Here's the skinny.:

I've been reading publishing industry news since 7th grade. I'm no expert on the industry, but I'm well-read and now I'm dabbling into the industry professionally. Something that's gotten my attention lately is the realization that some authors don't see themselves for what they are: entrepreneurs.

What is an entrepreneur?

One who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.

Thanks, Merriam-Webster.

So, let's review what authors do. They take a risk of partnering with a publishing house, hoping that they both can see a profit through book sales. No sales mean all people involved are broke, because printing and distributing a book is a big investment.

If you aren't selling books, then you're burning money on production.

So, what does an entrepreneur NEED to know to gain sales?

Marketing.

Advertising.

Public Relations.

I've noticed that some authors aren't well educated on these things. I'm not going to get into whether or not that's the publisher's responsibility, because that discussion is dependent on too many variables for one Odyssey post.

What I will say is that regardless if your publishing house provides those three services, authors need to be hands-on as well to maximize exposure and potential revenue.

Why? Because AUTHORS ARE ENTREPRENEURS.

We need to understand marketing strategies and advertising design to utilize Google Ad Words and Facebook Ads and print advertising.

We need to know what a public relations/marketing plan is and how to write them.

We need to know how to write a great press release and how to interact with the media.

We need to have integrated social media plans that direct traffic to our websites.

We need to have a website that is beautiful and efficient at directing traffic to e-commerce options for our books.

We need to do this in partnership with our publishing houses if they have those resources, and we need to know how to lone-wolf it if they don't.

Spending upwards of a decade writing the book isn't enough. Readers won't know it's out there until you tell them.

I am an author, which means I am an entrepreneur.

No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.