STEP #7: DISCOVER WAYS TO BRAND YOURSELF AND EARN MORE MONEY

Goal: Complete the following sections for your business plan—Spinoffs, Products and Services (a.k.a. Subsidiary Rights), and Resources Necessary to Complete Your Book (and/or Build a Business Around Your Book).

How to Spin Your Book into Multiple Titles and a Brand

1. Exercise: Brainstorm ideas for books related to the book you’ve already described during the Author Training Process. You can mind map additional related book ideas—spinoffs or series. Put the title of your current book project in the middle of the mind map and see how many book topics you might think of that could “spin off” from that one. Try to create two or three new ideas. For each spinoff, write a short pitch of about 50 words and place this list in your business plan. These spinoffs should support each other and possibly create a brand or series. If planning out two or three books seems too difficult, keep your current book in mind and think about just one book that could logically follow it. Write a pitch for this spinoff, and include it in your business plan.

2. Exercise: Think of other subject areas that interest you or about which you might want to write. List five subjects, and write a sentence about how they may tie in to your original book idea. Is there a central theme running through them all? Could you find an “umbrella” theme to tie them together or help brand you as an author?

3. Exercise: Come up with a brand for yourself as an author, and let the spinoff books you’ve thought of support your brand. Put yourself in the middle of a mind map. Think of all the different topics you’d like to write about and all the different things you do now (like teaching classes, coaching clients, offering webinars, or even writing fiction and nonfiction or writing young adult fiction and writing creative nonfiction) and products and services you could offer. Group them by subject matter, and then find a theme that would serve as the umbrella for how people could perceive you or how you would want them to find you on the Internet. To create a brand for yourself, answer these questions:

•  What do you do in a broader sense?

•  Who are you as a writer and a person?

•  How do you want to be known?

•  How can the books you write help you become who you want to be?

•  How can they help you fulfill your purpose as a person as well as a writer?

•  How can you build a business around your book?

•  Does your name, title, or personality translate well into a word or title that could serve as a public nom de plume to brand yourself? Jot down a few possibilities and see if any sound professional, creative, and tactful.

4. Exercise: Ask others to describe how they see you. When they read your work or blog posts, when you work with them, when you speak with them … what do they remember most? Write down the words they use to help you describe yourself or come up with a brand.

5. Exercise: Look for authors you know who have written more than one book or who have also built a business around their books. Interview them, or study them to see what they have done to brand themselves beyond just writing more than one book.

6. Exercise: Write a one-page proposal for each new spinoff idea you plan to pursue in the near future. Include details on the market, the competition, and the way in which you will promote the book. Note, too, how you can promote the book in a way that helps sell your originally published title. How can you build your career around these books?

Become an Authorpreneur

7. Exercise: Create a Products and Services page in your business plan that details what products and services you might offer to help build a business around your book. For each of the following suggestions, how might you transform the book into one of these products or services? How would your idea fit this product? How would your audience use this new service? Write a few sentences for each of the following:

•  audiobook

•  courses, teleseminars, and webinars

•  movies

•  a television show

•  action figures, clothing, jewelry, etc.

•  membership sites

•  keynote speeches

•  online streaming videos

•  apps and games

Ready and Able to Write and Publish?

8. Exercise: Create a “Resources Necessary to Complete the Book” or “Resources Necessary to Build a Business Around the Book” section for your business plan. For each of the following, determine the costs associated with self-publishing your book, promoting your book (for both self-publishing and traditional publishing), and creating products and services that will monetize your book (for both self-publishing and traditional publishing).

•  a website or blog

•  editors and designers

•  business cards

•  a professional headshot

•  help with social networking

•  help with video or audio production

•  a webinar or teleseminars line

    Then determine if you have the funds now to move forward with your book-project or associated-products monetization plans. Consider how to raise necessary funds, and come up with an action plan and a time frame or deadline for when you will be ready to move forward, if you are not ready now.