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A profitable author business plan for your books is necessary for authors who seriously plan on making a living off of their books. A book is a product, and therefore you as an author are a business. Therefore, a business plan for your book acts as a roadmap towards becoming a profitable author. Without a plan, you are throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks. 

Social media campaigns, KDP ads, and media outreach are all great activities to promote your book, but they need to be tied to a plan to work. If you do not see any book sales, you probably don’t have a strong business plan behind all your marketing activities. 

To start generating serious book sales, you need to shift your mindset. This means thinking in business terms. If you want to make money from publishing books, you need to create a plan and act on it! A profitable author business plan will only work if action is behind it.   

A Profitable Author Business Plan Is The Starting Line to Success

Every author dreams of becoming a bestseller, impacting readers, having their book read and loved, and retiring from their book sales. But to get there, you need a plan, otherwise your book will not reach its full potential. No business succeeded without a plan, and the same goes for books. 

So, are you ready to make money from your book? Then it is time to create your own author business plan. 

In this article, we are going to outline the nine sections of your profitable author business plan and dive deep into what you want to achieve and what true value your book gives your readers. 

What Is an Author Business Plan?

A business plan for authors is a detailed action plan to outline your goals, partnerships, revenue streams, and cost structure. It is also used to outline your book’s value, target readership, activities, and resources.

Think of a business plan as a guide or a roadmap for your book’s success. Each plan will outline your goals and how you will achieve them. We usually picture multi-page, in-depth, formal booklets when we think of business plans. However, as an author, you only need a lean business plan consisting of simple bullet points and essential projections, making the planning process much less daunting. 

At its heart, a profitable author business plan is just a plan for how your books will sell and become bestsellers.

The benefits of having a business plan for authors

It is a shame that so many authors think business plans are just for corporations, startups, or small businesses. The truth is that business planning offers serious benefits for anyone who has a business. If you are an author, you are a business. 

So what can a solid strategy for building your author brand and readership help you accomplish? A thorough business plan for authors will help you to:

• Gain clarity around your vision for your writing career and sales. 
• Nail down what exactly will help grow your readership. Define what actions, partnerships, and resources will help you reach your objectives and goals.  
• Recognize and filter out the distractions, and define which actions and activities will help you sell more books, reach your goals, and increase projects. You’ll prevent yourself from wasting time on things that don’t work or don’t contribute to your success. 
• Determine your future needs ahead of time while learning which platforms you need to be on and what software or resources you need to be successful. 
• Beat inertia and become confident in your actions. Knowing what items will move your book forward and help you gain new readers will give you confidence.
• Notice opportunities to reward yourself for both small accomplishments and big wins. You will get a clearer understanding of what success looks like for you. 

What goes into a business plan for authors?

When creating a business plan, I love using the Business Model Canvas developed by Alexander Osterwalder of Strategyzer. It provides an overview of a business as a whole, and it is a great tool to help authors gain insights into their readers in a simple format. 

The Business Model Canvas is a very visual way of outlining the business side of your book. All you need are colored pens, post-it notes, and an empty Business Model Canvas, which you can download here. Make sure you print the template as large as possible to have enough space for your ideas. 

How to fill out your author business plan

The Business Model Canvas categorizes and outlines an author’s business processes, systems, and internal activities into nine separate categories. Each category represents the four significant aspects of a business: your readers, product (the book), infrastructure, and financial viability. Below is an explanation for all nine categories. 

1. Readership segments: Who are your target readers?

Defining and understanding your readership segments is an essential part of a business plan for authors. It is key to ensuring that you target the right group of readers for your book. 

To define an influential readership segment, you must first know who your readers are. Then you must list these types of readers in terms of priority, including a list of potential future readers. Each segment of readers fits into a category, e.g. moms, teenagers, dads, homeowners, engineers, etc. 

2. Value propositions: Why will readers buy and read your book?

An author’s value proposition sets their book apart and makes it valuable to readers. It answers the question: “Why would readers want to read your book?” For most authors, a value proposition is going to be qualitative, meaning it will highlight the book’s experience and results for readers.

