Every book needs a business plan. I don’t care if you write nonfiction or fiction, if you plan on self-publishing or traditionally publishing, a business plan helps you produces a book that can succeed in today’s highly competitive publishing marketplace. The reason why is simple: A business plan helps you produce a marketable book—one that sells.

Think Like a Business Person

Not only that, creating a business plan before you write a word of your manuscript trains you to think like a business person. You need that mindset if you are going to help your book succeed through the creation, publication and promotion stages of publishing a book.

After all, you want to create a book that sells. (Publishing is the business of selling books after all.) You don’t want to write a book that no one ever buys, which means no one ever reads.

Why Your Book Needs a Business Plan

Here are eight reasons to create a business plan for your book:

• Reason #1: You can find out if you know what your book is about and why someone would want to read (buy) it.
• Reason #2: You can analyze how many people really might buy your book.
• Reason #3: You can discover if your idea is unique and necessary.
• Reason #4: You can examine the structure for your book and see if it is sound.
• Reason #5: You can decide if your book’s content matches your initial vision of your book.
• Reason #6: You can rate your ability to create a brand and become an authorpreneur.
• Reason #7: You can weigh whether you are the best person to write your book and decide on the best time to publish.
• Reason #8: You can gauge if you make a good publishing partner or indie publisher.

Evaluate Your Book for Marketability

As you can see, when you go to the time and trouble of creating a business plan for your book, you actually go through an evaluation process. It teaches you many things about your idea. You then can improve upon your idea so you produce the best book possible—a book that your readers really need or want and that is unique in your category. That’s a marketable book—and a successful one.

Learn more about how to create a business plan for a book in The Author Training Manual: Develop Marketable Ideas, Craft Books That Sell, Become the Author Publishers Want, and Self-Publish Effectively.