If you want to turn your book into a business, you must treat it like one. So before you start you will need a business plan. Make a plan for your book to visualize and transform it into a business that will take care of you financially, while you share your book with the world in a different way.
If you haven’t already, you must conceptualize your book as a business. Once you have a good idea about how this will work, you need to transform it into a plan. A plan that if followed, can lead to your ultimate success as an author and influencer in the world.
1 Tell Me About It
To start making your plan, as an introduction to your book as a business, write out a basic overview of what it is going to look like based on your concept.
Key components include your name, the name of your business, the name of your book, what service you will offer based on your concept, a mission statement, and your forward-reaching vision about the highest potential possible for your concept. And your ideas about the system that will launch and sustain your business into the future.
2 Your Company
If you really want a business, you need to treat it like one and have a business to call your own. So, what type of company will you create for your business? Will you be a sole proprietor or corporation?
Answer these questions: Will you have partners, instructors, staff, independent contractors, or employees? How will they be compensated? What basic service(s) will your company provide? Who will you serve and how will you serve them generally? How will your company grow over time?
Describe how you will generate cash flow, minimize expenses, and maximize cash flow.
3 Specify Products and/or Services
Create a proposed list of products and services that your company will provide including how each will benefit the people you serve.
Detail insight about your approach to disseminating these products and services and how you do it is different from how everyone else might try to accomplish the same thing.
Will your products and services have repeat business or is it a one-shot deal?
How are you and your business protected? (Copyright, owned dot coms, trademark(s), patent(s), etc.)
Will your business continue to grow in scope with new products and services? If so, what might that look like?
4 Competition
Who is out there doing something similar? Do they appear to be experiencing success?
If you can, provide statistics based on other existing business models that may be similar to your business model.
What are your competitors doing wight?
What are your competitors missing?
How will your company do it better?
5 Marketing
How do you propose to meet your prospective clients in the marketplace? How will you find and reach your customers?
What promotional efforts will you engage in and what venues will your company permeate and how?
Include costs associated with publicity and promotional efforts you will expect based on your research.
6 Your Team
Here you will express what your current team may look like. It may be relatively small and may even include only you to start. Even so, you will need a team to see this company through to profitability. So what will your team look like?
Develop a hierarchy of leadership, departments, and employees.
What qualifications and experience will your key people have?
7 Your Company’s Finances
What assets does your company possess and what is the value of particular assets at the outset?
Who is responsible for accounting services now? And who will this be delegated to in the future?
How will your company distribute and invest profits while operating and growing into the future?
In the event of your company’s sale, what will the purchaser be getting in the deal?
In the event of the closure of your company, how will you distribute or liquidate the company’s assets?
If you have made a plan for your book as a business including the seven items above (at least) you are getting ready to turn your book into a business and make it a reality.