3. Channels: How is your book promoted, sold, and delivered?

In this section, the author outlines the channels and mediums they plan on using to share their value proposition to one of their readership segments. Authors will want to pick channels that their audience engages with regularly. For example, if you target moms, you will probably want to be on Pinterest. When choosing which channels to be a part of, it is important to know which platforms your future readers are using. 

There are two basic categories of channels for authors: 

• The first is author-owned channels, such as an author’s website. 
• The second category is partner channels, such as distributors. 

A company can choose either one category or employ a combination of both. Most authors, however, are going to select a combination of both. 

4. Reader relationships: How do you plan to interact with your readers?

An author must decide on the type of relationship they want to foster with their readers. Knowing this will help create financial success and sustainability. 

Reader relationships can be categorized as follows:

• Automated services: An automated service uses technology and tools to create an experience for potential readers. The goal of creating this experience is to lead people towards purchasing your book.
• Communities: Creating communities of readers (on social media, for example) allows authors to communicate with them directly. This allows for an enhanced reader experience because the community allows them to share their experiences and engage with the author’s works.
• Co-creation: Co-creation involves the author asking their readers for their opinions on future projects. This allows the reader to directly influence how the author’s next book will turn out.

Most authors will establish a relationship that combines all three of the above categories. 

5. Revenue streams: How does your book earn revenue?

A revenue stream is an author’s method to get their readers to buy into their brand. It can be created through the following ways:

• The first book: This is a no-brainer and should be the focus. 
• More books: An author continues to write and sell more books. 
• Promotional products: An author sells promotional products such as bookmarks, t-shirts, pillows, etc. 
• A Workshop: Maybe you have more to offer outside of the book and want to create a workshop that gives more benefit to readers.
• Speaking: You have a great book and people want to hear about what you have to say face to face. 
• Advertising: An author charges others to advertise their products on the author’s website or social media channels. 

6. Key activities: What strategic things do you need to do to get book sales?

Activities are key to producing the author’s value proposition. An author must list the key activities relevant to getting more book sales. These activities are essential processes that need to happen for the business plan to be effective and help drive sales. Key activities will coincide with revenue streams. Now, it is essential to evaluate which activities are key by adding or removing some and assess their impact as you implement them. Key activities could include ads, media outreach, an instagram campaign, or a testimonial outreach. There are endless activities you can do. But it is crucial to pick the ones that will generate the most book sales. 

7. Key resources: What unique strategic assets must you have to sell your book?

Key resources are the assets behind how an author provides value to their readers. For example, your resource could be giving away the first chapter of your book or even giving away a few copies of your print book in a contest. Think of resources as what items do you need to generate sales. 

8. Key partnerships: Who do you need to partner with to ensure your book succeeds?

Every author needs to form partnerships with distributors, libraries, bookstores, and other key stakeholders, to help promote their book. Partnerships can be categorized as follows:

• Industry-related partnerships (with a publisher, influencer, libraries, etc.)
• Joint ventures
• Relationships between buyers and suppliers

Once these key partners are identified, you can start making future partnership plans. 

9. Cost structure: What are the book’s major cost drivers?

This section defines the cost of publishing and promoting your book (a.k.a. your business). A realistic understanding of the costs of an author’s business is one of the hallmarks of a good business model. Therefore, it is essential to list all the costs on your business plan to calculate your expected profit. Some costs may be decreased through specific measures, while others may go up if you decide that an investment in a particular section will increase book sales.

The Business Model Canvas is very visual, helping to give you a clear overview of your goals and how to reach them. It also provides a breakdown of the significant items impacting your growth. At Talk+Tell, we use our own version of The Business Model Canvas with all our authors when they first start working with us.

How to use your profitable author business plan to achieve faster growth

Your profitable author business plan will help you get ahead and sell more books. Authors who write business plans grow 30 percent faster than those who don’t. However, just writing a business plan does not guarantee your success.  

The best way for your business plan to help grow your readership is to use it as an ongoing management tool. To do this, your business plan must be constantly revisited to reflect what campaigns and tactics are currently working to grow your readership and which ones are not. 

