So after all these business posts, people wanted me to write about retiring. I’m not surprised; it was kind of exhausting to think about doing all that stuff. In any case, this is the retirement-for-writers post. The very first question is: what does retirement mean to you,
Read more →So there you have it: all seven areas of business – operations, sales and marketing, quality control, finance, administration, public relations, and executive – laid out for writers. Looking at them all at once like this is rather daunting, but not looking at them at all is
Read more →7. Executive – This has to do with strategic planning and overseeing everything else. For writers, the Executive area means keeping an eye on all the other categories to make sure nothing is left out and everything stays in balance (which can be quite a trick for
Read more →Before we get to today’s post, I wanted to mention two things: first, some time in the next month I’m going to be changing servers. In an ideal world, this will be completely unnoticeable to all the readers of my blog and web page, but how often
Read more →5. Administration – This is the overall organization of people and processes, including everything from office management to the human resources department. For writers, Administration covers most of the day-to-day tasks of making and tracking submissions, answering mail, returning email and phone calls, filing, organizing manuscripts, maintaining
Read more →4. Finance – This has to do with all the monetary aspects of a business. The financial end of the writing business needs and deserves a lot more attention than many writers give it absent emergencies. Especially the taxes part. I’ve said before that editors don’t do
Read more →3. Quality Control. This is where products and processes are tested for defects. For all writers, Quality Control obviously includes all of the editing and revision parts of the job; for the self-published, it includes packaging details as well – everything from design (page layout, font/typeface, cover design) to
Read more →2. Sales and marketing. Sales is defined as “the act of selling a product in return for money or other compensation.” Marketing is the strategy that the business uses to get to the sales part. Sales and marketing is generally considered the second of the two line
Read more →1. Operations – This includes primarily production, but also design, development, and fulfillment. The business of writing starts with Operations, the first, largest, and most important of the line function areas. It includes all of the aspects of production/manufacturing, but also such necessary elements as purchasing, order
Read more →I have never met a would-be writer who has a business plan. OK, I haven’t met many professional writers who have a formal business plan, either. Nevertheless, every last professional writer I know, of whatever genre, pays a great deal of attention to the business of writing,
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