Step #7
Discover Ways to Brand Yourself and Earn More Money

Now that you have created a map and directions for the completion of your manuscript—and possibly even your first chapter or full manuscript—the Author Training Process asks you to extend your vision of success beyond the publication of your first book. In this step you consider how to support your book and further your writing career. There’s more to reaching your goal—successful authorship—than producing a manuscript. And your map (for your business plan, and later on a formal book proposal) needs to include these details, too.

Step #7 in the Author Training Process, Discover Ways to Brand Yourself and Earn More Money, is often overlooked by writers who fail to see the big picture, which in this case includes the longevity of their own career as writers and of their book’s sales life. They simply see themselves as authors of one book—the one they would like to write at this moment.

If this describes you, remove your blinders. An Author Attitude involves seeing the big picture of your book, yourself, and your career. It means conceptualizing how you want readers to think about you and your book, or books, and how you want to build a career in writing. To earn a living from your book, you have to become a savvy entrepreneur and discover ways to build a business around your book. This entails viewing yourself and your books as a brand rather than just as a writer or an author. It also means having the potential to become more than a one-book wonder.

While your current book project requires you to focus your energy and attention on it if it is to succeed, you also must think beyond this particular book. Agents and publishers consider your future as a writer when they look at your first book idea, and so should you. This long-term vision, which you created in Step #1, is part of your business plan. (If you didn’t include additional titles in your vision of success, go back after you read this chapter and rewrite your vision to include the elements discussed here.)

When you visualized your career, how many books did you see yourself writing? Where did you see yourself in ten years? Where did you see your book? Did you see yourself continuing to receive income from it for many years? Or possibly forever? Did you see yourself speaking and teaching on topics related to that book? Did you see yourself writing additional related books?

Your vision—and your map—needs to extend beyond the completion of your manuscript and beyond the release of your published book. That’s just one destination—not the final one—if you want to become a successful author and create a career as an author. Step #7, Discover Ways to Brand Yourself and Earn More Money, corresponds with several optional sections in a book proposal called “Spinoffs,” “Subsidiary Rights,” and “Resources Needed to Complete the Book.” These sections ask you to consider:

• additional books you might write
• additional products and services you might offer
• the money you need to complete your current project and begin earning additional income

Developing additional books and products constitutes platform-building and promotional activities for serious writers and authorpreneurs. These activities require that you think about what readers will naturally want from you after the publication of your first book. Publishers want to know how you plan to keep the momentum going to sell the first book. You might accomplish this with your second book or with additional products.

Write More, Sell More

In the first section, Spinoffs, you provide a list of the follow-up books or series you would like to write, including a short pitch for each one. If you include this in a book proposal, it shows a publisher you have a long-term view of your career as an author and the creativity and stamina to create that career. A series of books on a topic or a novel with sequels can build a brand for an author. A brand makes you more recognizable to readers and more “discoverable” on the Internet; it generally helps sell products. That’s attractive to any publisher, including a self-publisher.

The more you write and publish, the more products you sell. This is known as the Long-Tail Effect. If you want to know more about this, read Chris Anderson’s October 2004 article, “The Long Tail” in Wired Magazine, or get the book he wrote based on this article, titled The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. Here’s how the Long-Tail principle might work for you: If your first book sells well enough for a publisher to want you to write a second book, and that second book sells well enough for you to write a third, it’s possible your third book might become a bestseller. Then people who never heard of you before will discover your first two books and start buying them, making them bestsellers. Not only that, a book you self-published four years before your first traditional publishing deal, which you never bothered to promote (causing it to sell only about two hundred copies in the last ten years) suddenly gets discovered by some of your new fans. Thus, that book starts selling one hundred or so copies per day. This is the Long-Tail Effect in action, and this is why agents and publishers look for writers with plans to write many books.

Novelist Chris Cleave provides a good example of how the Long-Tail Effect works. When his novel Little Bee became a bestseller, his previous books were then reissued in paperback with new covers. This helped him sell more copies of all of his books.