When you’re running a business, you are learning new things every day: what your readers like, what they don’t like, which marketing tactics work, which ones don’t, etc. Your business plan should reflect those learnings to guide your future strategy.

Conclusion

If you’re serious about making more money as an author and aren’t sure how to make that happen, then creating a business plan is your first step. Business plans are for serious authors who want to get more than a thousand book sales per month and turn writing into a full-time career. Remember: a business plan is fluid and always evolving with your books. So always review and re-examine your plan regularly to help keep yourself and your writing career on track. 

Reach out to us at Talk+Tell if you have any other questions about creating a business plan!

If you are an author and want to get your book noticed online, you need marketing. Marketing is what will help increase visibility for your book and generate sales. It is the only answer for ‘How To Get Your Book Noticed Online’.

The answer to ‘ How To Get Your Book Noticed Online’ is marketing.

It sounds simple, but there is a lot of work that goes into promoting your book and attracting readers. In this article, I dive into how authors like you can get their books noticed online. So, are you ready to accelerate your book marketing strategy, gain visibility, and start getting more book sales? Let’s get started!

To Get Your Book Noticed You Need To Know Who You Are Promoting Your Book to

Before you start promoting your book online, you need to first outline who your target reader is, what online platforms they use, and what value your book offers them. To get started, try answering these questions: 

1. Who is your ideal reader? (i.e. What genre does your book fit into? What values do readers in that genre tend to hold? What do readers expect from a book in that genre?)
2. What social networks do your readers frequent? (i.e. Do your readers prefer Facebook or Twitter? Are they active on Instagram or YouTube?)
3. What motivates your readers to buy your books, products, or services? (i.e. What do your readers get out of reading your book? What hole can your book fill in their lives?)
4. What are your readers’ pain points and does your book offer a prescription? (i.e. What escape or solution does your book provide to readers?) 
5. What is your marketing objective? (i.e. What do you wish to accomplish with your marketing strategies?)
6. Do you have a budget for marketing? (i.e. Do your marketing strategies fit your budget, or do you need to reconsider your strategy?)
7. Are you committed to consistent efforts in your marketing and sales? (i.e. What steps can you commit to on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to build an effective marketing strategy and grow your sales?) 

The answers to these questions will help you develop your messaging and overall marketing strategy. They will also help you understand what genres and subgenres your book fits under.

Once you know who your audience is, it is time to build and optimize all of the platforms your book and author brand need to be on. 

There Are 3 Main Platforms Every Author MUST Be on:

Goodreads

As an author, you don’t need to use Goodreads extensively, unless it is part of your marketing strategy. However, there are two things I recommend every author do on Goodreads. (These are quick, one-time tasks that you can do if you don’t want to invest in yet another social network.)

1. Claim your author profile on Goodreads

The first thing you should do is claim your author profile. Just follow the instructions on Goodreads and let them know that you are the author of your book. Setting up an author profile creates one more place online where readers can find you, and since your author page is just one click away from your book’s page, it’d be great if there was something there for your readers to find.

2. Make sure your books are in the Goodreads database

The second thing you should do is make sure all of your books are listed on Goodreads. Search the Goodreads site for each of your books, and if one isn’t listed, go ahead and add it. It’s important to make sure your books are on Goodreads so that when your readers want to add one of your books to their shelves, it’s there waiting for them.

Amazon Author Central

Incredibly, most authors aren’t even aware that Amazon provides a FREE author page to each author with an ISBN. Amazon Author Central is a great marketing tool to help authors better market their books. However, the most significant benefit is that it allows you to control your personal author page and optimize your metadata to increase organic traffic to your book page.

Here is a list of the main things you can do through Amazon Author Central:

• Improve your Amazon search
• Track your sales
• Add more books
• Connect with readers
• Fix technical issues 

An author website

To grow your readership, the first thing you need is an author’s website. You’ll want that author’s website launched months before your book is available. Your author’s website acts as a resource where people can find everything there is to know about you and your book.  

Interested readers shouldn’t have to fight to learn more about you and your books. If they do, you lose them as readers. Having an author website is like having a headquarters or an information center – it’s a place to send people who want to know more about what you’re doing.

