Strategy for the Writer
Posted By Carrie on January 25, 2012
Today, I’m posting an article I read last week. It’s a follow up on an article from the same source published in December. That article focused on Vision for the writer and you can read it here.
Like the article on Vision, this article on Strategy came to me as part of Randy Ingermanson’s monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine (which you can sign up for at no cost here).
A moment for a shameless promotion. I recommend this e-zine very highly and not only because I enjoy it. There is valuable writing and business information in Randy’s e-zine every month. Even the things I don’t publish will help you advance your writing career and each one of them is worth more than the price of subscription (did I mention the e-zine is free?).
End of shameless promotion and on to the real story.
Organizing: Strategizing Your Writing Career
By Randy Ingermanson
In my November column, I talked about the three essential skills you need if you want to succeed in the writing business — Vision, Strategy, and Tactics.
In December, I discussed Vision and gave you some simple tips to help you define the Vision for your career and for each book.
This month, we tackle Strategy.
Let’s be clear about two things:
* Strategy is hard work.
* Strategy pays off massively.
Strategy is hard work because it will never really end. If you’re going to succeed in your writing career, you will need to be continually refining your Strategy.
Having a sound strategy doesn’t guarantee you’ll be successful, but it makes your success much more probable.
The reason Strategy is important is because in your writing career, you’ll be asked to do far more things than you can possibly do. You will never, ever have time to do it all. A sound Strategy will tell you what to do yourself, what to hire somebody else to do, and what to let go.
My thinking on this has been shaped quite a bit by the book, THE E-MYTH REVISITED, by Michael E. Gerber. I highly recommend this book, which is not about writing, it’s about running an effective business.
Writing is a business, so the principles apply, even though Mr. Gerber never mentions fiction writing in his book.
What is “the e-myth”? It’s the starry-eyed notion that just because you’re in business, you somehow magically become an entrepreneur.
Anybody can strap on ice skates, but that doesn’t make them a hockey player. Anybody can start a business, but that doesn’t make them an entrepreneur.
The minute you make the decision to write a novel with the hope of selling it someday, you’re in business. But you’ll only be an entrepreneur if you take action to do so. And most writers don’t.
So what makes you an entrepreneur? For the full story, I recommend you read THE E-MYTH REVISITED. One essential task that entrepreneurs do is to plan their business from the very beginning as if it were already large and successful. Then they make a strategic plan to get to where they want to be.
The very first step on this road is actually the scariest. This is the step that causes most writers to dig in their heels and say no. Here’s where most writers screw it up and never, ever get it right.
A crucial thing that every large and successful business has is an org chart — a simple document that tells who does what, and who is accountable to whom.
I know exactly what you’re thinking right now. Why the heck does a little one-person business need an org chart, when all you want to do is write fiction?
The answer is that you want to do more than write fiction. You want to make money.
If you don’t want to make money, then I’ll agree that you’re not in business and you don’t need an org chart.
But if you do intend to make money from your writing, then you’re in business and you CAN’T do everything that you’ll need to do to thrive. You will eventually need to hire somebody. At which point, your little business will be an organization.
You might as well get off to a good start. It takes all of about ten minutes and you can do it right now. In fact, I’ll give you a prototype org chart below.
All you have to do is type your name in every slot in the chart, and you’re done. Then for the rest of your career, you’ll be looking for ways to hire out the roles in your business that you can’t or won’t or shouldn’t do.
Every time you hire somebody to play a role in your business, you can delete your name from that slot in the org chart and type in that person’s name. Now you instantly know what they do and to whom they report.
The larger your business gets, the fewer roles in the org chart will have your name in them. That’s fine. That’s great in fact. The fewer roles you play, the
better you can play the one you really want to play — the role of writer.
As you get more successful, you’ll have people to do your admin work, your accounting, your marketing, your legal work, and a myriad of other things. You CAN’T do it all yourself and be successful. So you might as well get the structure of your business correct from the get-go.
Here is a prototype org chart for your business as a writer. It’s like an outline. Each person reports to the person one level up.
- Chief Executive Officer: You
- Administrative Assistant: You
- Chief Operations Officer: You
- Writer: You
- Editor: You
- Graphic Designer: You
- Literary Agent: You
- Customer Relations Manager: You
- Marketing Director: You
- Brand Manager: You
- Webmaster: You
- Blog Editor: You
- E-mail Newsletter Editor: You
- Social Network Manager: You
- Chief Financial Officer: You
- Accountant: You
- Manager of Accounts Payable/Receivable: You
You will probably always be the CEO of your business. You will definitely always be the Writer.
But you can hire somebody else for every other role in the chart. As you get successful, you’ll need to hire people to do at least some of these roles. Here is the approximate order you might fill those roles:
* Probably your first “hire” will be to find a critique buddy to fill the role of Editor for free. Everybody needs a second opinion on their writing, and you
typically pay back your critique buddy by playing the same role for her.