Sheree Bykofsky and Jennifer Basye Sander explain in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published (5^th Edition) that publishers look for fiction writers who can “go the distance”—write ten to twenty books in ten to twenty years—because it “takes time and money to build an audience for a new novelist. Once that audience exists, the sky’s the limit. People who read fiction read their favorite writers. And when they find a new writer, they read everything that writer ever wrote—as well as everything he or she goes on to write in the future. This makes successful novelists an excellent investment for publishers. It more than makes up for the initial investment required to build an author’s name.”

The co-authors write, “That’s why it’s not enough to show the publishing world you can write one great novel. You have to convince them you can do it over and over. Show them that you, too, are in it for the long haul and that you can keep them turning pages through ten or twenty books over ten or twenty years.”

Michael Larsen calls spinoffs “the hottest tip” in the fourth edition of his book How to Write a Book Proposal. He explains that by coming up with multiple book ideas, you use niche craft to create a career out of your book idea. “Agents and editors don’t want literary one-night stands,” he says. “They want to discover writers, not just books. Writers who turn out a book a year, each book better and more profitable than the last, are the foundation of successful agents and publishers.”

I love spinoffs and have a long list of them for myself in my business plans. In most cases, each book idea is clearly conceived from another; they follow logically one to the next and serve as a map for my career path. I actually have many interests, though. I’ve grouped some of these interests together to create two distinct subject areas in which I work and write: writing/authorship/blogging and personal growth/spirituality. Although there are some books I’d prefer to write now, I’m traveling along the map in a logical manner. By taking the time periodically to review my spinoffs with my branding in mind—and my vision—I can determine how to bridge the gap between my two areas of interest. And my readers, hopefully, will come along with me. In this way, I can build my brand and my readership for both types of books at the same time. I also can make my vision a reality.

That said, I didn’t know that much about branding when I began my writing journey. So I wrote a few short books—twelve actually—without a complete map. Luckily, they were self-published. I can go back, revise them, and put out new editions that fit my branding.

Carla King considered spinoffs in her business plan and has branded herself successfully. She says sales of her American Borders has trailed off because it was released in 2010, but her new book will help support her brand, Motorcycle Misadventures. “I expect that when China Road hits, I’ll gain more awareness as an author. If readers like China Road, they’ll buy American Borders. I’ll have an ad for it in my new book, maybe with a discount code,” says King. “And those who like American Borders will buy China Road, of course.”

King, who goes by “Miss Adventuring” on social media, named her publishing company Misadventures Media. She explains, “It can be the umbrella for motorcycling, 4×4 off-road vehicles, scuba diving, aviation, and even my Self-Publishing Boot Camp,” a book and a course she teaches. “I’m writing a specialized version of Self-Publishing Boot Camp for the travel market, titled Self-Publishing Safari.”

King has kept spinoffs and branding in mind as a way to help her and her books succeed. “I have consciously branded myself as an adventure traveler focusing on adventure motorcycling at first and branching out into other adventures.”

Having ideas for spinoffs helps present you as a good publishing partner because they demonstrate your future plans to produce books, whether traditionally or via self-publishing. A partner’s investment in you has more potential to pay off if you publish multiple books. That’s why best-selling indie romance writers like Bella Andre, author of the Sullivan Series, ended up with a groundbreaking print-only deal with Harlequin last year. She wrote multiple books following a successful theme or in a high-interest genre and retained all e-book rights, foreign translation rights, audio rights, and film rights in the seven-figure print-only deal and will continue self-publishing the Sullivan e-books with all major retailers.

Other authors who use spinoffs and common-thread themes successfully to brand themselves and increase sales include Lorraine Chittock, a female adventure author and photographer who wrote a series of animal-related books, including Cairo Cats, Dogs without Borders, and On a Mission from Dog; Joseph Berk, who writes books that examine useful topics including manufacturing processes and vehicles, such as Systems Failure Analysis, Cost Reduction and Optimization for Manufacturing and Industrial Companies, The Complete Book of Police and Military Motorcycles, and Total Quality Management: Implementing Continuous Improvement; and Edwidge Danticat, who writes stories about Haiti, where she was born, but also creates nonfiction spinoffs, such as Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work. Breath, Eyes, Memory was an Oprah Book Club pick.

