All I want for Christmas...

My mewsings are all about Christmas right now...

My business is taking the back seat while Christmas invades every inch of desk space in my office.

Spot the proof copy of 'Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight' languishing in a pile of tissue paper.

It's already filled with scribbles and editing notes. My first job after Christmas is to update it, get feedback from my other beta readers and then publish it. I'm hoping to publish it by the end of January.

Too late for Christmas unfortunately, but just in time for everyone who had a Kindle for Christmas


...to load it up with new books!



Although I'm not making much money this month with my Amy Morse, Authorpreneur business, I am at least saving money by making lots of presents this year (sort of). 

I've been melting chocolate and baking biscuits like a woman possessed and creating labels for all the homemade goodies going in Christmas hampers this year...

 

I've also been thinking about what my next 365 project should be for 2016. 

In 2015 it was 'Authorpreneur Almanac: 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship'

I launched my authorpreneur business and have worked at it every day, updating my blog weekly.

I will publish a compendium of 52 blogs on writing and entrepreneurship in the new year, so watch out for that...

Stretch your creative legs...

Tom Cat's Mewsings

I first started my Idea'ism blog as a way to share and explore ideas.

I wrote a feature for Prowess Women in Business on the concept of idea'ism - the syndrome of having too many ideas:

https://www.prowess.org.uk/living-with-too-many-ideas

 

My exploration into the world of blogging has evolved since my early days. 

Here's the first blog I ever posted: The Idea Bot

Things have changed since then.

It become the place to share my Operation Author 365 Actions to Succeed as an Author then 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship.

Since I started my business, Amy Morse, Authorpreneur this summer my adventures in writing and entrepreneurship relocated to my website.

Blogging for me has grown up and got serious. I even run workshops now on Blogging for Business.

Now I have a serious business blog on my website, I don't want to turn my back on Idea'ism.

Idea'ism is my space for ideas, exploring, trying things out and sharing my musings. 

As my first venture into business was 'Tom Cat Designs' and the Twitter handle @TomCatDesigns has stuck it really should be 'Mewsings'

So welcome - to the mewsings of the Tom Cat. 

Time to stretch my creative legs...

Turning Your Hobby Into a Business

It's time to move on...

My new website is now up and running and I'll be transferring my blog to:

www.AmyMorse.co.uk

This is the last installment of 'Idea-ism' as I know it - Come across to my much nicer and sexier blog for more pearls of authorpreneurial wisdom...

2015 is Authorpreneur Almanac year. 

Join me in my 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship...

I love Pinterest. It's such a fantastic tool for collecting content and it appeals to my hoarding instincts. I can collect lovely things without filling my house with junk! 

It's also a powerful research tool, allowing me to access valuable information that may not be otherwise obvious in the endless ocean of the internet.

Here I am. Come and join me in the Pinterest playground:

Visit Amy Morse - Authorpreneur's profile on Pinterest.
 

During one of my recent cathartic pining frenzies, I came across this great article by Tilly of Tilly & The Buttons

In the post, Tilly offers 5 tips to turn your hobby into a business. It's packed with sensible and practical suggestion and a reality check.

For the past four years I've worked as an Enterprise Coach, supporting people facing just this dilemma; 'how to turn a hobby into a business'.

These are some of the the things I challenge people on when I first meet them:

One of the first questions to ask yourself before considering whether to take this step is "do you actually want to?"

The immediate response might be; "well yes of course, why else would I be here'?" but let's dig deeper...

Being self employed is not easy. It's much more difficult than being employed - where you turn up at an agreed time, do what you're there to do and get paid at the end of the month. It's a straight forward contract.

Another aspect to this is: if your hobby becomes your job, will you lose your passion for it?

Doing what you love sounds wonderful in theory, but when you're struggling to make ends meet and get regular work in, it's easy to start resenting it.

Let's assume that you've done this soul searching and addressed these questions before you seriously consider the move to self employment. The advice Tilly offers is great, however, I have 4 things to add:

1) Get help  

You definitely need to be a do-er, but you also need to recognise your own limitations.

One of the biggest mistakes I see starts ups making is trying to do everything themselves. Often, when they come to me for business advice it's because they went ahead and did things without considering the consequences and got themselves into a pickle or made expensive mistakes.

If I had a pound for the number of people who buy a limited company package off some dodgy website without understanding their statutory responsibilities, then I'd have... Okay, only enough for a round of drinks - but still it's a messy and expensive problem to fix. 

2) Learn about business 

(I don't mean a Business Studies qualification, I mean practical enterprise support) 

It's one thing being good at something, quite another to turn it into a business. And a whole other substantial step to make it profitable and sustainable.

Just because you have a brilliant skill or lovely product doesn't mean you can run a business. (tweet this)

A small business (and that includes being a one-person band or freelancer), has a multitude of different processes and functions. You're not just the maker, you will also be; the salesperson, the marketer, the quality controller, the manager, the bookkeeper, the designer, the health and safety person, the HR person, the credit controller, the administrator, the purchaser, the negotiator, the payroll person etc etc.

You can only learn so much by looking online, reading books and blogs etc. There is no substitute for going on a course or talking to a professional.

