Evaluate the Need for Your Book - Developing a Business Plan Part III

Will anyone other than your mother want to read your book? You love your book. Your friends will even encourage you to write your book if it is still in the idea stage. But will anyone actually want to read the finished book?

Before you self-publish your book, you need to ask, and try to learn, the answer to that question. If nobody will buy the book, there simply is no market for the book.

While you can self-publish at a very low cost (if you do everything your self at no cost), I have learned the hard way to pay to have my book edited by a pro as well as the interior and cover design. You can forget getting me to try to convert anything on my own to Kindle ever again.

I can't speak to the fiction market but I have learned a bit about judging the niche in the non-fiction market I write for. Even then, I am surprised at what sells and what doesn't.

Every book I have self-published has eventually earned back the money I invested (except for my three latest books but they have not had time to earn out yet). Three of the titles not only returned my investment quickly, they have earned quite well since they have been published.

Several of my other titles just crawl along, selling a few copies a month while others will peak suddenly and then not sell at all again for a few months. I have learned my niche is seasonal and this is to be expected.

Why have I not been able to write more books that sell really well?

To be honest, I only recently learned the answer to that question and consider myself lucky that my uneducated approach to deciding which books to write and publish has not left me holding the bag financially for a lot of my titles.

What is the question to ask? What do your potential readers want?

Since I write non-fiction, the answer to what my readers want is:

1. "how to" information
2. information that eliminates a problem
3. information that eliminates "pain"

I had been writing what I wanted to write about, not what the market is interested in. Since my motivation now is less about becoming an author and writing about things that interest me and more about making my tiny self-publishing business grow and become more financially viable, I find myself much more willing to take the time to find out what my audience wants.

Not only do I want to share what I know that fills the needs of my potential readers, I am willing to do extensive research in order to obtain the necessary knowledge to fill those needs if I do not already possess the required knowledge.

My approach is a bit more business oriented now. I have a good idea of the financial investment necessary to write, publish and launch a new book. Experience has taught me how much time and effort will be required to market and promote the book and I have an exact idea of how many copies I have to sell in order to at least recoup the financial investment.

No longer do I simply write, and publish, a book because I came up with what I think is a good idea. I do my homework and try to determine if there is enough potential interest for me to recoup my financial investment within 18 months, preferably less.

If I believe I can sell enough copies to recoup the cost of editing, cover and interior design, promotion and marketing and conversion to Kindle, I move forward. If not, the idea is shelved.

Self-publishing is a business. As painful and non-creative as it may sound, an author needs to determine if there is a market for the book before launching it into the world.

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.

Seasonal Book Sales and Your Business Plan

As fascinating as self-publishing is for me, my primary area of interest is coaching basketball. Yes, it is true, not all coaches are dumb jocks (I'll have you know I graduated from college with a 3.72 gpa and a double major). As I grow older, I find learning to be much more fun and interesting than it ever was in school. Self-publishing just happens to be one of the subjects I have taken an interest in.

As well as my book on using CreateSpace sells each month, and it accounts for a good percentage of my monthly sales, the majority of income for the year comes from the sale of books about coaching basketball. Since I have entered the self-publishing business and realized I could make a decent second income, I have taken much more of an interest in not only how, but when, my sales take place.

December has always been my best month for sales. No doubt part of this is due to the annual Christmas season buying binge Americans engage in. March is a peak month and I attribute this to the annual arrival of state tournaments and the NCAA's March Madness National Championship Tournament. October and November are the next best months for sales and this is due the start of practice in the fall. The other eight months of the year are steady with sales numbers being much lower but consistent.

January sales are usually abysmal. I attribute this to the post-Christmas halt to spending and the fact that basketball coaches are in the midst of league play and not interested in learning anything new. This January was different. In fact, it was the single most profitable month since I self-published my first book. I attribute this dramatic change to my introduction of Kindle editions of two books and while I hope not, I feel fairly certain this past January was an aberration.

How does all of this impact my business plan? Since I have been tracking sales volume by month, I have a good idea when to release a new title for optimal initial sales. I also have a better idea of when my marketing efforts need to be coordinated and targeted to specific titles and events.

Surely there are optimal months for the release of new titles. Those optimal months may vary based on overall consumer buying habits and the niche topic of the title. In my case, coaches buy books just prior to the start of a new season in an effort to learn more and do a better job coaching. March is a time of year when coaches are still really excited about their sport and want to plan for the coming season next school year.

Since the majority of my sales take place on Amazon, anything that boosts a new titles initial sales will help the long tail effect on Amazon kick in sooner, boosting more sales overall for the long term. It makes sense for me to finish a project so it can be on sale on Amazon in September. I then target my marketing and promotional efforts so a considerable portion is directed at promoting the newest title. When coaches start buying in October and November, the new title's sales will take off quicker than if I had released the book in June or July.

It also makes sense financially to track sales by month so a reasonably reliable idea of cash flow can be generated. New titles and other business projects take money to get them off the ground and it is helpful to know what time of the year money will be available for a new project.

The bulk of my business expenses fall into four categories, not all of which are directly related to the publishing arm of KCS Basketball Enterprises. I host a coaching clinic each fall and a summer basketball camp. Each of these are once a year events, require a fair amount of money to put the event on and in the case of the camp, is a good income generator. The coaching clinic breaks even but is a great marketing tool and is held the first weekend in October. I have monthly expenses for my website and e-newsletter as well. Finally there is the cost of getting the next title into production and available for sale. All of this takes a little bit of financial juggling and planning and knowing when money will come in helps in the planning process.

For authors of non-fiction books, it is well worth your time to look at publishing release dates as a way to maximize sales. Some topics are so time sensitive it might not matter when the title is released, it will sell right away. Other topics might need to be released at a specific time of the year to maximize both initial sales and long term sales.

The timed release date will of course impact your writing schedule and the time available for editing, design and production. This entire publishing thing has turned out to be just a little more complicated than I thought when I first started this adventure - but it certainly has been a fun learning experience!