Do You Have a Business Plan and Marketing Strategy? Self-publishing is a Business!

I was so happy when the proof copy of my first book arrived in the mail. Excited when it appeared on Amazon and even more excited the first time I got paid! My tiny publishing empire has come a long way since then. I have actually paid for things around the house such as a completely new central air conditioning and heating system, a new water heater and family vacation. All of my new projects are funded out of revenue from the business.

One of the really painful lessons I have learned is the amount of time, effort, money and opportunities I have squandered as a result of not fully realizing from the start that being an author, fiction or non-fiction, it does not matter, is a business.

Fortunately, I like to learn about things that interest me. Self-publishing can be so overwhelming and confusing that I felt compelled to learn as much as I could in order to achieve the one business goal I had at the time - to make some extra money for the family.

After reading two books early in the process, Aiming at Amazon and Print-on-Demand Book Publishing, I came to the conclusion that this was a business and I had better start learning about the business end of things. I am not there yet by any stretch of the imagination, but I am slowly learning and at least correcting a few of my worst mistakes in the process.

For authors visiting this blog who are considering self-publishing I have compiled a short list of subjects you will need to learn something about. I would love it if veteran self-publishers who have been success would comment and add to the list so the rest of us, myself included, could benefit from your experience and success. Here's the list:

• book design
• book marketing
• campaign launches
• author platforms
• editing
• sales
• marketing in general
• website/blog (this is worth several posts alone)
• accounting
• copyright
• print-on-demand service
• print-on-demand business model
• ebooks
• Kindle
• Nook
• business planning
• taxes and publishing
• taxes and small business 
• branding
• social media

There's more, but that is a good start for list of this type.

The two biggest mistakes I feel I have made was launching into my self-publishing efforts without:

a) a business plan
b) a marketing plan

These two items alone would have been well worth the time, money and effort invested in planning my tiny empire and its growth and development. Things would have gone much smoother and with fewer setbacks.

Based on my own experience, I urge any author who has not done so to develop both a business plan and a marketing plan.

The Changing Business Model of Self-publishing - eBooks and POD

Quite a bit has changed since I published my first book several years ago. I had no real business model planned for my fledgling publishing empire and that was a mistake. Now I find myself rethinking how my limited capital will be spent in the upcoming future for the two new titles I have in the works.

Upon realization self-publishing was an actual business and had to be treated as such, I quickly developed a business plan centered around the POD model as advocated by Morris Rosenthal and Aaron Shepards. Essentially this plan is to use either LSI or CreateSpace as my POD printer, drive all sales to Amazon who handles all the sales and collections and having my profits deposited in my account at the end of the month.  I will readily admit I do sell books directly and to retailers in my niche market, but the bulk of my sales come from Amazon.

This model has worked well for my tiny empire and while I still have more to learn, I do not plan to eliminate this successful model from my business plan. I have found however that the plan must be modified to include the production of ebooks, both as Kindle versions and ePub for the Nook.

There are additional costs involved for producing a book in both a POD and ebook version and while these combined costs are still significantly lower than a press run using off-set printing, they begin to add up for a tiny enterprise such as mine.

Why would I change my model and incur the additional capital expenses? Simple profit motive. I have converted to of my POD titles to ebook titles as well. For one book the Kindle sales are essentially out numbering the POD sales by 10 to 1. The second title has seen a huge increase in the POD sales, in part I believe, due to the large number of Kindle sales. The Kindle sales are out numbering the POD sales at a 5 to 1 rate for this title. 

In the case of one title, the creation of the Kindle version led to sales when none were taking place. The second title, which was selling slowly as a POD version saw an explosion in sales when the Kindle version became available and the Kindle version is selling briskly by my standards.

Given the increase in sales due to making both versions available, it makes sense to offer most, if not all, of my titles in both versions. It also makes sense to slowly, as funds become available, convert all of my back list into ebook versions as well. I will pick the ones I think have the best chance to sell as ebooks and invest the money in those versions initially.

Authors who are considering making the leap into self-publishing need to plan for both POD and ebook versions of their titles. Some might even consider launching just an ebook version first depending on the type of book and its genre.

The times they are a changing.