Master index of articles by Sharon Woodhouse for authors, authorpreneurs, book promoters, and anyone wanting a holistic view of the publishing industry and making income related to book writing
Top Reads
- The Profitable Author Life You'll Love (and Deserve): Whether you write fiction or nonfiction; are traditionally or self-published; have an ebook or print book, your first book or your tenth…
- An Authorpreneur Creed: An evolving pledge for authors building holistic, enterprising careers and businesses
- 15 Types of Income for Refining Your Author Business Model: Plan a part-time or full-time author career by working with these revenue streams
- A Proven Outreach Formula for Those Building an Author Business: It has worked for me and others multiple times
- Authors, Barnes & Noble Can't Do Your Book Justice: These 100 things will take you where you want to go faster
- 167 Non-Bookstore Places for Authors and Publishers to Sell Their Books: Real authors and publishers I know have sold books at all these places, often in larger quantities than at bookshops
- Even if You Don't Like Sales, You Can Do These Things: Alternative approaches and wording to bring you business and clients more easily
- 52 Benefits of Being an Author: Make your expectations and goals explicit to reap proper rewards
- Author, Your Book Is Part of Your Larger Life Story: 8 ways to customize your marketing to align your book business with your journey
- The Business Advice I Give Author Clients on Repeat
Articles are organized by categories in alphabetical order:
- Author Income Types
- Book Production and Self-Publishing
- Business Development and Solopreneurship
- Events and Speaking Gigs
- General Business and Entrepreneurship
- Getting Published — Fiction and Nonfiction
- Legal and Conflict Resolution
- Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Email Marketing, Media Coverage, and Social Media
- Money and Financial
- Productivity, Excellence, and Mindset
- Reading Books
- Relationships and Communication
- Sales, Customers, and Doing 5 Things a Day
- Self-Coaching for Authors
- Writing
Author Income Types
- 15 Types of Income for Refining Your Author Business Model: Plan a part-time or full-time author career by working with these revenue streams
- Author Income Streams, 1 of 15: Royalties
- Author Income Streams, 2 of 15: Rights Sales
- Author Income Streams, 3 of 15: Ebook Sales
- Author Income Streams, 4 of 15: Events — Flat Fee
- Author Income Streams, 5 of 15: Events — Per Person Fee
- Author Income Streams, 6 of 15: Event Book Sales
- Author Income Streams, 7 of 15: Merch Sales
- Author Income Streams, 8 of 15: Store Sales
- Author Income Streams, 9 of 15: Volume Sales
- Author Income Streams, 10 of 15: Services — Flat Fee
- Author Income Streams, 11 of 15: Services — Per Unit Fees
- Author Income Streams, 12 of 15: Services — Hourly Fees
- Author Income Streams, 13 of 15: Partnerships
- Author Income Streams, 14 of 15: Grants and Prizes
- Author Income Streams, 15 of 15: Salary and Wages
Book Production and Self-Publishing
Business Development and Solopreneurship
A Profitable Author Life You'll Love
- The Profitable Author Life You'll Love (and Deserve): Whether you write fiction or nonfiction; are traditionally or self-published; have an ebook or print book, your first book or your tenth…
- Creating a Sustainable, Income-Generating Author Life You Love, Step 1 of 7: Know It's Possible: Test this working framework and gain your own firsthand experience
- Creating a Sustainable, Income-Generating Author Life You Love, Step 2 of 7: Make the Commitment: Take yourself and your book and your career seriously, one day at a time
- Creating a Sustainable, Income-Generating Author Life You Love, Step 3 of 7: Customize to Fit Your Life: 8 ways to make book marketing and sales way better for you
- Creating a Sustainable, Income-Generating Author Life You Love, Step 4 of 7: Do 5–10 Things a Day: One of the first mantras of book promotion I heard when I started as a publisher almost three decades ago is still the hands-down best advice
- Creating a Sustainable, Income-Generating Author Life You Love, Step 5 of 7: Build Your Business Savvy As You Go, From Where You're At
- Creating a Sustainable, Income-Generating Author Life You Love, Step 6 of 7: Up Your Mindset Game As You Go, From Where You're At
- Creating a Sustainable, Income-Generating Author Life You Love, Step 7 of 7: Cultivate a Network of Support
- Authors, Take This Quiz and Change Your Book Marketing Fortune: Identify your biggest obstacle to building a sustainable, income-generating author business you love
- A Basic 3-Pronged Approach to Being a Working Author: Writing, publishing logistics, marketing
Business Development