* Eventually, you’ll find an agent to play the role of Literary Agent, since very few writers are competent to be their own agent. Agents work for a percentage of your income, so they don’t get paid until you do. You don’t need an agent until you’re writing well enough to sell your work.
* Once you make your first sale, you may find it useful to hire an Accountant to do your accounting and file your taxes. Part time, of course. A few hours per year, but they’d probably be the most hellish hours of the year if you had to do them yourself.
* Before your first book comes out, you’ll need a real webmaster to build you a web site. You’ll pay an upfront cost and then there’ll be ongoing expenses at a much lower rate.
* After you’ve written a few novels, you may find it useful to hire a freelance editor to help you shape your story ideas before you show them to your agent. You pay for this on a project basis — it isn’t a full time job.
* When the e-mail starts arriving in your in-box in the dozens per day, you’ll very likely handle a Customer Relations Manager to answer the easy e-mail. This will probably never be more than a few hours per week, unless you become massively famous.
* If you get asked to do a lot of speaking, you might hire an Administrative Assistant to help you deal with the details, plan your trips, and handle the routine administrivia that most writers hate, hate, hate. Once again, this is strictly a part-time job.
* If your books start doing well, your publisher will expect you to up your game in marketing, social media, and blogging. Unless you really excel at these, you may hire out some or all of this work to a Brand Manager, a Social Network Manager, and a Graphic Designer. You may even hire a Marketing Director to keep all these people under control.
* If you do extremely well, you’ll find that your blog and e-mail newsletter are just too much, and you may hire a Blog Editor and an E-mail Newsletter Editor.
* If you’re making so much money (and spending so much) that the bookkeeping gets to be a hassle, you can hire a bookkeeper to cash your checks and pay your bills (your Manager of Accounts Payable/Receivable).
These won’t happen all at once. But as your career grows, it’s entirely possible that you could end up hiring somebody to play every role except CEO and
Writer. Those are your jobs.
It’s worth repeating that most of the people you hire will be working for you only part time. They’ll be independent contractors whom you pay an hourly wage or a fixed fee or a percentage of earnings to do the crucial support tasks that will keep you on task.
Which is writing.
Your main job will always be to write. And you can’t write if you’re worn down with all the roles that a successful business requires.
One of the most important things you can do to make yourself successful is to simply begin acting RIGHT NOW as if you’re going to be successful someday. As if you’re going to need to hire all those people.
If you don’t plan for it, then either it won’t happen, or it’ll happen in a weird, wild, willy-nilly way that makes it hard for you to manage.
Don’t do that to yourself. Plan now for success. Because someday, you might be immensely successful. It’s easier to set yourself on the right course now
when you’re small than to do a course correction later when you’ve built up a lot of momentum in the wrong direction.
Here’s your homework assignment: Paste the above org chart into your word processor, restructure it as an outline, and type in the correct name for every role. Then print it out and hang it where you can see it every day.
That’s your future. May it be wildly successful.
Carrie’s Thoughts
Speaking as 35-plus year artist whose goal has been to create the best possible portrait for every client AND to make money, Randy’s advice is especially sweet. I wish I’d read it about the same time I graduated high school. Although I haven’t yet had to hire out a lot of the jobs I do as the CEO, CFO and Marketing Director for Carrie L. Lewis ~ Horse Painter, it is a goal to one day be so successful I have to hire support staff so I can do what only I can do. Paint.
And write.
My organizational chart for both businesses is already on the wall.
Where’s yours?
Credit Where Credit is Due…
Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 29,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.
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I've been an avid looker-at of books since I was old enough to sit on her lap and listen to the stories she read.
The oldest complete manuscript I have was written when I was in the eighth grade.
Throughout grade school and high school, I read every horse story I could get my hands on. Walter Farley was a huge favorite and I still enjoy reading the adventures of the Black Stallion and Flame and all the rest. But Marguerite Henry, C. W. Anderson, Thomas Hinkle and anyone else who wrote a story about a horse was on my to-read list. I couldn't get enough of them.
Then I found Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and discovered another world; the world of mysteries!
More recently Dick Francis has combined my love of horse stories with my love of mysteries with his series of books.
In the early part of this century, I was introduced to the world of Christian fiction and in July of 2008, I took my first ever writing workshop. The workshop covered several aspects of writing from a Christian worldview and an entirely new vista opened before me.
I am, as yet, unpublished. I write every day, maintain painting and writing blogs, painting journals, writing journals and a number of other writing endeavors. Along with other members of my church family, I've written devotions for Advent and Lenten devotional booklets. For a time, I wrote a monthly column for the Newton Kansan newspaper.
I still enjoy a good horse story but I also enjoy a good mystery or cozy mystery, suspense and a little bit of action here and there, as well as literary works. I hope, Lord willing, to try my hand at each of those genres.