I recommend setting up a simple website – your author’s website does not need to be complicated. 

With Squarespace, a software service providing website building and hosting tools, you can easily create a site that suits your needs. Along with allowing users to create their own templates, Squarespace also allows users access to pre-built website templates as well as drag-and-drop elements that make creating a website easy. I recommend starting with the Home, About, and Contact pages, as well as a page for each of your novels. Once you have these pages established, you can then add a blog and/or email list when you have the time to maintain it.

(Full disclaimer: I’m not getting paid by Squarespace in any way. I just really like them.)

To Get Your Book Noticed Online, You Need to Focus Your Efforts

When starting, don’t try and do everything all at once. Otherwise, nothing will get done. Instead, focus on 1 to 3 social media platforms and/or campaigns to grow your community. When choosing which platforms to work on, think about where your target audience hangs out and how they consume information. For example, if your reader is not on Facebook but on Pinterest, you don’t necessarily need be active on Facebook. Instead, you need to be super active on Pinterest. 

The top social media platforms for authors to be active on are:

1. Facebook: a social networking platform that allows users to connect with family, friends, businesses, etc.  
2. Instagram: a social media platform that provides a mainly visual service, with users posting videos and images rather than text alone. 
3. Twitter: a “microblogging” platform where users send and receive short posts called “tweets”, which can be up to 280 characters long and include links, etc. 
4. Pinterest: a visual search engine used for discovering inspiration such as recipes, home, style, books, authors, and more, acting as a sort of virtual bulletin board.
5. YouTube: an online video-sharing platform allowing users to upload, view, rate, and share videos as well as follow other users.

Gaining Visibility For Your Book Is a Long-Term Strategy

Visibility is a result of the type of marketing you do. To get the greatest results for your efforts, look for marketing strategies with a long shelf life. The more you focus on the long term, the greater your results. In addition, don’t wait for the perfect moment to start promoting your book – start as early as possible! Waiting for your book to be published wastes precious time, so start promoting not only your book but also yourself as an author as soon as you can. Consistency in your online promotion efforts is also key, so try and set small goals you can work up to each day.

Long shelf life book marketing strategies are where your efforts pay off for weeks, months, even years down the road. A few of the ways you can create long-term results are by:

• Blogging regularly (i.e. posting once or twice a week, once a month, etc.)
• Guest blogging on other websites (i.e. publishing a blog post on another website to gain more visibility and reach more potential readers)
• Doing a book blog tour (i.e. a set amount of time in which your book will be promoted across multiple blogs)
• Being interviewed by the media (i.e. radio shows, TV shows, newspaper articles, etc.)
• Being interviewed on podcast shows (i.e. allowing you to build a larger social network of potential readers)
• Building lead funnels (i.e. putting your potential readers through various steps until they finally make a purchase)
• Focusing on search engine optimization (SEO) strategies (i.e. optimizing online posts so that your content appears at the top of a search engine list for particular keywords)
• Being active on social media by posting regularly and engaging with your audience (i.e. setting aside 20 minutes a day to create social media content)

Ultimately, you market to sell books – the more visible your book, the more copies you are bound to sell. Therefore, you must put just as much effort into marketing your book as you did writing it!

Engage Your Target Readers With Amazing Content

Once you know what platforms to use and have created, you can start engaging with your audience. Building an active audience does not begin with publishing a “buy now” post – a trusting relationship needs to be established before a potential reader becomes a loyal reader. 

Your future readers will not buy your book instantly if you tell them to in one Facebook post. Instead, they need to be nurtured toward making that purchase. Genuine interactions breed trust, and trust cultivates love. When you gain that love, sales will naturally roll right on in. 

Why? Because when your readers love you, they can’t wait to get their hands on your latest work!

That’s why building trust is pivotal to growing a devoted readership.