- Refine an Author Business Model from These Templates: There are as many paths as there are authors, but I see versions of these twelve types again and again
- The Business Advice I Give Author Clients on Repeat
- The ABCs of Growing Your Author Business: Always Be…
- For Optimal Health of Your Author Business, Get 5–10 Daily Servings of Book Promotion: You may even learn to love the discipline and the variety
- What Kinds of Things Count for 5–10 Daily Servings of Author/Book Promotion? Begin by working from this list of 50 things
- Make These 7 Moves This Week to Start or Re-Energize Your Author Business: One baby step each day will transform your year ahead
- Authors, Three Ideas for Outsmarting Artifical Intelligence ASAP: Human, get a jump on the threats and work around AI concerns in your author business
- Grow Your Work and Business Ventures with Love, Actual Love: You can only learn to love by loving
- Move Over 80/20: Your Business Also Needs 30–40: A lesson of 'Influencer' suggests your challenges need a quantity of strategies
- How to Create a Cottage Industry Around Your Book, Hobby, or Art
- How the Practice of Practice Is the Secret to a Sustainable Business: Commit to showing up consistently and doing the work from where you're at
- Authors, "If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased": Katharine Hepburn's quote meshes nicely with a new trend in business advice
- Start Your Author Business Before You're Ready…Today: You only need to go one step at a time, but you do have to begin
- Study This Author's Email Newsletter for Entrepreneurial Success: It's long but it reveals much — a business model, right mindset, and more
- You Contain Multitudes: For Authors, Entreprenuers, Solopreneurs, Multipreneurs: A new interpretation reveals a solid business strategy and endless options to cultivate
- Authors, Make "Business" Your Next Hobby: Something you can learn, develop, and enjoy at your own pace and desired level of intensity
- Authors, About Your Willingness to Learn Business…You have the capacity and the ability to learn entrepreneurship, now choose it
- Find the Path to Your Own Author Business by Copying Others: Mimic to learn, succeed, and discover your originality
- The Problem with Print on Demand and the Magic of 3,000 Printed Copies of Your Book: The important ways this number matters for self-publishing authors and indie publishers
- Working Smarter Not Harder in You Author Business: Focus on these things that make a real difference
Business Ideas
- On the Road: Proposing an RV Lifestyle for Writers and Authors: Crisscrossing the country for inspiration, visibility, camaraderie, and profit — and to capture our times
- 7 Streams of Side Income from Your Local Knowledge: You can start today from where you're at
- The Human Advantage of Meaning Making in the Future of Business: 3 areas to explore for creating it and helping others find and cultivate it
- Grow a New or Existing Business with a Tour of Needs: Finding places to care, create, and serve as creators, solopreneurs, and jacks-of-all-trades
Solopreneurship
- Authors, Take These Shortcuts for Creating a Business Around Your Books, Experience, and Knowledge: 8 Ways to Save Time, Money, and Effort and Reach Your Income Goals Faster
- How I Rebuilt a Full-Time Freelance Business Three Different Times: After a kid, after a concussion, during Covid
- A One-Hour Conversation People Pay Money For: Adopt my template for sharing what you know on a topic
- How to Generate Work from Your Local Knowledge: 50 place-based ways to grow a freelance business
- A Local Knowledge Business: Creating Work from, through, for, about Your Corner of the World: 7 income streams and 6 cornerstones of success to yield the ease, variety, and good income of a regional-based enterprise
- 'Lottery Numbers' for Freelance Writers: Big wins with 80/20, 30–40, and 3-to-1
- How Freelancers Can Work with Small Businesses: 30.7 million small businesses in the U.S. need your help
Events and Speaking Gigs
- An Author Events Primer, Part 1 of 3: Get started in the world of book promotion events for income and visibility
- An Author Events Primer, Part 2 of 3: Increase author income, visibility, and satisfaction with a range of public events
- An Author Events Primer, Part 3 of 3: Making events a permanent and polished pillar of your book marketing and income generation
- An Author Speaking Gigs Primer, Part 1 of 3: An intro to how any author can progress from Toastmasters to speakers bureaus and make income along the way
- An Author Speaking Gigs Primer, Part 2 of 3: How to get started even if you're not ready
- An Author Speaking Gigs Primer, Part 3 of 3: See how the benefits accumulate and point to bigger leagues
- Authors, Let Readers Sample Your Books with this Event Partnership Idea: What beverages pair well with your book, characters, and themes?
