In my previous article of the five-part series, I wrote about mindset as the first of the five pillars of authorpreneurship.

Who is an authorpreneur?

An authorpreneur is a person who creates written products, creates a brand, and actively promotes that brand through a variety of outlets.

In other words, an authorpreneur is a person who builds an empire around his or her writing. Think J.K. Rowling, think Stephen King, think James Patterson, and you will get the picture.

But first, a disclaimer; I am not an authorpreneur yet. I am nowhere near. I am just a student of those who has made a successful business around their writing and are willing to show the way. I am studying their processes and to lay the groundwork for my own journey. I call them pillars of authorpreneurship.

I have discovered, there are five pillars of authorpreneurship.

1. Mindset
2. Time
3. Skills
4. Stamina
5. Strategy

Whether you are a fiction writer, a non-fiction writer, or a content writer, the pillars are still the same.

After mindset, “Time” is the most important pillar of authorpreneurship.

How much time it is going to take you to become an authorpreneur

When you start any profession, it takes time to learn the ropes. Think medicine, teaching, nursing, economics, or engineering. In any of these professions, you are expected to spend at least three to five years learning the basics. Yet, with writing, we want to succeed instantly.

Writing demands a similar number of years if not the same. I am not counting the hobby writers here who take 5 to 10 years to write their first or only book.

Even if you are a good writer, there is still a lot to learn. The rules of the game have changed. We no longer can sit at our desks and write. We need to learn the other aspects of authorpreneurship.

You got to give yourself at least five years to learn the craft and establish yourself as a writer.

I have been studying the trajectory of many successful authorpreneurs, and five years is the minimum amount of time they have taken to make it.

Case Study #1

Joanna Penn, a fiction and non-fiction bestselling writer, published her first self-help book in 2008. She started writing it in 2006 while working full-time as a system analyst in a larger corporation. The book was a disaster.

In 2008 she lay the foundations of her business with a website, The Creative Penn, and a YouTube channel. In 2009 she started The Creative Penn podcast, which is still rocking after all these years.

In February 2011, she published her first novel, Seven months later gave up her day job to go full-time based on income from the blog, book sales, speaking, and downsizing.

In 2013 she was voted as one of The Guardian UK Top 100 creative professionals 2013.

In 2014 her novel, One Day in Budapest, was in a multi-author box set that hit the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, selling over 100,000 copies in a few weeks. The same year she started publishing fiction under a separate name — JFPenn.

In 2015 she started making 6 figures from her writing — incorporating book sales, blog-related income, speaking, and everything related to her author business.

It took Joanna five years from the day she started writing her first book to make enough money to give up her full-time job and another four to make a six-figure income.

But today, thirteen years later, she owns an empire and aiming for a seven-figure income in the near future. She has written more than 30 books. You can read her full-timeline here.

Before you get any rosy ideas, let me mention the most important detail. Joanna works harder than any full-time employee or a business owner you can think of. She clocks in ten to thirteen hours a day.

Case Study #2

You would think content writers might be able to do it quicker.

Not really.

Tom Kuegler, one of the prolific writers on Medium, started early at 23. He was one of the early writers on Medium. Last week, in the article How I’ve Made $250,000 Writing Online In 3 Years he wrote that bulk of his earnings came from selling his course ($190,000) while writing on Medium ($40,000), freelancing, and sponsorship ($20,000) constituted just a quarter of the pie.

He is twenty-nine today, which means it took him six years to get to a six-figure income.

No matter what online writers might tell you, making money with just content writing is hard.

Very very hard.

Content writers make money with advertising. When advertising is great, they might make a lot, but when the market is down and advertising money disappears (as it did during the pandemic year), content writers’ income takes a big hit.

Tim Denning’s article The Stories of Making Money Online Have Disappeared — Why Is That? explains it much better.

Although this scenario will change too, the only thing that will keep you in the authorpreneur business besides desire and drive is your “why.”

