Producing book is like establishing a business. There are decisions to make and details to take care of. So what is the process? Here’s a list:
• Just as you would choose a business that is needed/wanted by a large customer base, you would choose a book topic/genre that has a large or solid niche audience.
• Before opening a business, you would know something about your customers, suppliers, distributors, competition, laws/rules/policies. Thus, an important first step in producing a book is to study the publishing industry. Among your library, be sure to read Publish Your Book, Proven Strategies and Resources for the Enterprising Author. And subscribe to the most useful newsletters—many of them are FREE. (I’ll repeat my list of best newsletters for authors in tomorrow’s blog post.)
• You would write a business plan for a business. A book proposal is a business plan for a book and an extremely important step. Not only do most traditional publishers now want to see a book proposal for fiction as well as nonfiction, the book proposal will teach you volumes about your project and how to successfully proceed with it.
• In business, you would make sure you have the right qualifications, skills, established customer base and connections related to your business of choice. As an author who will be responsible for promoting and marketing your book, you will need a strong platform (a following, connections and promotional skills, for example).
• An understanding of your responsibilities as the owner of a particular business is vital to the health of that business. In publishing, it is highly important that you understand and accept the fact that, no matter which publishing option you choose, you are responsible for promoting your book.
• A successful businessman/woman learns new skills and comes up with fresh ideas for enticing and serving customers. Authors, too, must be enterprising and flexible in order to adequately accommodate their audiences.
• In any business, there is always something to learn and new decisions to make. A successful published author keeps abreast of new developments within his/her industry/genre as well as the publishing industry and adjusts to use this new information to their advantage.
If you don’t view authorship as a serious business, you could be sabotaging your book’s success. Seriously, read my book, Publish Your Book, to get an overview of your role and your responsibilities as a published author and to gain clarity on how to navigate the fiercely competitive publishing industry. http://www.matilijapress.com Also available at amazon.com.