- Authors, Host Scouts, Teach to a Merit Badge
- Cookies Are an Author Strategy: Take a cue from decorated author Christine Sneed and create your own bookstore memories
- 25 Calls to Action for Your Author Events and Why Using Them Matters: Don't pass up the multifaceted opportunities of a captive audience
General Business and Entrepreneurship
Defensive Entrepreneurship
- Defensive Entrepreneurship: A Strategy for Succeeding in Business and Life: Create a structure for falling back on a plan B, C, and D
- What If You Had to Make a Full-Time Income from Writing Tomorrow?: A defensive entrepreneurship plan for writers and authors
- Build It and the Work Will Come: What you do while waiting for work creates a sustainable business — a sturdy container the work can flow into
Entrepreneurship
- What We Can Learn from Kids Starting Businesses: So many reminders, including if they can jump into the fray, so can we
- Kids Don't Just Learn Entrepreneurship from Starting Businesses: 12 life skills advantages to starting a business young
- Self-Employed? 11 Reasons You Should Try All the Things: There's more to business success than niching, focusing, and maximizing
- Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus Thinks Even Authors Can Be Entrepreneurs: His microcredit movement has helped millions of new entrepreneurs around the world and shows a way forward for meaning-makers in the new economy
General
- There's No Business Like Slow Business: It's time for a prominent Slow Business movement
- Authors, Make "Business" Your Next Hobby: Something you can learn, develop, and enjoy at your own pace and desired level of intensity
Getting Published
BookProposals
- Savvy Author Book Proposal Checklist: Knowing About Publishing and Specific Publishers
- Savvy Author Book Proposal Checklist: Considerations of Your Manuscript, the Book
- Savvy Author Book Proposal Checklist: Considerations of You, the Author
- Savvy Author Book Proposal Checklist: Your Book's Sales and Marketing Considerations
Fiction
Nonfiction
- Start Here: All the Things for Pitching Your Nonfiction Book
- What Do I Know from 10,000 Nonfiction Book Proposals? A publisher advises to "pitch what's true" and "get your soul in the game"
- Advance Prep for a Relationship with a Publisher: Lay the groundwork for a fruitful collaboration before you pitch your nonfiction book
- Pitch What's True: A Step-by-Step Summary for Finding a Nonfiction Publisher: A one-size-fits-most cheat sheet that cuts to the chase
Self-Publishing
Legal and Conflict Resolution
Conflict Managment
Legal
- Authors and Writing Pros, It's Time to Lawyer Up: 9 affordable ways to build legal protections into your writing business
- 10 Ways to Resolve a Property Dispute with Your Landlord: No-cost and low-cost ways to sort things out
Mediation
- Mediate First: A Conflict Management Must for Small Businesses
- Problem-Solving Success Is in Easy Reach for All of Us: What we learn from effective mediators can make a big difference for business and personal challenges
Negotiation
- He's Got 99 Negotiating Tricks and You Need to Know Every One: To protect yourself and expand your options
- 12 Takeaways from the Tao of Negotiation: Reminders about conflict and life so essential that I review them frequently
Marketing and Social Media
Advertising
- Author, What Collabs Could Be Right for Your Books? Should — could — your book be sponsoring the taco of the month?*
- Strategic Allocation for Book Marketing Swag: Authors, have a plan before spending on the fun stuff
Branding
Email Marketing
Marketing
- Tap Into Who You Are and Bring What You Have to the World
- All of Your Author Business and Book Marketing Activities Should Do a Minimum of 3 Jobs: Leverage everything you do to work smarter not harder
- Authors, Tap into All of Your Book's Themes, Part 1 of 3: Fiction or non-fiction, find all your themes and dive deep for sales and marketing opportunities
- Authors, Tap into All of Your Book's Themes, Part 2 of 3: 10 ways to exploit your book's subjects for optimal sales and visibility
- Authors, Tap into All of Your Book's Themes, Part 3 of 3: Social media, parties, volume sales, non-bookstore stores, events, classes, tours, and more
- Book Promotion Advice Reaped from Analyzing a Decade of Reading: What mining my own data taught me as a publisher and what authors and writers can learn from that
- Using All Things Local to Promote Your Business: The why and the what of including sense of place in your marketing
- Local and Regional Topics for Days: A continually growing master reference list of hooks and angles for writers, authors, businesses, marketers, and publicists
- What Authors Can Learn from Summerfest Marketing: Five quick lessons from those promoting their wares to 650,000 music fans in nine days
- Growing Your Business with Vitamins, Spaghetti, and Ships: 3 concepts for rotating fresh sales and marketing into your business
