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It’s January 12th.

For those of you who don’t know, today is Jeff Bezos’ birthday.

While I don’t think Amazon is my friend, and I really don’t believe that they always have my best interests at heart, I also am aware that I make a lot of money by selling books via Amazon KDP.

Jeff has made my life possible, in many ways. Otherwise, I’d still be grinding away at a day job. I wouldn’t have published half the books I have.

So for the last few years, Knotted Road Press has put out a book on Jeff’s birthday. It’s always been a “Business for Breakfast” book.

This year is no exception.

Here’s the blurb:

So. You’d like to take your publishing business to the next level, and want to create a business plan to help you get there.

But all of those stupid business books make no sense. They were not written for you.

The writers of those books mean well. But they’re talking to other business types and MBAs. If you hate spreadsheets, and have problems understanding business books, this one (and this series!) may be just what you need.

The background. Actually – this is the beginning of the intro. I was, and still remain, pissed off about this.

Introduction to Business for Breakfast, Volume 5: Business Planning for Professional Publishers

I’ve run successful businesses, plural, for years.

Yet, I’ve never had a business plan. Not for any of them. Not until recently.

Why?

Because trying to create all the stupid things that the stupid f@#$%g MBAs tell you must be part of your business plan have always stopped me.

It wasn’t until recently that I figured out they were lying.

Or rather, that they were talking to other MBAs. To people like themselves. To that very small minority of writers who actually like spreadsheets.

The rest of us were just screwed.

Until now.

Bastards.

Let me back up and tell you about my first breakthrough. There were several, and they kind of piled one on top of the other. I’ll get to them in later chapters.

I attended the Master Publishing Workshop offered by Kristine Kathrin Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, M.L. Buchman, and Allyson Longueira, in October 2016, in Lincoln City, OR.

The first breakthrough came when Kris mentioned that she’d been trained as a reporter. That meant that every day, she walked into some random event at work. She never knew what she would be doing on any given day. She partially blames that training for her butterfly brain.

That was a real ah ha moment for me. When I applied the concept of “being trained by the day job” to myself, it explained so much about myself and my processes.

I worked as a technical writer for decades. The software companies I worked for generally released new versions of the software every quarter or so.

That meant that every three to four months, I started something new. Either I moved to a new team or I started working on a new product. Frequently, I had a new technology that I had to learn. (That was one of the things that I really liked about doing technical writing—they paid me to learn.)

One of the things I already knew about myself was that I couldn’t follow the same routine for more than three to four months. I’d develop a successful process or habit, and after a few months, it would stop working.

Now, finally, I understood why. That was as long as I ever worked on any project for the day job.

I did mention that I’d done technical writing for decades, right?

So I’d trained myself to do the same thing for only a few months. Then I would need to do something else.

Well, fuck.

All the MBAs tell you that must write a year-long business plan. Or two. Or, just shoot me now, three.

My brain does not think in terms of years. It thinks, and works best, in terms of quarters.

So instead of trying to create a year-long business plan, I pulled back.

I created a business plan for just a quarter instead.

And I was successful for the first time ever.

I cannot tell you how pissed off I was. Am. Remain. That no one, in any of the business books I’d ever read, had started off, up front, saying, “Create a business plan for the length of time that you’re most comfortable planning.” Whether that be a week, a month, a quarter, what have you.

Fuckers.

So this book is going to be all about making a business plan that actually works for you, the indie writer/publisher. I’m going to do what I did with the other Business for Breakfast books, and translate all that technobabble bullshit that the MBAs tell you into language, concepts, and actual plans that you, a creative person, can use. And implement.

My main goal is to explain things such that you can ignore all those stupid business people and get on with your own, individual, artistic works.

And build a plan that works for you, not them.

You’re welcome.

Yup. Just read through that, and realized that I’m still pissed off. I couldn’t create a business plan for years because I couldn’t follow how everyone said it should be done.

Came up with my own solution. It’s still working, BTW.

So if you need help creating a business plan, and those other books/methods/plans have never worked for you, you may want to give the latest Business for Breakfast book a try.

Available at your favorite retailers: http://www.knottedroadpress.com/book/business-for-breakfast-volume-5-business-planning-for-professional-publishers/

And be sure to check out the other Business for Breakfast books as well:

Volume 1: The Beginning Professional Writer
Volume 2: The Beginning Professional Publisher
Volume 3: The Beginning Professional Storyteller
Volume 4: The Intermediate Professional Storyteller