Your Book Should Be Your Startup
Attention authors…did you know that your book should be your startup?! As the lines continue to blur between writing skills and business skills, so to do the pretexts of creating a book.
Your book should be your startup.
Originally published as Treat Your Book Like a Startup If You Want It to Succeed
May 7, 2014 on www.thesnippetapp.com
This isn’t your father’s book business
The classic pretext for creating a book was, of course, to express a novel idea or story. In contrast, the classic pretext of starting a business was to harness an economic advantage to generate a livable profit.
In past centuries and decades, the two weren’t necessarily interwoven, let alone be construed as the same.
Authors no longer serfs of publishers and others in the book business
Yes, there has always been money in books. And yes, businesses have always turned to some type of media to evangelize their products or services. But the relationships between the two—books to business, and business to books—were, to borrow from my software friends, “parent-child” in nature, which is to say that one side reigned superior to the other. These days, given the freedom of access to publishing channels, the popularity of broadcasting your point-of-view, and the economic incentives to do so, the imbalance of the relationship appears neutralized to the point of nonexistence. Books are no longer “slaves” to business just as much as they aren’t “masters” to it. They are, quite possibly, equals for the first time in human history.
Today’s author needs to think like a business person
This newfound equality between books and business summons as much new responsibility as it does new advantages. For the author seeking a career in books, creative decisions are inescapably business decisions too. “Product-market” fit—the symmetry between the book’s (e.g. product) message and the readership (e.g. market)—is the new gold standard and predictor of success. Consequently, books are no longer creative luxuries to be commercialized after the fact. And businesses are no longer sterile entities void of stories. Today, books are businesses. The best way to succeed is to treat yours as one.
More acutely, books are startup businesses—infant enterprises that are forged in the crucible of creativity. Economic realities, such as financing the book production process as well as marketing its existence, are just as common and important as writing realities, such as deciding on the book’s structure as well as ensuring it expresses a complete idea. For the book to prosper, the author must deftly handle startup opportunities and pressures precisely like a tech entrepreneur or manufacturing innovator.
Financing is arguably the most devilish detail to contend with….