- Authors, If Nothing Else, Start with a Square Piece of Paper: The little things matter more than you think
- Marketing Tips for Freelancers Who Don't Want to Niche: First, here's your permission slip
- The Problem with Seeking the "Right Ideas" for Book Marketing: Authors, comparison is the thief of joy, but go ahead and copy…
Media Coverage
- Authors, Trade Up Your Media Coverage In One Hour: A step-by-step plan to work trade publications into your book marketing plan
- Authors, Turn Your 'How' Into the Story: Use your writing process as a media angle or speaking topic
- When the Formula Fails, Follow the Tangents: How the side stories of you, your writing, and your books can lead to solid exposure and sales
Social Media
- Now, for Your Author Unboxing Video: Easy and brilliant — copy for your social media feeds
- Social Media Matters — A 31-Point Outreach Checkup for Your Microbusiness: Evaluate your engagement periodically to keep your marketing on track
Money and Financial
Getting Paid
- Authors, Expect to Get Paid: You are skilled, self-employed humans who bring value and are building businesses, so consider the math
- Freelancers, Here's How You Get Paid — Always and Mostly on Time: Don't get stiffed by clients again
- Two Ways Authors and Publishers Should Make More Money: Suggested corrections for the book publishing industry
- We Should All Be Millionaires: Rachel Rodgers makes a strong case and provides a map
Financing
Pricing
Productivity, Excellence, and Mindset
Mindset
- Authors, If Octavia Butler Could Write Down Her Audacious Goals, So Can You: This was her life…what's yours?
- Reframes for Keeping On When Your Author Life Feels Hard: Quick mindset shifts can go a long way for playing the long games of book publishing and book marketing
- Authors, Prepare for Your Threshold Guardians: They WILL be standing in the way of reaching your goals
- Authors, Some Will, Some Won't, So What? Someone's Waiting for you to reach out with your books and services
- Self-Talk Basics for Maintaining Your Solo Business in Tough Times: Attitude defaults for strength, support, and forward solutions
- The 3/1 Ratio You Need to Boost Your Creative and Business Work: A magic practice that will help you identify the areas you're excelling in and the areas where there is room for improvement
- Make Your Business Affirmations the 5 Types of Talk Your Brain Likes Best: 50 ways to love yourself and build your business
- How Meditation Can Boost Your Solo Business: 12 entry points to 'better' from going within
- Authors, Could It Be That You Are Just in the Middle of It?: 10 strategies for staying with a journey that is already underway even when it feels like there is no movement
- 10 Rules for Solo Pros and Freelancers With Boundary Issues: Is the inability to say "no" getting in the way of your success?
- 10 Ways to Outmatch Your Under-Developed Author Business: Outsmart the discomfort and hop on an upward spiral
- The Lesson of Smurf for Your Author Impostor Syndrome: Bluff your way through like an academic and you'll be just fine
- Lower the Bar on Your Author Business for Better Results: The high value of making yourself right, right now, and building from there
- Cushioning Your Business Life Changes More Than You Can Imagine: What if you had enough of everything in your practice to minimize worries and problems, disappointments and resentments?
- A Love Letter to Authors from 1979 on How to Get What You Really Want: Barbara Sher's Old School and ahead-of-its-time "wishcraft"
Productivity
- The Enduring Productivity Hacks from 30+ Years of Self-Employment
- Authors, Ask Your Body for Answers and Sleep or Meditate on It: For every 11,000,000 sensory inputs to our body, we're aware of about 40
- Leverage These 28 Powerful Ideas from the World of Coaching: Tools for supporting personal effectiveness and meaningful, high-quality, creative work
- 50 Ways to Leave the Sidelines (for Authors): Name your goals, show up and do the work, claim your rewards
- The Power of Leaving Things Half Done (Until Later): Building hard stops into life and work changes everything
- 5 Five-Star Ways to Approach Productivity and Time Management: A book recommendation journey
- Saved by the Bell Is an Underappreciated Way to Build an Author Enterprise: The scheduling trick that supports incremental and ongoing business success
- This Montessori Fundamental Didn't Work for My Kid but It's a Gem for Business: Make each action effective by setting the stage for what's next
- We Should All Read "Refuse to Choose" Post-Pandemic: In a way, we're all "scanners" now
Excellence
- The Difference Between Author Dreaming and Author Doing: The number one investment for authors according to Warren Buffett
- Authors, Are You Paying a "Knowledge Tax" on Your Business Development Activities? What's the cost of not knowing what you don't know?
