#60: My Author Business Plan for 2022

I went from being a writer to an author of five books just because of the author’s business plan I wrote at the start of 2021.

In that plan, I wrote that I would write six books by the end of the year. I even wrote down their names and little blurbs about what they would contain.

I hadn’t written a single book before that. Writing an article would take me 7-8 hours; that should give you an idea of how far-fetched the goal of writing six books was.

Nothing happened for six months.

Then one morning, as I woke up I heard a tiny whisper, “Write the damn book. Start today, and do it fast.”

If there is one thing that I have learned in my creative life, it is to act on the tiny voice when you hear it. I opened my laptop and got to work. I wrote and published my first book How To Write And Publish An Ebook In One Week.

What followed was even more amazing.

Michelle Kulp’s book 28 Books To $100K inspired me to write a book a month.

The six-books goal was stuck somewhere at the back of my mind, and I was going to achieve that.

The second half of 2021 is a bit of a blur in my memory. I wrote five books and a Journal. I got them edited, got the book covers made, and started publishing them one book a month.

All that because of the innocently written author business plan I shared on my blog to a handful of readers.

When you write something down, you commit to it. When you share it, you have accountability.

In this letter, I am going to share the main elements of the author’s business plan and my plan for 2022.

I intentionally didn’t do it in the first week of January so that I don’t get carried away with it in the new year's excitement.

Theme

For the past two years, I have started setting a theme for the year. I learned it from Niklas Göke, who in turn learned it from James Altucher.

In 2020, my theme was FOCUS.

In 2021, my theme was CREATE. 

In 2022, my theme is GROW. 

A theme gives me an achievable, meaningful daily standard I can live up to. Every action I do, I ask, Is this aligned with my theme?

I keep it saved as wallpaper on my mobile phone. It keeps my wandering nature in check.

A good theme is a verb and a noun at the same time, such as - Love, Balance, Compassion, Invest, Help, Kindness, and Gratitude. 

Set a theme for yourself this year and see how it makes you aligned and productive.

Guiding Principle

A guiding principle is an overarching principle that helps you decide what to do and what not to do?

I got this from Joanna Penn.

My guiding principle is:

“Make sure my creativity injects hope in this world.”

My guiding principle gives me a higher purpose and keeps me grounded.

Pick a phrase or a theme and say like, ‘At the end of my life, what do I want my actions from today to have contributed to?’

Business Overview

This is the section where you should define what your business is. What is your company structure? What is your author brand? What niche you are serving? What is your revenue model? And what investments you will be making in your business.

Products

In this section you list all the products you are going to crate. Knowing in advance gives you an idea how much time you can devote to each project. A year seems too long but it passes quickly and if you haven’t laid out what you are going to accomplish each month, chances are you won’t by the end of the year.

I have always been an overachiever. I set up so many goals, so many projectshaven’to many endeavors that it is impossible to accomplish them all. Last year I identify the bare minimum products that I wanted to create and left rest of the time for spontaneity.

This year I am working on the assumption that I will be releasing a product a month. That product could be a book, a picture book, a journaThat’s course. I have listed all that I have in mind but they may change during the year. I is quiet possible I only achieve half or one-third but who knows. May be like the previous year, I might create all twelve of them.

Publising Strategy

This is where you identify how you are going to publish your books/ journals/ courses.

Marketing Strategy

Even if you are early in your entrepreneur career, marketing should be part of your plan. Your marketing activities will be less in the early years and they will become main focus later on. I am at the beginning of 4th year of my author career and I will be ramping up my marketing activities this year.

Health

In the past two years I ignored my health. I stopped going to the gym when lockdown started and didn’t start properly even when gyms opened. I ate mindlessly and put on weight. The truth is I gave writing the priority over health. I was so consumed with following my writing goals that I didn’t make time for exercise.

This year, heath is going to come first. I am back to walking 4-5 times a week, doing weights 2–3 times a week, core training 1–2 times a week, and yoga class once a week.

Vacations

We couldn’t travel for two years. Which also meant I worked non-stop taking virtually no breaks. This year I am hoping to travel. I will be taking two long breaks (4 weeks each) in each half of the year. In addition I will be taking two lots of two weeks to do nothing.

Review Date

This is the most important part of the Business Plan. I will be reviewing this plan twice. First on 30th June and second on 30th September.

That’s it folks, my business plan for 2022.

I am sharing it here for two reasons - to keep myself accountable and to give you a template to write your plan if you haven’t got one.

Although I created it for authors, it can be used by any solopreneurs.

This year I created a template for the plan and also bullet journal and other tools (which I will talke about in the next issue of the newsletter) and published it on Amazon as Author’s Planner and Bullet Journal in case anyone else wants to use it. It is available both in hardback and softcover, you can get it here.

That’s all from me this week.

Happy planning!

May you have a productive and safe 2022

Neera Mahajan

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