It is your “why” that will keep you in the game, however long it might take you to become an auhorpreneur.

That “why” can’t be money, because it will not show until late. Very late.

That “why” can’t be “making a living” because it will place too much stress on your work and eventually will kill your creativity.

That “why” can’t be fame because it will lead to an inflated ego, and ego will make you a terrible writer.

But if your “why” is embedded in your primary need to write, you will survive any crisis, and establish your empire; doesn’t matter however long it might take.

If your “why” is to educate, inspire, and entertain, and you are willing to work without much compensation, your empire will form as a consequence of that.

Empires are not made, empires are the consequence.

The Roman Empire was not built because Romans conquered half the world; the Roman empire was built because Romans had a system in place that helped them built an empire.

J K Rowling didn’t write to build an empire. She wrote even when things were not favorable, and an empire was built due to that.

Her first book was rejected 12 times before it got accepted by a small publisher. Thankfully now, you and I don’t have better processes available to us.

Three recent trends in favor of writers.

Decentralization. We are no longer at the mercy of the traditional publishing model. The publishers used to be the gatekeepers who held the ultimate power to decide which work can or can’t be published. That barrier doesn’t exist anymore. With nothing more than a laptop or a smartphone, you can write and publish as many books as you like. You can be the owner of your own company. And this is exactly what successful authors are doing.

Connectivity. You can now sell your books worldwide from your study. Anyone in the world can buy your books with the click of a mouse. Most readers have access to the internet, and they are willing to buy books online. The pandemic accelerated the ebook and audiobook sales beyond anyone’s expectations. These trends will continue to grow. There will never be enough books in the world to fill the demand for knowledge, entertainment, and inspiration.

Information. You can learn how to do nearly anything these days. You can learn to write for free by watching YouTube videos or reading blog posts; you can create your own courses and earn while you are learning your craft; you can connect with the right people and build your empire.

To sum up

There are no limits to what you can do as long as you are willing to learn and give yourself time to see the results.

You should not get into writing to make money, fame, or even to build an empire. If they are your core reasons, you will not survive the hardships and the time it will take you to succeed.

But if writing has gone into your blood and you can’t survive without writing, then you will succeed within a reasonable amount of time.

We are living in the best time ever to become an authorpreneur.

Computers have made it easier to write, and the internet has made it possible to research, publish and sell to a global audience.

If you love to create as I do, and if you are ready to learn different skills and adapt to the changing environment as I do, then we can build a business around our writing.

But first, a disclaimer — I am not a millionairess from writing, nor am I in the publishing business. I am a new writer who is learning from those who have already made it.

I developed a passion for writing in my forties. For twenty years, I was scribbling in journals and doing occasional courses. It is only two years ago that I quit my job to devote all my energies to writing.

I was encouraged by many writers who have successfully build businesses with their writing. I made it my mission to learn from them and to share my learning with others.

The Millennials and Gen Z are born with technology on their finger-tips. They are also entrepreneurs by nature, while we, the Baby Boomers and Gen-X, have to follow a steep learning curve.

But we are a determined generation, having achieved so much in our lives. I am certain we can achieve whatever we set our hearts upon.

I have started my authorpreneur journey with this belief that with my tenacity, passion, and consistency I will be able to achieve what I have out to regardless of my age.

Besides age is just a number, isn’t it?

Let’s get on with it.

In the past few years, I have been studying the trajectory of many writers. Writers such as J.A. Konrath, Adam Croft, David Gaughran, Joanna Penn, Mark Dawson, Michael L Ronn, Jeff Goings, James Clear, Orna Ross, Austin Kleon, just to name a few. They all have proved that it is possible to build a business out of your passion.

But you need to be ready to put in the work and stick it out.

But as a new writer, it was an enigma to me where to start and where to put my effort. There is a lot of guidance, but other writers as well were ‘so-called’ academies but none of them were clear.

When you start in any profession, usually there is a clear pathway. Even entrepreneurship has certain steps that need to be taken to ensure your venture is going to succeed. Then why authorpreneurship should be any different?

