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It took me a long time to figure out I’m not just an author. I am also a business woman.

Like many authors, I’ve wondered how an essentially creative act could become a business. The author and the business woman are often at odds and they are never comfortable together.

Fortunately I’m used to having more than one person in my head and have learned to deal. Well, mostly. That business woman is really kind of uptight. Not to mention bossy.
For the first few years of my writing career, I spent a lot of time learning how to hone my writing skills, finding my voice, educating myself on how to edit and polish my work, and developing the habit of tapping into my creative well when I needed to, not when the Muse wanted to give me access.

While this helped me write better books, none of it prepared me to become a small business owner.

“What the freak?” some of you may be asking. “That’s so out of left field. I’m an author.”

Did you know that “author” isn’t on the list of IRS occupation codes? To them, we can be many things, but never an author. That doesn’t stop me from asserting it on my 1040, but on my Schedule C…use the big magnifying glass. You won’t find it.
As a small press author/business woman, I can make some choices not always available to “big time” authors. I have more control over what rights I assign in a contract and almost total control over any promotion efforts.

That can be either a good thing or not so good, if you’re shy like me.

But I had to face the hard reality that as my business’s owner, I have a lot of responsibility for my books’ success or failure, both creatively and financially. More responsibility than my publisher, who has more books than mine to work on.
There are many business resources I’ve had to learn to handle—including myself.
I’m in charge of contracting and promoting my product. And I have to manage my revenue stream—incoming and outgoing. I have to deal with customer relations, networking, product placement and market research.

I’m not saying I don’t whine about it. A lot. But that doesn’t make it go away or make a business manager magically appear.

I made some mistakes early on and was lucky that the recovery was relatively painless. I’ve seen too many new authors neglect their small business until something goes wrong and by then decisions have been made that can’t be undone, problems have been created that can’t be easily solved and bridges have been burned that can’t be rebuilt. Sadly, sometimes intellectual property rights can get tied up so that the author can no longer benefit from them.

“If only I’d known…” are the saddest four words from an author’s mouth. But please don’t let fear of making a mistake keep you from stepping outside your comfort zone. I’ve done things I never though I’d do, like phone-in radio shows. It made me sick to my stomach, but it didn’t kill me.

I have a quote stuck to my computer monitor: “Live the life you imagine.” Thoreau wrote it and he’d know, wouldn’t he?