Essential Business Skills for Authors

Welcome to the final installment of our four-part series of essential skills for published novelists!

As a reminder, the overall categories are:

• Essential Writing Skills
• Essential Marketing Skills 
• Essential Emotional Skills
• Essential Business Skills (today's post!)

Before I share the essential business skills, another quick reminder: 

Please do not let this list overwhelm you.

There is no hurry to master these skills. You can approach them one at a time, and you don't need to master something before you move on.

You'll try things. See what works. Make adjustments. Try again. Over time, you'll figure out what works best for you and your unique process. 

This also isn't an exhaustive list. 

I intentionally limited myself to the top 3-4 skills per category, and I picked the ones that come up most often in my conversations with authors. There are more skills involved in creating a sustainable, joy-centered career than what I could include here.

If you want tailored support for your author goals, you can click here to learn more about coaching.

Okay, let's dive in! 
 

Understanding Contract Terms

At the risk of pointing out the obvious here: the most essential, fundamental business skill you'll want to tackle as an author is understanding the terms of your publishing contract.

On the surface, it's simply a good idea to know what you're agreeing to before you sign something with that many zeros attached. 

Deeper than that, though, is the amount of angst and stress you can relieve for yourself by preventing misunderstandings and keeping an eye out for contract terms that might bite you in the ass later on.

I've talked before about the different publication territories your contract may cover (check out that post here), but some of the key parts of the contract you really want to understand include the Non-Compete and Option clauses. 

These two clauses have a major impact on whether you'll be able to sell another book before fully completing this current contract (which is hugely important if you want to have multiple contracts going to balance your author income). 

The option cause in particular causes a lot of angst for debut authors who are navigating that process for the first time. I've gotten so many questions about options that I recorded an entire podcast about that process. You can listen to that here.

If you don't understand the terms in your contract, my best tip is to rewrite any sections you're unsure about into regular English and run that by your agent. A simple, "This is what I think section X means. Is this right?" can provide a lot of clarity. 
 

 
Handling Your Finances

If money talk stresses you out, you're not alone. 

There's a lot of money trauma out there, and there is a ton of wild societal shit at play around finances. Racist lending policies that were legal for a long time. Women not having the right to open credit cards without a husband or male relative as a co-signer until 1974 (no matter how much money she made at her job!). My mom was 7 years old then! My grandmothers were in their 30s! 

We see this trickle out into traditional money advice. Men are encouraged to earn more and progress in their careers while women are taught to be good "savers" and shamed for spending "frivolously."

So if money stuff feels overwhelming or you genuinely think you're "not good with money," know that this is likely a combination of socialization and simply a lack of education. It's highly unlikely anyone ever taught you helpful ways to think about and manage your money.

Unwinding all of that is beyond the scope of what I can do here (but if you want to work on it, reach out for a consultation to talk about private coaching), but here are a few places to start.

Check out this post for a transparent overview of my personal earnings as an author since my first book deal in 2017. It includes links to a blank version of the spreadsheet I use for tracking all my author income.

Next, you can read this post for information about the benefits of opening an LLC, having a separate business bank account, and how to pay yourself out of your author earnings.

Finally, I talk about how to make decisions about where to invest your money (as far as character art, travel for conferences, hiring a coach, etc.) in this post.

And my biggest piece of money advice? Hire an excellent accountant. They are worth their weight in gold. 

 
Professional Communication

The final skill I decided to highlight for this post is how you communicate with your publishing team.

If you've found your way to my corner of the internet, I assume you're not an asshole who sends wild demands to your team. If you're like most of my clients (and author friends), you're probably more the "I don't want to bother anyone or rock any boats" type.

To communicate professionally with your team, you first need to define what professional even means. 

This may seem obvious, but I really encourage you to take a moment and jot down your personal definition. I've coached enough authors about this to know that our unexamined definitions of "professional" are often laced with people pleasing, hold-overs from toxic corporate environments, and a general lack of confidence. 

As an author, you are a vital part of the book making process! You have unique expertise and skills! Your editor isn't your employer. (You can read more about this mindset on this post.)

There are professional ways to ask for deadline extensions. It's not inherently unprofessional to turn in a book that isn't the very best you could possibly make it if you had infinite time to tinker. 

Ultimately, I believe the foundation of "being professional" is honest communication and setting clear expectations.

Don't feel amazing about the draft you're turning in? Email your editor. Let them know the draft is in rough shape. Ask them whether they want to look at what you've got now or if they'd prefer you take more time to revise first. (Different editors have different preferences so it's important to ask!) 

Just want to get the book off your plate but know that it's a mess? Set clear expectations. "Here's the first draft. The ending is really sparse and the character arcs are a bit all over the place, but I'm not sure whether the better solution is to do X or Y with it, and I'd love your input before I keep going."

Told your agent you'd have a full draft for them to read but now you're stuck after act 1 and want their insight? It's okay to ask! "I'm having X issue with the first act of this new idea, and I'd love to get your feedback on what I have before I keep going. I'm worried I might need to take this in a totally different direction and don't want to get too deep into it if that's the case."

Final Thoughts

With each of the business skills I covered today, the biggest challenge isn't the technical knowledge. It's shifting how you see yourself.

If you see yourself as someone who simply got lucky and doesn't deserve to be published, it's going to be near impossible to communicate confidently with your team.  

If you believe you're bad with money or aren't "smart enough" to track your finances, you're likely to avoid looking at your numbers at all (which often causes bigger messes later). 

The work of shifting how you see yourself is exactly what we do in coaching. Click here to schedule a free consultation to discuss how private coaching can help you with any of the foundational skills I covered in this 4-part series. 

Happy writing,
Isabel 

PS - I currently have space open for new private clients. Click here to learn more and schedule a free consultation. 

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