I set upon finding the path.

I discovered there are five areas you need to work on to strengthen the foundation of your author’s business.

I call them pillars.

Whether you are a fiction writer, a non-fiction writer, or a content writer, the pillars are still the same.

And they are:

1. Mindset
2. Time
3. Skills
4. Stamina
5. Strategy

Mindset

You cannot build any business without the mindset of an entrepreneur.

What is an entrepreneur? According to the Oxford Dictionary, “An entrepreneur is a person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of a profit.”

This definition has two keywords— risk and profit.

In any business, you need to take risks.

Without risks, there are no gains.

And you need to prepare yourself to accept the gains. That is a profit mindset.

Many writers are not prepared to see their work as worthy of compensation.

They are happy to write for free or accept meager advance for several years of work they have put in a single book.

They dream of being a bestselling author and money to appear on their doorstep, but they are reluctant to conduct their business in such a way the profits are inevitable.

The core of any business is marketing.

We are responsible for our own success.

If we are building a business, we will not leave the most crucial part of our business to our employees.

Would we?

Marketing is the most crucial part of the author’s business. Yet most writers hate marketing and would love someone else to handle it.

But it is like letting the supermarkets make a profit from your produce. No wonder farmers are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet while supermarkets are becoming giants by buying cheap and charging more.

Marketing is a lot easier and more fun if we start by changing our mindset.

Marketing is sharing what you love with people who will appreciate hearing about it. It is not telling people to “buy my book” or accosting innocent readers in bookstores. It is about connecting with people around the topic we’re passionate about and providing useful information while being entertaining and inspirational along the way.

Marketing is a form of creativity. If you consider marketing an inherent part of the process rather than something separate, you’ll enjoy it more. For example, write about the journey of the book you are writing. The places you have visited while researching, issues you have faced while plotting, the challenges you overcame while editing. All of this gives the readers an insight into your world and gets them excited about your book.

Marketing is a learnable skill. We don’t need a degree in marketing to sell books, but we do need to learn new things, try them out and practice over time. True, we can hire other people to help us, but if we upskill ourselves, it is much cheaper, more effective, and more authentic since no one knows our book, as well as we do. And who knows, we might even enjoy the process.

Marketing is more than a book launch. Especially if we want to make a consistent living with our writing, we can continue to sell books, products, and services for years to come if we integrate marketing within our creative and production process.

You can choose marketing based on your personality type. If you are an introvert you might prefer content marketing compared to an extrovert who would prefer book signing, speaking engagements, and networking events.

Strengthen your mindset pillar by thinking like a business owner. Open yourself to market your book much before you even write it.

Still, having doubts?

Tim Ferris wrote a 100-page marketing plan even before putting pen to paper to write his first book For Hour Work Week.

Tomorrow, the second pillar — Time.

Photo by Trish H-C on Unsplash

Let me start by asking you this quesion.

Are you a writer or an author?

The common understanding is that if you have published a book you are an author.

Not exactly.

A writer is someone who enjoys the act of writing, often in solitude.

An author is someone who enjoys everything that comes along with being published. The marketing, the networking, the speaking engagements, being in the public eye, self-promotion.

You can be published, but if you don’t like the marketing and self-promotional side of the business, then you are more of a writer than an author.

Now lets come to the question of whether you are an author or an authorpreneur.

Who is an authorpreneur. It depends upon who you ask. Some say:

An authorpreneur is someone who builds a business around writing books.

But it is not all-encompassing.

Yes, you can build a decent income by writing books alone. Many successful authors are making a good monthly income publishing ebooks alone.

But according to Shanda Trofe the author of Aurthorpreneur, How to Build an Empire and Build the Authority in Your Business:

A real Authorpreneur is someone who builds a lucrative empire using a variety of products that strategically funnel into one another and progressively build upon each other. An Authorpreneur will have published a book as a product for his business, yes, but he won’t stop there. An Authorpereneur will think outside the box and see the bigger picture. An Authorpreneur, simply stated, is someone who creates a business based on the core concepts of a book, repurposing the information into companion products and programs, resulting in a suitable business while creating wealth.