Crossing genres while continuing to write about one theme or topic is another superb way to produce spinoffs and brand yourself. Or if you are a fiction writer, consider writing a nonfiction book about your craft or about the particular subject in your novels. A writer of crime novels may consider penning a nonfiction book about his or her favorite criminal, mobster, detective, or period in crime history, and vice versa. You can create a brand, but you don’t have to repeat yourself. Having a brand and writing spinoffs is about expanding your creativity, visibility, and marketability rather than limiting yourself to one book.

When readers know you for writing about something in particular, they will seek you out over and over again for books on that subject or for that “something” for which you are known. I love books on human potential and spirituality. I often read the same authors, like Wayne W. Dyer, who has become known—branded—as the “father of motivation.”

I’ve also read quite a number of Jack Canfield’s books. While most writers think of him as the originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which fostered the emergence of inspirational anthologies as a genre, he has become known as “America’s #1 Success Coach.” That’s his brand. His other books include The Success Principles and The Aladdin Factor. He offers numerous products and services from his website that also brand him as a success coach.

On a smaller scale, Mignon Fogarty, also known as “Grammar Girl,” has done a nice job branding herself with eight self-published books in her Grammar Girl Series, including Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, Grammar Girl’s 101 Misused Words You’ll Never Confuse Again, and Grammar Girl’s 101 Troublesome Words You’ll Master in No Time. Not only that, she has an app, podcasts, coffee mugs, and T-shirts. When you think of “grammar,” you think of Fogarty.

Go to her website or pick up one of her books, and take a look at how Fogarty presents her topic of using good grammar, a topic that can often come across as boring. Instead, she makes it fun. Her site is different and has personality. Her style and the attitude she brings to her topic is part of branding, too.

Or there’s Dana Lynn Smith, known as the “Savvy Book Marketer,” with seven e-books in her Savvy Book Marketer series, including How to Get Your Book Reviewed, The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing, The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Selling Your Book to Libraries, and Facebook Guide for Authors. She also has two training programs. If you want savvy marketing tips, you think of Smith, who also lends her topic a personality and style all her own—practical and businesslike but friendly and accessible.

Martha Alderson has created a brand with her Plot Whisperer books. She started with four successful self-published books, including Blockbuster Plots. Then because of her successful blog, Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers, and her success record as an indie publisher, she received a traditional deal for The Plot Whisperer. She now has three books in that series, including The Plot Whisperer Book of Writing Prompts and The Plot Whisper Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories, because Adams Media wanted to build her brand.

Additionally, take a look at Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup and The Art of Nonconformity. He has a number of “Unconventional Guides,” an Art of Nonconformity blog, groups, and a summit. Want to do it differently? See Guillebeau.

In the fiction category, it’s harder to find good examples of branding. Most authors rely on writing many spinoffs in one genre to accomplish a good brand. Visit R.L. Stine’s website to see great branding by a novelist. This children’s fiction author, known for his Goosebumps series, incorporates creepy music, a Funhouse, a Rainy Night Theater, and a note that welcomes you to “Horrorland” on his website. There’s no question about the genre of his books.

Or look at Cindy Woodsmall’s website. She writes Amish romance stories. The banner on her site features a beautiful Amish farm scene, and while promoting all her books, she offers Amish recipes and quilt giveaways from the site.

How to Spin Your Book into Multiple Titles and a Brand

You’ll be amazed by what you can come up with if you take the time to brainstorm additional book ideas. Think of new ideas for books related to the one you’ve worked on during the Author Training Process. Then try a mind-mapping process. Put your current book title or subject in the middle of the mind map, and see how many related book topics you can create. Make a list of books that support each other, and develop spinoffs or a series.