So How To Get Your Book Noticed Online and build trust? Don’t worry – I have you covered with these 4 tactics to employ as you interact and grow your readership:

1. Connect: Make an effort to connect with potential readers. What social media platforms do they use most regularly? Find this out, and make sure to create an active presence on such platforms. 
2. Engage: Treat your readers as friends. Reach out, ask questions, join the Facebook groups they are a part of and be a part of their conversations. What are your readers interested in learning from you? What can they teach you? 
3. Offer quality: Always look to serve the reader first. Give them something of value. Giving your target readers value will help you build trust and strong online relationships. 
4. Be personal: Let the reader inside your world. Not by posting endless selfies or cat videos. Instead, share your writing journey. Share the highs and lows. Be an actual human that they can relate to. Ask yourself, what would you like to know about your own favorite authors? Which aspects of the writing process do you think your readers would find most interesting or relate to the most?

By employing these four tactics you will start to see steady, quality growth.

It can be SUPER hard to do this on your own, but I don’t want you to feel that way! If you need help or just want to ask a marketing-related question, please feel free to contact us at Talk+Tell.

You can also ask them in my new Facebook group, Publishing & Marketing Your Book.

The role of an online book publicist continues to evolve and change with the times. A book publicist’s job changes at the same pace as magazines, newspapers, social media, blogs, podcasts, and radio shows do. 

Today’s fast-paced, changing environment requires all online book publicists to keep updated with the online world and current events. A successful publicist can tell powerful and original stories supported by video, photography, and/or other visual works. In the past, the visual components would have been the media’s responsibility, but now PR professionals not only influence the content that the media shares but also how it is packaged. Content development, PR strategy, and project management are part of today’s book publicist role.

After close to a decade of experience in traditional and online book publicity, we have seen first hand the changes, challenges, and successes of managing the constant evolution of how our society communicates and what technologies we use to consume new information. At Talk+Tell, we have taken a proactive approach to all of our author clients and the books we represent to maintain and develop new contacts in the digital and traditional media outlets. 

How an Online Book Publicist Can Help Authors

An online book publicist can help authors reach their readers in masses. For new authors especially, PR is an important tool for building brand presence and trust among readers. For example, at Talk+Tell, we worked on an article with HuffPost and one of our authors, resulting in over one million reads in the first 24 hours and a James Beard Nomination. 

Great PR can help an author achieve the following three things:

1. Brand identity

Readers trust established authors, and PR can help generate brand identity and reader recognition. 

2. Build reader interest

PR can play a vital role in a strategy that generates reader interest and drives book sales. Particularly for new and emerging authors, a strong PR campaign helps to set the narrative, create brand buzz, and form a brand following.

3. Grow reader trust

Readers typically buy books from authors they trust, and personalized PR is just one technique to capture the attention of a potential customer. Seeing an author mentioned in a positive story in the media or recommended by an influencer can be a priceless piece of PR – it generates trust. 

PR for Nonfiction Books and PR for Fiction Books Are Very Different

Nonfiction and fiction are two VERY different categories of books. A book publicity strategy for a nonfiction book will look very different from one for a fiction book. Therefore, they need different publicity strategies that understand their genres and readers. 

What a nonfiction book publicist will do 

Publishing nonfiction books is a great way to grow your brand, build your email marketing list, grow your business, and get more speaking gigs. However, a nonfiction book needs its own custom strategy in terms of PR. 

Book publicity for nonfiction books is its own breed of PR. At Talk+Tell, each of our PR campaigns and strategies is customized to the author, the author’s brand, and the author’s book. At Talk+Tell, our nonfiction authors have used their book to increase revenue, become Thought Leaders in national media outlets, done Tedx talks, and have become bestsellers. 

What a fiction book publicist will do

PR for a fiction book focuses on building the brand for the book versus the author’s personal brand. Rarely will you find a feature interview on a national media outlet with a fiction author unless that author is already established. In most cases, you will find interviews were done around a fiction book’s content and value. For fiction books, you will find full-feature about the book, where the feature shares why people are falling in love with the book’s characters and storyline. 

A fiction book publicist will focus on getting media coverage for the book itself. They will work with the media to recommend the book as one of their top reads or write a feature about how it differs from others in its genre. 

