry, boring, too much work, or needs too many skills. For others, this aspect of an authorship career is exciting because of the variety of activities. And some of you can relate to my dedication to balance the bottom line of a business account down to the last penny.
These activities all fall under the realm of business. Tracking your activities will help you see where your efforts are placed and which ones take off.
Peek into the future
In the last post, I discussed how interiority is the basis of an authorship career. For me, keeping interiority out of the picture makes it one-dimensional.
More than that, though, is that by ignoring your interiority, you have a sure-fire way to get stuck or, worse yet, come down with a severe case of writer’s block.
Watch for my next post, where I will discuss how interiority supports or hinders your authorship business.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these aspects of business.
Which ones do you apply already?
Which ones have you never thought of before?