Think of all the other subject areas that interest you. Think of all the different topics you’d like to write about and what it is you “do” or would like to do in a broader sense. Ask yourself questions like:

• Who am I as a writer and a person?
• How do I want to be known?
• How can the books I write support me in becoming who I want to be?
• How can the books I write help me fulfill my purpose as a person as well as a writer?

Is there a central theme running through all your answers? Can this theme help you create spinoff books?

Group your book ideas by subject matter, and find a theme that would serve as the umbrella for all the topics. Then try to devise a brand for yourself as an author, and let the books support your brand.

I spent considerable time on this exercise. It took me over a year to hone my brand, and like other businesspeople, I have refined my brand’s message over time. I worked with a media coach as well as with a friend to try and target what I do, what I do for others, what I want to do, what excites me, how I wanted to be perceived, and what I wanted to be known for. I decided on Inspiration to Creation Coach because it encompassed both areas of my work (writing/publishing and personal growth/spirituality), and I was able to pull in my last name with an acronym: Achieve More Inspired Results. In both pieces of this branding, you can find the elements of all that I “do” and all that I “am.” It may not be explicit, but it’s there. I then created a website (ninaamir.com) to serve as an umbrella for my other sites. This is my branding site and a way for readers or the media to easily find me and my other sites.

As you develop your branding and your spinoffs, each new book idea you create should ideally relate to the last. For example, maybe your new idea picks up where the last book left off, or maybe it goes deeper into a concept introduced in an earlier book. You might touch on the concepts you plan to write about in your next book, or you could write each chapter with the idea of expanding them into separate books later. In this way, one book feeds into another. You want to introduce concepts in your first book that make readers want to purchase your next book but that also make you the expert on that topic or create a name for you in your genre.

The manual you are reading provides a great example of this principle. In my previous book, How to Blog a Book, I introduced the concept of the “proposal process.” I have a chapter that discusses this process and shows readers how to use it. This book expands on that particular chapter by discussing only the proposal process concept, which I renamed the Author Training Process. Hopefully, people interested in the first book will want to learn more about the process and purchase The Author Training Manual. Also, readers of this book might want to read How to Blog a Book as a way to build platform and write a book. The two books together enhance my expert status in the area of writing and publishing. However, one of my students told me she purchased my self-published book, The Priestess Practice, after buying How to Blog a Book and then began to follow my blogs. That’s how she also ended up taking my course, Author Training 101. You never know how a reader will find you, but this example demonstrates well the Long-Tail Effect.

If the idea of planning two or three spinoff books feels overwhelming, or if branding seems too large a concept for you right now or doesn’t work with the type of writing you do, simply keep your current book in mind when completing this step. This should be easy since you’ve just finished planning its content. Then think about one book that could logically follow it. This becomes the one spinoff you include in your business plan.

However, if you plan to write a novel you know you will make into a series, in Step #7 you could write pitches for the next few books in the series. Or if you don’t plan to write a series, maybe you have one character you could write a book about after the first is published. Diana Gabaldon is best known for her Outlander series but has also written numerous books about Lord John Grey, a secondary Outlander character. If you plan to write a book for a specific audience, like a book on business tips, you could pitch books for several related niche markets, like business for women, teens, or first-time entrepreneurs. If you plan to write a book for an elementary-level audience, you could pitch books for intermediate and advanced audiences, not to mention elementary-, middle-, high school-, or college-level readers. A children’s book could be adapted for the young adult market or even for adults (and vice versa). Here are some other ideas:

1. Build on the ideas mentioned in your book or expand a chapter to a full spinoff, as I mentioned earlier.
2. Write a series that centers on a secondary or minor character in your novel.
3. Write a similar nonfiction book directed at a new market.
4. Write nonfiction books about the themes or issues in your novel, or write a novel based on a nonfiction topic that interests you.

Don’t think that because you write novels you are excluded from building a business around your book with products, services, or other books. If you put on your business hat and consider the themes and issues in your book(s), you can pull these out and discuss them in the same way nonfiction authors do. Novelist Anita Diamant is a good example of this principle at work. She wrote the international bestseller The Red Tent, a book about the biblical character Dina, as well as three other novels featuring Jewish characters or based on events in Jewish history. Plus, she wrote The New Jewish Wedding, Living a Jewish Life, and five other Jewish-related nonfiction books. She also has a CD of songs she wrote.

