Most writers aren’t extroverts, and find picking up the phone to promote themselves second in dread only to a spinal tap, a baby shower, and an IRS audit–all on the same day.
Only a few bestselling authors get book tours nowadays. Publishers expect you to sell, and give you little support. So if you don’t tell the world about your murder mystery, who else will? You’ve already taken the risk of putting your work out in the world. Now you have to promote it. Oh, dread.
An opportunity fell into my lap here in Kern County that has changed the way I think about myself, and made me comfortable with calling myself an entrepreneur. Me, who couldn’t imagine my livelihood not arriving as a steady paycheck. Now I aim to earn a modest income by setting myself up as an author who is in business for herself.
Through the Mountain Communities Small Business Development Center (SBDC) of WEV, I was assigned a free consultant who gently guided me on the path of getting together the rudiments of promoting the mystery author as businesswoman. That includes the blog you are seeing, embedded in this website, and supported by business card and bookmark, an e-newsletter, and a clear plan for initial marketing efforts. I could never have done this on my own. I know that.
She led me to WEV — Women’s Economic Ventures — an organization “dedicated to creating an equitable and just society through the economic empowerment of women.” Twenty-seven budding entrepreneurs, both men and women, met Tuesday night for the first class in Frazier Park. The initial ripple of uneasiness and plain fear was transformed into a can do optimism at the end of the evening. We left on a high.
A graduate of the class warned us that we would struggle to finish the 14-week course. Looking ahead in the workbook, I thought to myself, I have really bitten off a chunk. We will visualize and write a detailed description of the business we are in, create a marketing plan, a management/operating plan, produce financials (do a cash flow projection for three years, figure out start up costs, break even analysis, and historical financial statements.) Whew! Scary. Some of us will learn that our business idea is not feasible.
Not in a million years would I have imagined myself to doing this work; yet, the way WEV presents the material drew me in and made me want to do it.
One of the initial assignments is to keep track of every cent we spend. Our final assignment is to produce a business plan, which is the basis for getting loans, and even grants. Who knew there were nonprofit entrepreneurs?
This material is what you learn in MBA school, but with WEV the emphasis is on us as ordinary people, not corporations, and takes into account the emotions that go along with assuming the huge risk of indenturing yourself to the vision of being your own boss.
I know that I will be buoyed up when we hit the hard parts by the sparkling enthusiasm of our WEV instructor, Angel Cottrell, and my consultant Rachel Unell.
For more information on WEV, which originated in Santa Barbara, check out http://www.wevonline.org/ I’ll keep you posted as the course continues.
Small business enterprises (SMEs as they are known in the UK) can be very impressive, especially when they pull together. The WEV network sounds extremely helpful to small enterprise.
As the thousands of small (mainly) Asian retailers/businessmen, whom I advise through my agony aunt columns, understand, there is great strength in numbers.
Best of luck,
Jac Roper
Mar, What you’re doing is fascinating. The book industry is all at sixes and sevens at the moment, with e-publishing supporting new ways of doing, being, and having. Twenty years ago, even a mid-list author might have a national book tour, be booked on radio and TV and for print interviews, be given as many free bookmarks for your book as you needed, have a publicist at the publisher working with you, etc. Wonderful as that used to be, the opportunities today–being an entrepreneur with a small business–are actually more exciting because of the increased control over a book’s content and, eventually, a much larger share of the book’s profits. I’m going to be watching you to see how this is done!
Hi Mar,
Something about your post sounds very familiar! I enjoy being your classmate and encouraging one another along the way! How many weeks do we have to go???????
cb
Yes, it’s interesting, isn’t it? You couldn’t have convinced me before this started that I’d look forward to classes. Six more?