Author-preneur

 No one ever told me that writing and publishing books means starting a business! 

To be fair, someone might have mentioned it at some point. I was probably too busy daydreaming plot outlines to really take it in. Regardless, it was a bit of a surprise when I received the contract for my first novel and saw the listed requirements.

Here are the specifics that threw me the most loopy: 

Social Media Presence - including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook - with regular posts: At the time, I had a facebook account that I used maybe once a month, had a vague idea what Instagram was and I totally had to google Twitter. And regular posts? What the what was I supposed to post about?

A website: Used them, yes. Building one was another story. 

(ha, see what I did there?)

Goodreads account: I had one I set up years ago, but hadn't updated in probably three years.

Not to mention Book Marketing, Building a Brand, Creating Content, and Finding My Readers.

That last sentence might as well have been written in Taiwanese. Yeah, no idea.

Good news though, no man is an island. There is TONS of help for anyone trying to start anything. Besides mentors, friends and classes, there's YouTube! You can learn pretty much anything on YouTube.

YouTube can teach you how to charm a snake, magically fold clothes, sing the alphabet backwards, stack dice with cups, smoke tuna using toilet paper, bake a sloth cake, make kombacha - should I go on? I think we get the point, yeah?

There are a gazillion and one ways to learn how to do anything you want to do, and starting a business - specifically as an author - is no exception. I've come a long way since I read through my first contract with a highlighter, making sure I knew what I was supposed to do. I've figured out most of the things. Enough to know that there is never going to be a point when I'm going to have all the things figured out! 

And you know what? That's totally okay. I love learning, I love staying curious, I love taking classes and I love seeing all the different ways something can be done, then choosing what works best for me. Like anything else - Authorpreneuring is a journey!