Many novelists compose nonfiction about writing, such as Chuck Wendig and James Scott Bell. Bell also has two nonfiction books on unrelated topics, How to Achieve Your Goals and Dreams and How to Manage the Time of Your Life. He offers writing workshops.

If you are still having trouble thinking how you might produce spinoffs, look for authors you know who have written more than one book, have written in multiple genres or formats, or who have also built a business around their books. Here are a few examples:

• Suze Orman, the personal finance guru (and not even a writer first) has ten books all related to money or money and women. Orman also has twenty-five different products related to her books, like a Protection Portfolio and an Identity Protector.
• Organizational and personal productivity expert David Allen has written five books. On his website he offers these bundled in a variety of ways along with numerous productivity products (too many to count), services, educational opportunities, and much, much more.
• Deepak Chopra has sixty-five books (with twenty New York Times bestsellers in both the fiction and nonfiction categories), all of them about physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social wellness—and also books for children. Additionally, he has numerous products related to this subject area, including supplements, herbs, jewelry, gifts, videos, CDs, and even a new line of products with Oprah Winfrey.
• Dan Millman has eleven books, including two children’s books, nonfiction and fiction, all based upon his initial hit, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.
• J.K. Rowling has written eleven books, seven in the Harry Potter series, plus three short related books and one adult novel. Additionally, her company sells numerous Harry Potter games, figurines, and related products, including the Wizardly World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida, Pottermore Website with Sony, and Wonderbook: Book of Spells for Playstation®3.
• Wayne W. Dyer PhD. has over thirty books, many audio programs and videos, and three children’s books.
• Nora Roberts has written two hundred romance books since her first book was published in 1980. Multiple TV movies are based on her work. She has created the Nora Roberts Foundation (to support literacy), and she even created a jewelry line based on her books.

If two hundred books seems a bit out of your realm, no worries. Few writers are that prolific, and no agent or editor is going to be interested in all two hundred of your book ideas when they look over your proposal. The point is to start thinking beyond your first book because one of the questions agents and editors will ask themselves is, “Is this author a one-book or multiple-book wonder?” Publishing professionals tend to be less interested in single-book authors. Agents, in particular, invest a lot of time and energy into clients for little financial reward (15 percent of an advance, which these days could be as little as $2,000, and on sales. The average book, if you recall, sells only about 250 copies). Assuming you have much better-than-average sales, the publisher will want to see a second or third book from you to make the initial investment more worthwhile. With three books out, you can achieve more sales over time, plus you become better known.

To factor your spinoffs into your business plan, produce a list of two to five book titles, including subtitles, and a 50-word pitch for each one. You don’t have to polish these to a high shine. Just brainstorm until you come up with a few titles that support your current book idea or indicate the path you plan to take as an author. If you really want to do a more complete version of this list, write a one-page proposal for each new idea. Include details on the market, competition, and how you will promote the book. Or show how you can promote it in a way that helps sell the other previously published titles and build your career around these books.

Become an Authorpreneur

You also can help brand yourself as an author by becoming an entrepreneur, or an authorpreneur. Consider turning yourself into a brand, like Nike, which began with a pair of running shoes and expanded to clothing and a variety of other products. If you are like most people, each time you see the “swoosh,” you think, “Nike.” Not only that, you think, “Just do it.” That’s how you want readers to think of you—you want them to associate your name with something meaningful and to know they can come to you for more than just one book or several books; you want them to know you have a variety of products related to those books.

You will make the most money as an author if you become an authorpreneur. If you have developed a trusted brand, then your readers will purchase your books, products, and services because they relate to them and to you—to your image or to your company and what it stands for or means to them. They will know, like, and trust you—and want to buy whatever you offer.

