Write Up a Business Plan for Your Writing

New Year's resolutions are notorious for failing. We usually pick those life changes that have kicked our tails for years - even decades. Do not treat your writing career as a "resolution" item. Writing is a business. A serious business. As writers, we often do not wish to see this aspect of our craft. We'd rather kick back with our muse and run until our little keyboard riding fingers drop off our hands than approach the business side of writing.

Many of you have found the going tough out there. Writing is not a profession you pursue for riches. Most writers never see big money. By most, I mean the vast majority. That fact does not mean that there is not money to be made. Jettison those delusions of grandeur for a moment and concentrate on something that will pay the bills - a writing business plan.

I own the luxury of having been in management for over twenty-five years. I recognize the need for a solid business plan to pull me through the year. In fact, a really sharp writer will write a one-year, two-year and five-year plan. Before you click off screaming at me and the monitor about how you hate this and I'm slaying your muse, grasp reality's last shred of sanity and read on.

Did you make enough money from your writing to support yourself in 2009? If so, do you know how much you spent, how much you made and where all the money went? A good business plan is a strong step to taking care of all those issues. If we can make enough money to support ourselves, then we can be free to write more, correct?

The first rule of thumb in a business plan is 'if it can be measured, it can be managed'. This philosophy calls for you placing a dollar figure to a number of writing related things. You must also place a realistic 'time' measurement to the tasks you performed to make those dollars. It would not do to be making $3/hr writing now would it?

Step back and look at all the money you made from writing in 2009. Break it out into identifiable categories. Trade magazine sales. Book sales (if you have multiple books, list sales by title). Consumer magazine sales. Contest money won. You get the point.

Next, attempt to attach how much time you spent in each category. You can use these two items to get a very simple dollars-per-hour pay rate. Which category produced the most gross income? Which category produced the most money per hour?

See? Just by looking at these two items, you have something to measure, something you can base your business plan on. Project where you want to be by next January financially speaking from your writing efforts. Take the figures you collected above and project how you can increase those numbers.

Let's say you want to make $10K from writing in 2010. Your numbers from 2009 were only $3K. You should take into account what made you the most money and what made you the most money per hour. Can you see yourself pumping these two categories up? Let's say you have a book that made $750 and magazine articles brought in $1700 at a $20-hr rate.

Books are notorious for not making you good money. Books tend to open doors for you in the form of speaking engagements or magazine article writing or offshoot products. Marketing and promoting a book is time consuming and costly. In the above scenario, you should focus on writing more magazine articles, making them relate to your book (to drive book sales and promote future books as well as increase your name recognition).and devote a smaller portion of your time to your book.

Determine out how you can increase your income from these two categories by breaking out a plan on a monthly basis based on 2009's money. If your plan calls for writing 4 articles a month and two book signings per month, write up a plan (yes, on paper) of how you are going to do this and give yourself tasks weekly and daily that will get you there.

One very wise mentor of mine keeps 13 queries out to trade magazines at all times. This way she is able to snag some trade magazine money (which can be fairly lucrative) and she does not have to constantly be writing queries. When a query is rejected, she writes up another. When one is accepted, she does the same thing.

Yes, I know. Getting this started can be a bear. Remember to break down into achievable tasks on a daily, weekly and monthly basis how you are going to get to your goal. 13 queries may not be feasible in a week. So commit to writing one a day for three weeks. Once you get them written and sent out, then it is a maintenance item.

Book promotion should be done, as another of my mentors says, on a five-whacks-a-day basis. His philosophy is that you should do five things each day that promote your book. This can be a Hub Pages article, a blog, a post on Facebook, Twitter, etc., or contacting a radio station for an interview or any number of the thousands of ways to promote. Five a day. I would say to pick four things that can be handled quickly and one that may take a half hour or so.

The key here is to write all this down in plan form. I know, I know. We don't like that left-brained crap. But if we want more of the right-brain nirvana, we MUST address the analytical side. We must plan. We must track what we're doing and we must measure our successes and failures. BOTH direct us toward our goal. Failures are often godsends. Failures can show us not only what NOT to do, but can give us creative ideas on ways to make our attempt happen in the future.

Write down your goal for 2010. Break this goal down into monthly tasks that will get you there. Do this on paper. Break down your monthly tasks into weekly tasks making sure that everything you wish to have done in each month is achieved through your weekly tasks. Then break it down daily. Map out how you are going to approach each week on a daily basis. Yes, WRITE IT DOWN! Then, each day, look over your tasks, prioritize them and get to it.

This is basic, basic stuff. I'm sure most of us have been told to do this at some point or another. You are going nowhere without a plan. WITH a plan, you have something to measure. Your income versus your plan will tell you if you need to change anything, revise or even start over.

If you want to reach a destination, you get a map and begin your trek. If you want to achieve a goal, you build a plan and implement it. The time you put into planning and putting actionable tasks to your plan is an investment in yourself. I view that kind of investment as far more valuable than anything Wall Street can sell me. How about you?