What Would Make This the Best Decision You Made This Year?

Inside the Author’s Business Accelerator — and four questions worth answering for yourself

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash.

You wrote the book. You got it published. Now what?

Over 30+ years as a publisher and strategic author consultant, I’ve watched talented authors with valuable titles hit the same walls, stay stuck, never move beyond a certain level of success. They know how to write, but not how to build a business around what they’ve written. They may even know many decent ways to market a book; set up a website, email list, and Amazon account; do author events and book sales, yet not quite have something — a sustainable business — in place that reliably generates income and new readers. Something they can count on and grow steadily over time.

I built my first publishing company, Lake Claremont Press, from a single self-published guidebook into an indie house that released over a hundred titles and won 30 small press awards. I’ve since worked with hundreds of authors across formats, genres, and four continents, helping them see past book sales to the business ecosystem they could build instead.

This wide-ranging experience with all kinds of authors and books in all areas of book publishing and small business helps me see possibilities others miss. Strategic partnerships authors haven’t considered. Revenue streams in plain sight ready for an author to activate. Business models that fit a specific author’s life and goals, instead of someone else’s formula.

A Strategic Partnership Focused on You

The Author’s Business Accelerator is a 1:1 intensive, strategic partnership for published authors: eight one-hour sessions with email support in-between, just you and me, working through your actual situation. That is what it’s designed for. Customized work on a business built around your books, your skills, your readers, and your life, without sacrificing what you love about being a writer in the first place. The schedule is flexible: weekly, biweekly, monthly, or whatever pace works for you.

No Two Author Businesses Look the Same

There’s a lot of author advice out there, and very little of it accounts for the fact that you, your books, your interests, and your situation are different from the authors at the table next to you at the book fair. You’re not (necessarily) building the same business as a debut novelist, a backlist nonfiction author with twelve titles, or someone testing their first workshop series. A formula built for someone else fits you about as well as someone else’s shoes.

What I bring after 30 years in publishing and coaching is pattern recognition across hundreds of authors and books — the Profitable Author framework that’s already worked for authors at every stage, paired with the discipline to apply it specifically to you, not generically to authors as a category.

In addition to helping you craft your plan, you’ll also be learning how to think like a business owner — the foundational knowledge that lets you keep building, adjusting, and making good decisions long after our eight sessions end. I’m the partner you need to get you started on the right foot, solving for your specific situation, not retrofitting someone else’s success story onto your life.

Four Questions Worth Asking Yourself

Before you sign up for anything to propel your author life forward — the Author’s Business Accelerator included — you need to get clear on what you actually want from it. I use a version of these questions with prospective clients, and they’re worth asking yourself and answering honestly, before any big decision that costs you time, money, or both.

• What would make this a no-brainer? Not “nice to have.” Not “probably helpful.” What specific outcome/s, clearly named, would make the decision obvious? Write it all down. If you can’t imagine it, describe it, put your finger on it, that’s useful information too. Not every destination looks the same or is even a particular destination. Maybe you want to go in a particular direction; prioritize a, b, and c; experiment with d, e, and f to see what works; or align your work with x, y, and z values.
• What else? Push past your first answers. The first things you write are rarely everything. What else would you need to be true for this to be worth it? Keep going until you run out of answers. What do you want it to look like? How do you want it to feel? How do you want your life and business to be better? Different? What would you like more or less of?
• What would make this magical? Not realistic, decent, or a modest return on investment. If this went better than you let yourself hope for, what would that look like? People, authors, in this case, chronically underestimate what’s possible for them — name the magical version even if just for the exercise of it, to push yourself.
• What would make this the best decision you made this year? Of everything you might invest your time, money, and energy in, what would need to happen for this specific choice to be the one you look back on as the right call? That made all the difference this year?

I ask you these questions not to talk you into a yes, sign me up. I ask because authors who can answer them clearly get more out of any coaching relationship, educational program, or self-driven approach. Clarity and details about what you want are important prerequisites for getting them.

Still With Me?

You don’t need permission to want this kind of support.

You don’t need to apologize for caring about the business side of being an author.

And you don’t need to have it all figured out before you start. Nobody does (plus that’s what I’m here for).

[embed]Learn As You Proceed and Make Your Author Business Up As You Go Along What Michelle Obama and Emma Grede know that authors need to adoptslowcharacter.medium.com

If you have clear (enough) answers to the four questions above and a willingness to spend eight sessions building a business model that actually fits you, I typically have room for one to two new Author Business Accelerator clients each month. June is filled, but for the rest of this year, there are openings in July, August, September, and November. Sign up for a call and see if this is the right fit for you.

Learn more about the Author’s Business Accelerator.

Tell Us in the Comments

What’s your honest answer to one of those four questions? What would make investing in your author business this year a no-brainer for you?

Sharon Woodhouse is a publisher, author coach, partnership architect, and book-business strategist with 30+ years helping authors and publishers build sustainable, profitable businesses they love. Through Conspire Creative, she provides strategic coaching, consulting, and project management for authors and publishers. Her award-winning book is *The Profitable Author: 1,001 Ways to Build a Business You Love Around Your Books*.