Some authorpreneurs travel extensively, speak at conferences to spread their message, do book signing tours and workshops where they sell their books and other products. They are well-known on social media and YouTube and have a huge mailing list for their email marketing.

Others use writing to promote their work. They manage to find a happy medium by promoting their work through writing. They reach out to the masses by building their list, networking on social media, blogging, crafting newsletters, and writing emails. They run webinars, online courses, do group coaching on Facebook, and run their own forums. They might start with one-on-one clients, doing face-to-face training and personal and group retreats.

To create your author empire you have to take three steps:

• Begin — You must start somewhere. Whether it is content writing or books or fiction. Begin. To quote Wolfgang von Goethe, Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. 
  
• Build — There are many roads to success. Choose one. The others will meet you on the way.
  
• Believe — When you have a message within you can build a roadmap to get there. Without a message, no road will take you there. Believe in yourself and implement. So many before you have done it and left clues making your task much easier.
  

My aim with Autorpreneurs publication is to bring forth the stories of other so that you can learn them.

Here is one right now.

An Authorpreneur case study

Sunny Dawn Johnston wanted to find a niche for herself. Aside from being President and CEO of Transcendent Publishing, her passion was (and still is) working with writers, specifically aspiring authors. She found that she was starting to build a nice reputation for herself by coaching aspiring authors through the book writing process. But there were many coaches out there doing the same. She had to find a way to set herself apart from the rest.

As the founder of Spiritual Writers Network, she was attracting spiritual writers into her circle. Many of her clients had an important message to share, yet most didn’t know how to find the courage to open old wounds and delve deep within to let their story unfold.

She was working with clients who were experiencing fear about the writing process and who needed a little extra coaching in order to write their book and tell their story authentically.

One encouragement she found myself repeating over and over to her clients was to write from the heart. She truly believed if they could get out of ego-based thinking and allowed their creativity to emerge, that’s when their most Heartfelt writing comes forward.

She taught structure and writing systems that must be set in place, but she was also using a variety of spiritual-based techniques to urge them to unlock their creativity.

Before long, she had found a niche in the writing industry. She no longer was just a writing coach, she was a heart-based writing coach who worked primarily, at the time, with aspiring spiritual authors.

In August of 2013 she attended a networking conference for women in business. She came from there with a clear message and plan of action.

She needed to brand herself as the Write from the Heart Writing Coach.

That was just the beginning.

She wrote and published a bookWrite from the Heart: A Step-by-Step Writing Guide to Get Your Message from Idea to Publication to act as a product for her business and an extension of her brand.

She strategically launched Write from the Heart and the book went on to sell thousands of copies.

Book was just the tip of the iceberg. From there she saw the potential to turn the concepts she wrote about in her book into an online course. From there Write from the Heart: 8-Week Book Writing Intensive was born. This became her most popular product and service. It was easy to create since she already had much of the content from my book.

But she didn’t stop there. She started her own radio show where she interviewed a different author each week and discussed topics such as writing and publishing.

She created a companion journal to publish as a second product based upon her book and created a CD of affirmations for writers with a mediation to unlock creativity and expand productivity.

She also created an affirmation card deck to sell at events alongside her book, CD, and Journal. She hosted writing retreats and various workshops — all based on theories of her book.

Her business went from working with writers (a generic niche) to narrowing down her area of expertise, finding her ideal clients, and then creating products to reach them specifically.

She repurposed the content and created a autor empire around her brand.

When people heard Write from Heart, they thought of Sunny Dawn Johnston, and she had her book, products, and brand to thank for that.

[ Case Study Source: Sunny Dawn Johnston’s Foreword in Aurthorpreneur, How to Build an Empire and Build the Authority in Your Business]

Photo by Dan Farrell on Unsplash