A few months ago, my weblog fell silent for a few weeks, and I explained the silence by saying that I had been engaged in what I figured was the Most Important Thing I had to do: developing and finalizing the production plans and details for my books. Now, my weblog has fallen silent again for a few weeks, and once again, it’s because I’ve been thoroughly wrapped up in a Most Important Thing.
This time, the task was to organize the business side of my writing enterprise. As I prepared for the launch of the print edition of The Desert King, I realized that I didn’t have a workable solution for keeping track of expenses and sales and such. In the past, I’ve made half-hearted efforts to put together a solution, but now that things are getting bigger, I needed something solid. I needed to get a handle on it before it got completely out of control, and it was almost there.
And, as has happened before, working out this problem led to a real challenge in defining exactly what it is I am trying to do. Am I trying to be a publisher? (No.) Am I trying to channel all my sales through third parties either via the internet or bookstores? Can I even do that? (No, and probably not.) What, exactly, am I trying to do? And, surprisingly, what is my website for? How does Things Worth Reading even fit into the picture?
Now, I am happy to say that I have firmly established the business side of my writing business. I actually have a written business plan, and I have a complete operations plan, encompassing the full spectrum of writing and marketing and selling books and other things worth reading. Finally, I can get back to the writing side of the writing business. It’s been a very productive August.
