Creating Your Personal and Business Road Map to Success as an Author! – Wrapping Up the Lessons Learned

By Pamela Ebel

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The time has come to talk of many things we’ve covered in the first three articles in this series and wrap them up with string and sealing-wax. 

In Article One, we determined that writing and publishing is a business. Because successful businesses have a concrete list of goals to be achieved, we outlined the skills needed to reach them. The list included 1) learning to avoid the ‘one right answer’ when outlining our career goals, 2) learning to create a structure to keep us on track to achieve those goals, 3) developing ‘situational awareness’ to respond to the impact that time and events have on those goals, and 4) Answering  Five Questions that will help us move forward on the path to writing success. 

Closing out our journey, we’re reminded that lives and career paths are not linear and therefore goals will run into head winds, be impacted by situations that slow us down or stop us completely for a time. Such is life, and if we’re confronted by the need to answer why the sea is boiling hot or whether pigs have wings, the answers to the following questions will help get us get back on the path.

The Five Questions to Answer

1. Who is our target readership?
   Is it large enough to provide a livable income for our personal and business needs? While this seems to go without saying, the impact of events in this day and age make asking and answering this question crucial. Traditional Publishing houses are consuming each other at voracious rates. Small and Independent Publishers are feeling the stresses of a reading public that seems to shift reading habits and preferences rapidly. Self-published authors who found ways to swiftly reach their intended readers are also beginning to feel the head winds as technologies change and readers see more ‘look-alikes’ available in their preferred genres.
   
   This means many readers no longer feel tied to ‘recognized author loyalties.’ It’s like reading tea leaves, yet failure to search the bottom of our cups may lead to a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and failure.

2. What value does our writing provide the readers?
   Once we decide on the genre(s) and publication platform(s) we plan to use to reach readers, it will be time to determine what our works offer the readers that is different from similar writings. Writers have created virtual worlds to communicate with the readers in ways that feel as though they are ‘personal friends.’ We need to assess the brand we create, study the market place to look for trends that are working, and search for inspiration to create new approaches to support our work. 

3. What is our business model?
   Are we writing in the traditional world with an agent that makes the contacts for us; an editor that is assessing our work and keeping us on ‘deadlines’ and a legal team assessing contracts, copyright issues and other artistic rights? Or are we working with a small press, independent press, university press, or a hybrid of some sort, that don’t always have access to those resources? Or are we creating a self-publishing career where we wear all of the above hats? These models will different revenue streams, pricing strategies, and time and work flow management supports. We need to decide what we can handle and what we need to seek help for.

4. How are we working to build a sustainable business?
   We need to go back to that list of goals we created when we decided to turn writing into a career and tweak them with solutions that answer these questions: What are our strategies for attracting new readers and keeping those who have invested in our writing so far?   Networking strategies? Communication mechanisms, online and in-person? Calendaring and committing to attendance at conferences? Author/reader gatherings? Appearances at Public Events in the communities we live in? We need to remember all of these impact our family and other work obligations.

5. How do we manage the skills sets needed to operate our business?
   There are numerous operational questions that will arise when we begin to write full time. Chief among the early questions are, which computer, printer, and writing programs will fit our needs?                   

It’s at this point we need to look into the various publishing platforms we hope to submit to and publish with. Many online and traditional publishers no longer accept PDF submissions. So, we need to decide if purchasing this program and the supporting program, Acrobat, are necessary. Everyone will have to decide if a Mac of PC is the best set up for them. Depending on whether we plan to work with an agent and traditional publisher, a small press, a hybrid or go the self-publishing route we’ll have to contend with contracts for editing services, formatting services, publication clauses. and the financial decisions that arise. We should consider the possible need for tax professionals and intellectual property attorneys who can assist in avoiding tax and legal pitfalls. Finally, we’ll need to decide whether we should acquire professionals to assist in publicity development.                                                                                                                                    

Looking at the issues above, we’re reminded WRITING IS A BUSINESS! And what we don’t know or choose not to consider can cost us. If we’re willing to take the time to consider the points raised in this series and frame answers that best suit our individual  needs, we can Create Personal and Business Road Maps to Success as Writers.

Good luck to us all!

Creating Your Personal and Business Road Map to Success as an Author: Creating Situational Awareness of Time and Events Impacting Our Journey

By Pamela Ebel

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Article One of this series explored the hurdles faced when we begin the change to writing as a full-time endeavor. We considered why and how to avoid the ‘One Right Answer’ when setting our professional goals. 

Article Two examined how new goals may require major changes in our professional and personal lives. Their impact on our families, friends, and co-workers—many of whom will become the first audience for our writings—need to be addressed. To lessen that effect we discussed the need to explain the goals to these groups, include them in the decision-making process, seek their acceptance, and bring them along on the journey.

Now we’ll work to acquire or refine skills that ensure our goals stay relevant and achievable. 

Creating Situational Awareness

Situational Awareness is something most of us do every day. We look around carefully as we head to our car in a darkened parking lot; prepare for an important meeting by studying those who will attend and the topic(s) to be covered. The list of things we believe require us to be aware of certain situations is prolific. 

Still, when it comes to personal and professional goals, we often struggle to examine them with fresh eyes because, having committed to them early on, we’ve become victims of habit. To avoid this pitfall, let’s start creating situational awareness.

There are three parts to the process:

1. Perception–   Start by examining our current writing situation to see what key elements, events and/or individuals have changed since we set the original goals. This requires refreshing memories about what our professional and personal lives were like before beginning the journey. 

Next, we look at what changes have occurred. Did we quit the other career completely or did we move to part-time? Were there any major changes in our personal lives such as marriage, births, divorce, death, illnesses, relocation, which changed our plans? The answers may have altered our initial goals and immediate environment.

2. Comprehension– This step is often the hardest for us to tackle. When we delve back into the time, place, events, and the people that existed when we announced, “I’m going to be a writer full time!” what ifs abound. 

The results of those original decisions may or may not be satisfying. They are, however, the reality we must work with when deciding if goals need to be changed. Consulting with the people that were and are still a part of our decision-making process will help in comprehending the new situation.

3. Projection– Identifying goals affected by time and events is the challenging part of this exercise. 

Looking back, we should note the goals that have been met and are still worth time and effort to pursue because…? Beware of keeping goals based on the ‘One Right Answer’ or on habits that are outdated. List the reasons that justify maintaining and supporting certain goals.

Then take a close look at the goals that don’t appear successful or relevant considering added information. Checking with those individuals who have been with us from the start and other writers on similar journeys will allow us to make predictions of what is likely to happen in the near future.

Wait! This process is asking us to recalibrate our futures based on guesses about known and unknown facts and situations? When would we find ourselves in such a predicament having been so careful at the beginning? What could possibly throw the ‘best laid plans’ into such disarray? 

One word that comes to mind – AI! 

From Federal Court decisions in search of a way to demand and determine the presence of the ‘Human Hand’ in a work seeking publication and copyright protection under the U.S. Constitution to copyright protection in general being threatened with extinction in the United States, our journeys are now filled with land mines of questions that may have answers or no answers, all of which threaten to blow up the carefully planned journeys.

All of the above information suggests that we need all the help we can get to navigate through uncharted waters. That brings us to the final discussion in this series—what are the Five Questions we need to know and answer to have a successful personal and professional writing career? Join me for the final discussion soon.