A Writer’s Business Plan

 don’t know how to talk about goal setting for writing without talking about my SNAP plan. Until a year and a half ago I hadn’t thought about treating my writing like a business. I just “followed the muse” and wrote a little of this, a little of that…when I was in the mood.

I was all over the place. I knew I was supposed to create some kind of body of work that my readers could identify me by. For example: “Oh, she’s the author who writes historical fantasies for children, I just love her!”

The trouble was, I didn’t know what I wrote. I had ideas for books for girls, books for boys, books for women, Christian novels, secular novels, magazine articles, and even a non-fiction book or two. I was spread out and not concentrating my efforts on any one thing.

So, despite holding a business degree (ahem), I had no business plan for my writing. A little embarrassing.

Enter Kay Lockner over at Author MBA. Brilliant. The three of us took her SNAP planning course when she offered it as an online class.

She led us through the steps of defining our purpose and vision for our writing. We looked at the big picture, and then defined the steps needed to get there. We didn’t just look at the projects we were working on. We looked at our career goals, our image, our brand, etc. The whole package.

We defined measurable and dated goals for each area of the writer’s business plan: production, marketing, professional development, and a wild card goal.

In the end we had a one-sheet Vision Plan and a one-sheet Action Plan. (FYI—this Routines for Writers website was one of the items on my SNAP plan. Thanks, Kay! Something else I can cross off the plan.)

Creating a business plan was probably the single most important step I have taken in my writing life. If forced me to really think about what I was doing and how I was going to achieve my dreams.

Good news for you—Author MBA is now offering the class as a simple download. You can go there and take a peek at the free preview (click here) to see if it is something that will help you. I highly recommend you purchase the full download and work your way through it all. (Don’t worry!  It’s very affordable and well-worth your time.)

You’ve got a couple weeks left in 2008. Use these last few days to organize and focus your thoughts. Think about all the different areas you’ll want to work on. Then, in January you can start working the plan.