Suze Orman is a great example of an author who has successfully transformed her name into a brand. If you think of personal finance, you think of Orman, and she has a variety of products and services to offer on her website. Dr. Mehmet Oz has become a household name when it comes to personal health. He has ten books in print and a television show. Both Orman and Oz surely make money from their books, but they have done more than that. They have built recognizable brands and businesses around their books, as well as around their expertise, with a wide range of products.

Although novelist Stephen King’s fifty books branded him as a contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy author, he also has five nonfiction books on writing. He writes magazine colums, produces e-book singles, and writes television and movie scripts. In fact, he broke out of publishing when his books began to be adapted as screenplays. Now he writes television shows, like Under the Dome.

Or you could follow Joanna Penn’s lead. She started out with a self-published nonfiction book called Career Change: Stop hating your job, discover what you really want to do with your life, and start doing it! Then she decided to self-publish thrillers under the name J.F. Penn. However, because she blogged about her self-publishing process—and then about the process of also landing an agent—she branded herself as an expert on becoming a self-published novelist and writer entrepreneur—a writerpreneur. Indeed, she has multiple books—three to date in her Arkane thriller series. She also has at least eight different programs for writers who want to learn how to write or publish a book or make money with products related to their books.

Many products based on books fall into the Subsidiary Rights section of a book proposal or contract. These are rights granted to publish or produce in different formats additional works based on your original work, such as a paperback edition of an original hardcover book or a motion picture based on a novel. More often than not, you won’t find this information in a book proposal, although it used to be fairly standard. You want to include this section in your business plan if you have an entrepreneurial spirit and plan to build a business around your book by manufacturing products and services. You can call it Products and Services if you like, since you may not plan on selling rights, especially if you aim to self-publish. Typically agents negotiate, and even write up, the Subsidiary Rights section in a proposal. In a contract, audio, video, film, television, courses, apps, games, and other products spun off a book fall under the auspices of Subsidiary Rights and provide another way for authors to become more attractive to publishers. These creative ideas for book-related products help increase book sales and expand your brand. Therefore, if you know you plan to create such products, mention them in a proposal to illustrate that you are a serious businessperson who can sell books in numerous ways. For a publisher, every book is a business center, and anything that sells books or makes money off a book is one more reason to purchase that manuscript. The same goes for you as an indie publisher; see this section as another way to increase the attractiveness of your investment, and consider creating many business centers.

Put simply, products and services related to your book represent opportunities to merchandise your book and increase book-based income. I want you to make money from the books you author—even if the majority of the income doesn’t come from book sales, which it typically doesn’t. As an authorpreneur, you can profit from writing a book in many ways, so take the time to evaluate your ability to make money as an author.

For each of the following suggestions, envision your book as you’ve detailed it thus far in the Author Training Process, and then consider how you might transform the book into the products on the list. How would your idea fit each product? How would your audience use this new product? Write a few sentences in your journal:

• audiobook
• courses, webinars, and teleseminars
• movies
• a television show
• action figures, clothing, jewelry, etc.
• membership sites
• keynote speeches
• online streaming videos

Have fun with this exercise because you never know when a silly idea might suddenly become plausible or even profitable. Including a list of products and services that might become offshoots of your book proves to a publisher and to yourself that you can do more than write. These items can give you additional ways to generate income as an author, and your likelihood of selling a decent amount of books and creating a career as an author grows if you produce more than books.

Ready and Able to Write and Publish?

The last part of Step #7 involves evaluating if you have the financial ability to move forward with writing and publishing your book and if you have the funds to create the products, services, and branding discussed earlier. Another section that has fallen out of use in a book proposal is called “Resources Needed to Complete the Book.” It includes information about the costs associated with finishing a proposed book project, such as permissions. While it is used less often in book proposals, this section remains vitally important to your business plan, so be sure to include it. To complete this section, consider what expenses you might incur when producing your book—and if they will stop you from moving forward.

