What should be in an author business plan?
- An author business plan is short and strategic, not a corporate document.
- Five core parts: catalog, audience, release cadence, budget, rights.
- Catalog is your current and planned books as an asset base.
- Release cadence sets how often you publish.
- Rights covers what you own and can still license.
An author business plan should cover five parts: your catalog (the books you have and plan to write, as income-producing assets), your audience (who reads you and how you reach them), your release cadence (how often you publish), your budget (what you spend on editing, design, and marketing, against expected income), and your rights (what you own and can still license — print, audio, foreign, film). It is a short strategy document, not a corporate plan.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Most authors operate book to book with no view of the catalog as a whole, leaving money and momentum on the table — unlicensed rights, an erratic release schedule, a budget with no plan. A simple five-part business plan turns a pile of individual books into a managed catalog with a cadence and a strategy. It is the difference between writing books and building a publishing business.
Chapter ii·What to include
- Catalog: current and planned books as assets.
- Audience: who reads you and the channels that reach them.
- Release cadence: your publishing frequency.
- Budget: spend on production and marketing against income.
- Rights: what you own and can still license.
- A short format you will actually revisit and update.
Chapter iii·Example
A genre author writes a two-page business plan: her catalog (four published, three planned across one series and one standalone), her audience (cozy-mystery readers reached by newsletter and Facebook groups), a cadence of two books a year, a per-book budget for editing and ads, and a rights table showing audio and foreign still unlicensed. The plan reveals two income streams she had been ignoring.
WriteLoom holds your catalog, audience, cadence, budget, and rights in one place, so your business plan stays current instead of forgotten.
Build your plan