M. L. Ronn - The Indie Author Strategy Guide

This book is a guide on how to think about your author strategy. It wont tell you what your strategy should be. Instead, it will help you craft your strategy on your terms.

If you're looking for "the silver bullet" or "the lazy person's guide" to author success, do me a favor and put this book down. I wrote this to help people think long term, not get rich quickly. If you think that writing will make you insanely rich overnight or that you can find a paint-by-numbers answer to all your problems in the pages of a book, then you're going to be sorely disappointed.

If you're still reading, let's talk about a topic that I find endlessly fun and fascinating.

YOUR STRATEGY: AN ANALOGY

There is no such thing as a done-for-you author strategy. There is plenty of content online about how to build a business, but I've found that most of it doesn't quite fit the author business model.

Go to any entrepreneur blog, website, podcast, or YouTube channel. You'll undoubtedly hear things like "You've got to find a market need" or "You've got to understand your target audience" or "You've got to do a minimum viable product and grow from there."

Okaybut how does that apply to fiction writing? Nonfiction writing? The advice sounds great, but when you apply it, it doesn't make practical sense. The result is that authors find themselves surfing all over the web trying to get help on creating a winning strategy, often with varying results. I was one of those authors.

The author business model is unique. Entrepreneurs build products that fill a market need. Authors turn their imagination into profit. There's a huge difference. The author's imagination is the best part of the business model, but traditional business models don't know how to treat it. How does one account for "fun" and "imagination" in the world of business? It's next to impossible, which is why so much traditional business strategy is lousy for authors.

The best way I've learned to think about strategy is to think about it like cooking.

Here's what you need to cook a good meal:

• Ingredients
• Proper cooking technique
• Intuition

Without the proper ingredients, you can't cook at all. Sometimes, you don't have all the ingredients you need, so you have to improvise.

Without the proper cooking technique, you'll undercook, overcook, under season, or over season your food, and that won't do. The tools and equipment aren't that importanta skillet is a skillet is a skillet regardless of how much it costs. A chef can make a better meal with old cookware than a nonskilled cook with ultramodern, expensive cookware. Skill is everything.

Without intuition, you won't know what your dish needs. Sure, you might have a recipe, but a recipe isn't heart and soul. A recipe might call for a certain amount of turmeric, but upon tasting it, you'll sense that it needs more. Or you may add another spice that the recipe didn't call for because your tastebuds tell you to do it.

Youll create an amazing dish, mix amazing ingredients, cook them just right, and use your intuition to tell you what the food needs. And, of course, it'll taste good.

Strategy is no different.

• You need the right strategic ingredients.
• You need proper execution of those ingredients.
• You need strong intuition to tell you where to go, what to look for, and how to adjust your strategy accordingly.

It's that simple, and that hard.

If you know how to cook, then you already know everything you need to craft a clear and compelling author strategy. Follow the exercises in this book, season to taste, and you'll be surprised at what you can do.

WHY I'M QUALIFIED TO WRITE THIS BOOK

In my "real world" career in insurance, I am currently an executive at a global insurance company. My job is to set a strategy for my department and execute it. My job performance is based on how well I do. It's high pressure, high risk, and high reward. The possibility of failure is ever-present. The truth is that every plan fails in some way. I haven't seen a plan that doesn't have a weakness of some kind. The secret is being nimble so you can pivot and apply failures forward.

In the writing world, I'm the author of over 60 science fiction and fantasy novels and self-help guides for writers. I run the popular YouTube channel for writers, "Author Level Up", which, at the time of this writing, has over 35,000 subscribers and over one million lifetime views. Every minute of every day, someone is watching one of my videos on YouTube. I have applied the lessons in strategy I've learned to my own author career, and I've achieved great results.

I've spoken about writing to crowds of over 1,000 people: 20 Books Vegas and multiple Writer's Digest conferences. I've also been a featured guest on major writing shows such as "The Creative Penn."

I built my writing career while working a demanding career in insurance, raising a family, and attending law school classes in the evenings. I write five to ten books per year, sometimes more. I'm not a full-time writer yet, but I'm working pretty hard to get there.

One reason I've been successful so far in my career (and life) is because I'm a good strategician. Yes, I made that word up. It's a portmanteau between strategy and tactician, with a flair of magic! I know how to think in terms of a broader strategic vision (strategy) and also how to think about executing that vision (tactics). In this book, I'll show you how to do that.

Ive used some of the ideas in this book to build a successful writing business to generates a profit each year and the freedom to take my business where I want. I hope that this book will help you do the same.

M.L. Ronn

Des Moines, Iowa

September 5, 2021

"What's your why?"

It's one of the most clichd questions in the entrepreneurial world, but it's important.

Why are you a writer? Are you just doing it for the money, or are you doing it because you genuinely love telling stories? Or is it something else?

Everyone has a different why. There's no right or wrong answer; just yours.

Many writers burn out because they don't connect with their passion. They chase market trends and write books that suit the market rather than their own mental health. Instead of finding a healthy balance, they put all their hopes on writing to market. It's no wonder they wake up one day burned out.

If you know your why, you're more likely to pick projects that nourish you and make you money. You're also less likely to burn out.