RSS3 Business Lessons for New Authors
May 24
A Writer's Blog Comments Off
Whether or not you decide to self-publish or intend to find an agent and market yourself to a major publisher, you should be familiar with the business of producing and selling books. Depending on who is doing the work, you might not be involved in the day to day business of book production and sales, but don’t let that kind of distance lull you into complacency. Understanding the costs, methods, and labor involved will only help you negotiate a fair share of the revenue and further your career as an author.
Understand the industry
There are two primary avenues to publication. You contact a major publisher and use their distribution channels and connections to manage the production and release details. The other avenue is to self-publish, likely with print-on-demand services offered by amazon and other companies. Either way, you can outsource some or most of the work to others, including editing, writing cover copy, designing the cover and interior, ad placement and sales.
But books are just the threshold in publishing. Books are also released in audio format and digital release formats (e-readers), and distribution outlets are as varied as you can imagine. It may not be feasible to tackle all of them at first, but you should be aware of where your book can be sold, in what format, and how much revenue you can expect per sale.
Understand the costs
Cost is a vital factor in all decision making. Who is fronting the production costs for your book? What kind ad campaign are you planning and how much does it cost? Do you have to pay editors or contributors? How many books will you have to sell to break even? Who is setting the price point? The discount on books?
Not only does someone have to make all of these decisions, but every cost decision affects your revenue stream and your bottom line. Listen, you don’t have to get into the book publishing world to make a living, but assuming you plan to sell even one copy of your book, all of the decisions need to be made whether or not you expect to make a profit.
Understand the volume
Along with costs, volume determines your profit. Revenue is the amount of sales in a given period. Profit is the amount of sales in a given period greater than your expenses. Some authors don’t make a profit (whether they self-publish or go through a major publishing house). How many copies do you need to sell to break even? To live for a month? A year? It’s vital to understand where your break even point is, to understand how you intend to sell that many books without increasing your costs. Because as soon as you spend more more money, your break even point rises and you have to sell more books to get there.
Being a writer means you can focus solely on the writing. It’s a creative process that begins and ends with you. Being an author means understand the business side of publishing too because now it begins with you, but it ends with the reader. Production, sales and marketing are vital components to the publishing process that you, as the author, cannot afford to ignore.
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Andrew Marx is the author of Whisper in the Walls, available to download free at www.whispernovella.com.
