Business Strategies

Every strategy in this section has been building toward a single question: what are you actually trying to build? The five-year plan is where you answer that question with enough specificity to make every intermediate decision more intentional.

Is This a Hobby or a Business? The Decision That Changes Everything Short Description: Before you can build a strategy for your publishing career, you need to answer one honest question: are you building a business or pursuing a hobby? Both are valid. But the answer changes every decision that follo

As an indie author, you are simultaneously the creative talent, the publisher, the marketer, the accountant, and the business strategist of your own company. The CEO mindset is about holding all of those roles consciously rather than accidentally.

Indie publishing follows four natural phases, each with its own priorities and challenges. Learn where you are, what to focus on next, and how to build a lasting author career.

Multiple pen names solve real problems for authors who write across genuinely different genres or heat levels — but they multiply operational complexity and split marketing attention. This article covers when the business case is real and how to manage the complexity when it is.

Pricing a book is a decision. Pricing a catalog is a strategy. This article covers how to build a pricing architecture that works coherently across your entire catalog — signaling the right value at each stage, enabling promotional flexibility, and growing appropriately with your career.

Your backlist is the income-generating asset that makes indie publishing a viable long-term career rather than a series of launches. This article covers how to build one deliberately, how to think about it as a portfolio, and how to manage it so it keeps earning rather than going quietly quiet.

Most indie authors rely on just a few income streams. Learn about every major revenue source, from ebooks to foreign rights, and discover where your next income could come from.

Most author goals are either too vague to be useful or too focused on outcomes outside their control. This article covers how to set goals that are specific, achievable, and connected to the business activities that actually move your career forward.