The first chapter from How to Build a Powerful Writer's Platform in 90 Days instructs you to do several things: first, figure out how much the book has actually cost you to produce by calculating the amount of time and money you've invested into it and the value of those things; second, calculate how many books you must sell in order to recoup that money by dividing your cost of production by the amount of profits per book you will make; third, to calculate - based on a 2-3% response rate - how large a following you must have in order to make that many sales; and fourth, to envision what a day as a successful author with a large fan following will be like for you.
There are three books that I'm working on producing right now. I'll use my How to Write book as an example. It took me 8 weeks to produce the rough draft. It will likely take me another 8 weeks to produce the second draft. Six more weeks after that for editing and proof reading. I produced my own book cover, so I don't have to pay someone to do that for me, but it's a value of $200 worth of work. I'll likely want to pay someone this time around to have it edited, so add in another $500. The total production hours are 320 at 40 an hour which means $12,800 worth of work. Add the $200 for the cover that brings it to $13,000 and then the $500 for editing and $500 for marketing, for a total of $14,000 to produce.
I intend to charge $20 per book. It will cost me $5 per book to print, so my profit is $15. That means I need to sell a minimum of 935 copies. For every 1000 people on my mailing list, I can expect 20 of those to take action and buy the book. That means I need 47,000 people on my mailing list in order to hit the break even point, and 50,000 to actually turn a profit. That's not impossible to do, but it will require a lot of work on my part. I could charge more, but I run the risk of alienating the audience and making them skeptical of its value.
Here is how I will spend my day as a successful author who is "helping writers get from chapter one to done so you can write the world a better place". I spend the morning checking fan mail, logging it and the subject matter along with my notes for following up. I will follow up with fan mail in one of three ways: video, blog post, or personal thank you.
Blog posts come if several people are asking the same question. Video responses will be for questions or letters that are somehow unique and interesting. I will then spend the next couple of hours checking and responding to social media outlets such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. After that, it's time to work on my next book, inspired by the needs expressed by my fans. Finally, it's time to craft and post the next blog post. Once a week I will do a book signing, once a week I will give a free seminar either online or in person, and twice a week I will host writing classes.
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