- Authors, Do Your Research or Phone a Publishing Friend: There are real costs to not knowing what you don't know
- 6 Tools from the World of Quality for Improving and Solving Almost Anything: First, there exists a world of capital-Q Quality
Reading Books
Relationships and Communication
Asking
- Get Used to Asking for Help in Your Author Business: 40 things you can ask for as you learn the joy of receiving, accepting, reaching out, and appreciating others' generosity
- Authors, When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Ask Questions: Curiosity for mindset, approach, results
Communication
- Change Your Style of Inquiry and Watch Your Business Thrive in New Ways
- 6 Ways to Honor in Others the Fundamental Good of Self-Determination: Practicing a key concept of coaching and mediation can upgrade your personal and business communication
Presence
- How to Use Presence in the Brave New Uncertain World of Business: The attractiveness of the present moment offers opportunities
- Enhancing Your Presence in Life, Work, and Relationships: 5 areas to explore for showing up and being there
- What Is 'Presence' and How Does It Aid in Communication and Conflict Management? 11 resources for exploring elements and concepts of being there for it
- Embrace Presence in Face of the New Not Normal: Cozy up to the attractiveness of the present
Relationships
- Join the Favors Economy This Year: Trade in the invisible currency of paying it forward
- Relationship Building for Authorpreneurship, Part 1 of 5: 50 easy ways to build sustainable connections for your author business and general social satisfaction
- Relationship Building for Authorpreneurship, Part 2 of 5: Ideas #11-#20 for supporting a sustainable author business with connections
- Relationship Building for Authorpreneurship, Part 3 of 5: Ideas #21–30 of 50 to keep your author business growing through fond and interesting connections
- Relationship Building for Authorpreneurship, Part 4 of 5: Lead your communities and constituencies by modeling pro-social behaviors
- Relationship Building for Authorpreneurship, Part 5 of 5: Make it enjoyable, keep it real, and incorporate it into your daily life
- Putting Yourself in Another's Shoes Doesn't Work: Dale Carnegie was wrong; what to do instead
Sales, Customers, and Doing 5 Things a Day
Customers
- A Nancy Drew Mystery Solved for Side Hustlers with Physical Products: The Case of the Overperforming Apple Orchard
- When You Know Better, Serve Others with a Re-Direct: "I can do that, but I shouldn't"
Doing 5 Things a Day
- What Doing 5 Things a Day Every Day to Promote Your Books Looks Like in Practice (Marketing/Sales Focus): A proposed 30-day approach for middle-grade author Carolyn Armstrong
- What Doing 5 Things a Day Every Day to Promote Your Books Looks Like in Practice (Sales Focus): Case study: A 90-day schedule of actively working to sell the book Seattle Neon
Sales
- The 30-Day Challenge That Will Kickstart Any Side Hustle: Do you accept? It's not for the faint of heart
- Borrow Words from the Best: Add Mimicry to Your Communication Repertoire: The power of other people's phrases and templates for results and finding your voice
- Build Your Author Enterprise Through Service Marketing: An idea, a mindset, and a formula of 'yes, I can' is how I built a 100% referral business
Self-Coaching for Authors
- Authors, 28 Big Ideas from the World of Coaching: Engage the power of your own wisdom, creativity, and choices to support your book marketing, business activities, and author life
- Prepare a Meta Tool Box, 1 of 28
- Creativity, 2 of 28
- Responsibility, 3 of 28
- Setting the Agenda and the Takeaway, 4 of 28
- Open-Ended Questions, 5 of 28
- Peeling the Onion, 6 of 28
- Shifting, 7 of 28
- Admitting the Arrival, 8 of 28
- Accountability, 9 of 28
- Being with Yourself and Not Your Problems, 10 of 28
- Balance, 11 of 28
- Self-Care, 12 of 28
- Slowing It Down, 13 of 28
- Being Not Doing, 14 of 28
- Possibility Thinking, 15 of 28
- Idealizing, 16 of 28
- Right, Right Now, 17 of 28
- Getting Curious, 18 of 28
- Setting Intentions, 19 of 28
- Taking Action, 20 of 28
- Video Game Hero, 21 of 28
- Plenty, 22 of 28
- Gratitude, 23 of 28
- Priorities and Nested Priorities, 24 of 28
- Costs, Benefits, Tradeoffs, Tipping the Scale, 25 of 28
- Loving, 26 of 28
- Playing Big, 27 of 28
- Self as Authority, 28 of 28
Writing
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Sharon Woodhouse is the owner of Conspire Creative, which offers strategic collaboration services for post-publishing author rewards: coaching, publishing consulting, project management, and author business development/management.