4 Signs You Are Ready to Hire a Book Publicist

1. You have a budget for PR

Unfortunately, there is no way around this – PR is not free, and it is not always cheap. However, PR is worth the investment. So often see authors spend thousands on self-publishing their book, only to get no attention from readers or the media. PR will help you reach new readers and establish credibility all at the same time. 

2. You no longer have time to do it all yourself

You want to spend less time learning how to do PR and more time writing that next book – the more books you write, the more profits you will make. 

3. You are ready to rise to the next level

You have worked hard on your marketing and have a strong foundation of readers who love your book. But now it is time to take it to the next level – you want more. You want to win awards, get testimonials from bigger names, etc. You want to become a bestseller who can reach more readers. 

4. You understand the value of PR for your book

PR isn’t a short-term, immediate-gain investment. It’s a long-term investment in your future as an author that requires care and patience. PR is an excellent way to build your digital footprint and spread the word about your brand. PR is a way to reach millions of people all at once. 

For us at Talk+Tell, long-term brand recognition is a huge part of what we consider success. And, if you’re anything like us, you know that this kind of strength and strategy can make all the difference.

The Do’s and Don’t’sDon’t’s of Hiring a Publicist

DO research publicists before reaching out to them.

Always hire a book publicist who has experience working with books and authors similar to yours. In addition, you want to work with an online book publicist who has experience in your book’s genre. 

DO send a brief, concise introduction.

First impressions matter. It is important to introduce yourself and share what your book is about and your PR strategy goals. Don’t be afraid to be honest and brag about yourself a little bit. You wrote a whole book – that is already something to brag about!

DO find someone you mesh with personally – and, more importantly, who you trust.

At the end of the day, you are working with an online book publicist to tell your unique story, which involves making yourself a little vulnerable. A publicist-author relationship involves honest conversations. Therefore, it is important you are comfortable with your publicist to keep the meeting and communication style open. 

DON’T hire someone who makes big promises

If a book publicist is making big promises to you – stay clear. The only promise a book publicist can honestly make is that they will work hard on your behalf. They of course, can also share how they will realistically meet your goals and what you can expect each month, but promising you the world is unrealistic. 

DON’T hire a publicist just because you want to be famous

Publicists need a why and a story behind making you famous (unless you are a Kardashian, of course). 

DON’T hire someone without setting objectives and goals

Your PR strategies should always be aligned with an objective. If you have no objectives or goals in place, you will not see results in a PR strategy. A PR strategy for your book needs to work towards something. 

Here Is Our Checklist for Finding an Amazing Book Publicist

Hiring a book publicist will be one of the most significant decisions you make as an author. Yes, I know what you are thinking: “Of course you would say that, you are the founder of a self-publishing and PR company.” But hear me out! 

I truly believe your relationship with your book publicist is one of the most sacred relationships in the publishing industry. I mean, your online book publicist is your voice in the world. They are the ones who will share your message, your book, and your story with the media and with future readers. Therefore, you want to choose a book publicist very carefully.

Here is a list of recommendations to look for in a perfect publicist:

1. Consider their philosophy

How do you find out about a publicist’s philosophy? By reviewing their website and social media accounts. Does their online message resonate with you? Do you think you would be a good match? 

2. Look for that spark

Do they light up and get excited when discussing your book and its potential? Do you get along well with them? Do you enjoy talking to them?

Chemistry in any relationship is very important – you want to work with and hire someone you get along well with and enjoy being around. 

3. Look at their results

Another great way to explore whether a book publicist is a great fit for your book is to research their results. Ask them what results they recently produced for other authors. If their results are similar to what you are looking for, you know you are on the right track. 

So, when you’re looking for your perfect book publicist to help you promote your book, it boils down to these three questions:

• Do you have a shared philosophy?

• Is there a spark?

• Do they have a successful track record of producing the kind of results you’re looking for?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes – BINGO, you have a winner!

Conclusion to Everything You Need To Know About An Online Book Publicist

With over 300,000 books being released each year, the competition for readers has never been more fierce. So how does a book stand out? The answer is book publicity and strong marketing. Hiring an amazing book publicist can give you the edge your book needs to attract new readers and increase book sales. When hiring an online book publicist, make sure they have experience in your book’s category and genre.