In today’s Publetariat Dispatch, author and publishing consultant Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. explains how to write a one-page business plan, and why it’s important for self-publishers to do so.

This week, we’re pleased to promote another post from member Joseph C. Kunz Jr.‘s Publetariat blog to the front page.

Whether you are about to  self-publish your first book, or start a  micro-niche publishing company,  you need to have business plan in  place. A business plan will give you a  basic road map for your new  business. An easy and quick way to do this  is to create a one-page  business plan. This will let you  quickly clarify your own thinking  about your new business. This short,  one-page plan can also be used as  an outline for a longer more in-depth  plan. With some research, you  should be able to complete this one-page  plan in under one week. Here  is a list of five questions that you must  include in your simplified,  one-page business plan.

1. WHY do you want to self-publish?
Your answer cannot be only about the money. It needs something more than   that. It also needs to be short, very specific, and very personal.

Examples:
a. “I want to write a book that will help new nurses be more   productive, more effective, and more marketable in today’s tight job   market.”

b. “I want to write small-business   management books so that I can share my knowledge and expertise with   others that would like to start their own small-business. I gained this   knowledge and experience over the last 35 years while starting and   managing my own successful small-business.”

c. “I want to write and self-publish a book to give myself more credibility in the eyes of my peers.”

2. WHAT will you write about?
Explain it in one sentence, in very specific detail. You must understand what you writing niche, or specialty, will be.

Examples:
a. “I will write and publish books about all aspects of self-publishing for people who have not written a book before.”

b. “I will write a how-to book for experienced nurses who want to advance to become part of nursing management in a hospital.”

c. “I will write a how-to guide for new parents who are raising a deaf child.”

3. WHO is your market?
You must narrow this down to a very specific group of people. Your   answer cannot be “everybody and anybody”. You must know exactly who buys   your type of book. You only have a limited amount of time and money  for  marketing and promotion. You must target your best efforts at those  who  are most likely to buy your book. Keep your answer down to a few  tight  sentences.

a. “The market for my book is American   nursing students that are in nursing school, or have just graduated as   RN’s with an AS or BS degree in nursing and are searching for their   first job. They are generally females between 20 and 26 years of age.   Half of them like to read a hard-copy of a book; the other half like to   read the ebook version. They are very worried about getting a job after   graduation, because the nursing shortage has ended.”

4. HOW do you define success?
You might spend the next twelve months writing your first book. And then   a year later you are selling less than 8 copies a month on Amazon.   Therefore, you must come to terms with what success means to you. Does   success mean seeing your name on the cover of a book? Does it mean being   able to give each of your customers a copy of your book so that they   will have more admiration and respect for you? Does success mean getting   letters and emails from people who read your book – telling you that   your book has helped them in some positive way? We all can agree that   making a lot of money is great – and is possible as a self-publisher –   but it cannot be your only motivation for writing a book. Therefore, you   should write a paragraph here about how you define success for your   book.

5. HOW hard are you willing to work at it?
How much time and hard work are you willing to put into your   self-publishing venture? This is probably the step that you must put the   most honest thinking and most thought into. Are you willing to spend   most of your time marketing and selling your book? Your book might take 6   to 12 months to write. But you will spend the next several years   marketing and promoting it. Are you willing to put yourself out there   and market and promote yourself, your name, and your book, the for next   several years?  Are you willing to keep writing and building your next   book? The more time and effort that you put into your self-publishing   venture, the more success you will have. It will be much easier to go   the distance if you love your subject matter. And the more you love your   subject matter, the more successful you will be at self-publishing. It   is as simple as that.

This article was written by Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. and originally posted on KunzOnPublishing.com