What Authors Say About Their Business: Part 3
During the course of revising my book, Business Basics for Authors, I contacted a number of author friends and asked them to answer three questions:
1) What is the most difficult part of managing your book business?
2) What do you think is the most important business issue you have to deal with?
3) If you could eliminate one business chore, what would it be?
The responses to each question will be in a separate article and this article deals with question 3
The Question 1 article is here:
https://hanque99.medium.com/what-authors-say-about-their-business-part-1-d16833ba551
That article also had links to the authors’ web pages
The Question 2 article is here: https://hanque99.medium.com/what-authors-say-about-their-business-part-2-41dd58e0def4
If you could eliminate one business chore, what would it be?
Elizabeth Craig: I’d eliminate advertising, if I had the choice. I’d outsource that in a minute if I found someone who knew what they were doing and ran campaigns for a good price.
Mark Cain: Participating in social media. It’s a truism that authors are supposed to be on Facebook and Twitter, and maybe Instagram, etc. Participating in social media is a task I dislike, and I am unconvinced that the effort is cost-beneficial.
Elaine Durbach: At this point, I’d love to have someone else handle the marketing and promotion for me, or at least define the tasks for me and lineup the openings.
Anna Faversham: Definitely marketing. I actually enjoy marketing — it’s contact with people, real people, but if I want to produce books, care for my family and take part in the world at large, then there is little time for marketing. If I could have a part-time, local marketing manager who would follow the fifty or so ideas on my marketing list and then take care of sporadic advertising on social media, I would be a happy bunny.
Mark Henderson: Pretending interest in other authors’ books at events of the kind mentioned in (2). Of course, the interest is sometimes genuine; but it’s often just polite, in the hope of reciprocation. (But would you count that as a business chore?)
Joylene Butler: Trying to find reviewers and anyone interested in helping me spread the word about my novels. I hate begging someone to read my manuscript, write a review, then post it everywhere. As if they don’t have better things to do. This all sounds rather pathetic, but it’s the business. When you’re an artist, singer, writer, etc., you’re required to get into people’s faces and promote your work. There are simply too many other creative people to think you can write, publish, then sit back and wait for the royalty cheques without spreading the word.
Dale Lehman: Yeah, marketing. If I could snap my fingers and have it all taken care of for me, that would be right out the window.
Rick Gualtieri: My editing cycle is what slows my release schedule down the most. I go through multiple drafts, polishing a book for release, before sending it out for editing. It’s necessary and my readers are worth it. That said, I know some authors who will hand off their first drafts to a team to do all of that polishing for them. If I could find the right people, still know I’d be releasing books of the same quality, and my OCD would allow it, I’d have to give it serious consideration. Focusing on the core aspect of writing stories would almost certainly be a plus in my favor. Finding that team, however, well that’s the challenge.
Donna Baier Stein: Email lists and using them.
Stuart Akin: In the past, major publishers allowed many authors to get on with the job of creating their works of imagination and had dedicated sales teams to deal with that aspect of the trade. If I could basically have nothing to do with the promotion and marketing of my work, that would be a real bonus.
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The Writers & Authors Resource Center has solutions for many pain points: https://hanque.gumroad.com/