The year 2022 was probably one of the busiest years I’ve ever had, but I ended the year frustrated and feeling like I’d gotten nowhere. I failed to complete nearly every goal I set.
Oh, like most entrepreneurs, I put in an average of over 200 hours of work every month. But I had little income to show for it. I wanted to make 2023 different—better—with more income but fewer hours and less stress.
God’s instructions were, If you want big money coming in, you need to learn how to run a business and properly manage that money. Aka be a wise steward.
I’ve been fully self-employed since late 2010. Has the business supported me? Not fully. Praise the Lord, God provides in other ways and my needs are met and bills are paid.
But I’ve determined that 2023 is the year I’ll make my business self-sustaining. And to do that I need to start with knowing three things:
- How much do my monthly bills add up to?
- How much money do my channels of income bring in each month?
- What’s the difference between the two?
We all need to know those things whether we run our own business or not. It’s called supporting ourselves and our families.
We can apply this same thought process to our book sales.
- How much in royalties per month do I want to make from my book(s)?
- How many books do I need to sell in order to earn that much?
- What’s the difference between how much I’m making now and how much I want to make?
Both these scenarios mean we need to develop a strategy. At the very least, we need to develop a plan.
Plan? Strategy? I thought they were pretty much the same thing, you say.
The more videos I watch the more I realize that many of us confuse strategy with planning, myself included.
I’ve never been good with strategy, which is why I’m not a good chess player and why my brother Mark always beat me at the game Stratego when we were kids.
So lately, I’ve been searching through lots of business books to help me learn about business and strategy and also searching through YouTube for videos that might help.
This video from Roger Martin, former dean of Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, has some very interesting things to say about what strategy is. And the first thing he addresses is that planning and strategy are not the same.
Martin defines strategy as “an integrative set of choices that positions you on a playing field of your choice in a way that you win.”
As authors, our playing field is publishing, and there’s a ton of competition out there. Martin states a strategy will help us define our specific playing field, e.g. Christian women’s contemporary fiction, and “how on that playing field we’re going to be better than anybody else at serving the customers on that field.” Please note he didn’t say better at doing what we do, but better at serving those customers.
Yes, I’m still wrapping my brain around this, so you might be too. Watch his video.
If you decide all you want is a plan on how to sell your books, that’s fine. What we do and how we do it is unique to each of us.
If you’re a writer who wants to earn a living as a writer, then you’ve got to think like the business owner you are. Your books are your business. Maybe you write for a hobby. That’s perfectly fine! But if you want to start deducting expenses you incur with your hobby, then you’re moving into the realm of business owner.
Read “If You Are a Writer, Are You a Business Owner?” to discover if you are a hobbyist or business owner and what steps to take to create your business.
In conclusion, we can create all the goals we want, but without a strategy or, at the very least, a plan to accomplish them, we’ll find ourselves grinding out the work and most likely failing to reach our goals.