For instance, you might have the expense of:

• permissions from publishers for quotes or photos
• traveling for research purposes
• hiring editors, proofreaders, and/or designers
• hiring proposal consultants or editors
• hiring indexers
• buying cover art or interior photographs
• e-book conversion
• printing

Have you determined the costs of these things? If not, you need to do so. Finding exact costs for each of these, as well as the other items to follow later in this chapter, may be difficult because fees vary greatly. Consulting friends in the industry often provides the most helpful method, as they may refer you to reliable and affordable professionals. Otherwise, perform a Google search for manuscript editors or book doctors, and get a sense of their fees. Do the same for local designers, print-on-demand publishers, e-book services, etc. Persistent research and patience will eventually lead to acceptable estimates or even exact figures.

You also need to determine what marketing and PR you will need to do and what it will cost. You may need:

• a website or blog
• business cards
• a publicist or PR agent
• a professional headshot
• help with social networking
• assistance with a virtual book tour

Then you need to determine if you are able to pursue an agent or publisher or if you are ready to self-publish your book. If you are planning the indie-publishing route and are low on funds, you might need to produce an e-book first and earn the money for a print book. (However, you still need the funds for cover design and editing with an e-book.) Or if you are taking the traditional-publishing route, you might need to save the money for a proposal consultant to ensure your query and proposal are top-notch before you can seek an agent. Maybe you are ready to do what is necessary right now to publish your book or approach an agent or publisher.

As for your spinoff products and services, a few costs to consider include:

• website or blog site design and hosting (a blog can serve as a website)
• setup of an online store
• logo design
• branding help
• any type of product-creation assistance, such as transcription, video editing, or audio editing

Determine which products you want to pursue first, and then find out what it will cost to produce them—and if you will need help. You may be able to do all of it yourself if you are willing to take on the work and learn the skills; just apply your Author Attitude to these tasks.

If you feel stumped after this exercise because you don’t have the resources to complete your book and/or produce your products and services, consider the following crowdfunding options:

• a kickstarter.com campaign to raise funds
• an indiegogo.com campaign to raise funds
• raising money on your blog or website with a PayPal button
• using a company like Pubslush.com, which only crowdfunds for book projects.

Jim Kukral wrote a book about crowdfunding the financial resources for your book: Book Marketing for Kindle Authors: How I Raised Over $30K in 30-Days to Write My New Kindle Book (Crowdfunding Tips & Tricks for Authors).

Any of the elements from the list above, should you choose to use them, go into your business plan once you finish your evaluation.

Keep in mind that all three evaluations discussed in this chapter—multiple spinoff and branding books, products and services that financially support and brand your book, and resources required to move your project forward—provide essential information for your business plan. Your ability to become a multiple-book author and brand yourself with those books will increase your potential to sell more books and succeed as an author, so look at this element carefully. Your ability to produce products and services that help you further that author brand and create additional income streams around your books gives you the ability to earn a living as an author. By examining the financial component of what it takes to produce your book, you can move forward with your project as a savvy businessperson ready and able to bring your book into the world. WOOT!

With that in mind, it’s time to see yourself, rather than your book project, through an agent’s or publisher’s lens.

Suggested Reading:

Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future by Dorie Clark
Make a Name For Yourself: 8 Steps Every Woman Needs to Create a Personal Brand Strategy for Success by Robin Fisher Roffer
Be Your Own Brand: Achieve More of What You Want by Being More of Who You Are by David McNally and Karl D. Speak
You Are A Brand!: How Smart People Brand Themselves for Business Success by Catherine Kaputa
Managing Brand You: 7 Steps to Creating our Most Successful Self by Jerry S. Wilson
From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur: Make Money with Books, e-books and Information Products by Stephanie Chandler
Damn! Why Didn’t I Write That?: How Ordinary People are Raking in $100,000.00 … or More Writing Nonfiction Books & How You Can Too! by Marc McCutcheon
Official Get Rich Guide to Information Marketing: Build a Million Dollar Business Within 12 Months by Robert Skrob
Click Millionaires: Work Less, Live More with an Internet Business You Love by Scott Fox
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living by Peter Bowerman