If you don't know what you don't know, how do you know you don't know it!

Recent research conducted by the Federation of Small Business, suggests that the second biggest reason businesses fail in the first year (after financial problems) is: not getting training or support. 

3) Be prepared to pay for some things

A bad homemade website (unlike Tilly's, which is gorgeous), some poor quality marketing materials you printed off on your bubble jet, emails filled with errors etc, all these things make you look like an amateur.

You can use favours from friends and family to a certain extent, but you may not necessarily be able to guarantee the quality or rely on them. And what if you get your mate to design your website and you don't like it? You didn't pay for it, so you can't very well complain (not without losing a friendship!).

In particular, with regards to printing, especially leaflets, business cards etc. they can use a lot of ink and cartridges for home printers are expensive. Often it works out cheaper to go to a local printing firm (some of the online providers have hidden costs, a bit like budget airlines!). It also has the advantage that you're supporting local business and can build a relationship for discounts etc. You can also actually speak to a human about what you really want, rather than being constrained by an online template.

4) Think business. 

This is an abstract one - here's an example:

My first venture into self employment was as Tom Cat Designs (hence the Twitter handle!). My husband and I were refurbishing properties at the time, and as a finishing touch for the rooms, I painted some big, bold canvases. I had lots of positive comments, people asked about the art and friends commissioned me to do art for their homes. Someone then suggested that I should put on an exhibition. I booked a gallery space, giving myself a deadline, and set about producing a series of paintings. When the exhibition opened, I sold several pictures and then some commissions for more work followed. I was churning out paintings and making money and it got to the point that I should declare the earnings, so I registered for self assessment with the tax office.

Then that was that...

At no point did it dawn on me that I was now, by the most basic definition; a business.

I didn't have the mindset of a businessperson. In my head, Tom Cat Designs was a hobby that made me some extra pocket money. As a result, I didn't do any research into the marketplace, my customers, competitors etc. I didn't have a plan or think about marketing, I didn't cost it out and didn't think about branding or assess my skills and look at areas for development.

With no direction, no plan and no goals, inevitably it fizzled out and I gave up.

If you want to turn your hobby into a business you need to be businesslike and that involves a shift in your mindset if you want to succeed.

I don't mean becoming some cutthroat, hard-nosed meany-pants about it, just to tell yourself; "Okay, I'm serious about this, let's do it properly."

I'm now on the next incarnation of my ambitions to work for myself, this time turning my lifelong love of writing into my Amy Morse, Authorpreneur business.


With two fiction titles already published... 

 

I'm now working on some business skills books. Look out for the first of these: 

'Operation Author: So You've Published a Book... Now What?' 

Business Skills for Creatives

I already give regular talks at events for creative entrepreneurs, and I'm available for more of this. 

I'm also working on a programme of Business Skills for Creatives. If you'd like to know more, check the website: 

www.AmyMorse.co.uk

or bounce me an email and I'll keep in touch: amy@tomcatdesigns.co.uk

What tips would you offer to people considering self employment?

So you've published a book... now what?

One of the biggest challenges creatives face is viewing what they do as a business. It's hard to separate ourselves from the things we create, but as soon as you release your book into the wild, hoping that it will be picked up and appreciated, preferably in exchange for money - you have become a business, but does that make you an entrepreneur?

Entrepreneur = [ahn-truh-pruh-nur, -noo r] A person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

Author = [aw-ther] A person who writes a novel, poem, essay, etc.; the composer of a literary work, as distinguished from a compiler, translator, editor, or copyist.

Author + Entrepreneur = Authorpreneur

 

 2015 is Authorpreneur Almanac year. 

Join me in my 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship...

Test how authorpreneurial you are by taking this quiz:

http://ideaism.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/are-you-scribbler-dabbler-or-wrangler.html


 

For the past few years I've been working with people curious about self employment, people in the early stages of turning their ideas into businesses and small businesses who have recently set up. One of the lessons I share with them, one I learned the hard way, is the importance of taking yourself seriously as a small business.

Viewing our creations can seem somehow cold or disrespectful. 

This is the first mistake; being too precious about it. If you created it to sell it you need to be prepared to give it up. 

The second mistake is to aim for perfection. Perfection is a fallacy. Your work can only ever be good enough at that time in your life. Inevitably your work will improve over time, but it will only improve if you get feedback and continue to work at it. It won’t be perfect, perfection is impossible - but that’s OK. Accept it. Move on.

I argue that it isn’t disrespectful to think of your book as a product. Quite the opposite in fact. Surely all the hard work you’ve put in deserves to be rewarded? Surely it’s more disrespectful to let your work gather dust in a drawer or languish somewhere in the bottom of the internet undiscovered?

When I published my first book, The Bronze Box, I started to put into practice the advice I have been giving to other entrepreneurs and this time, I won't fail because I'm not treating it as a business.  

I admit, I'm not great at following my own advice - I did, however set myself a measure of success, at which point I could feel that I had done what I set out to do. I set myself a goal of selling 1,000 books in three years. 18 months in, I had doubled this target. 

 

I now have two books available and I'm working on the final installment in the Sheridan and Blake Adventure Series, Gabriel's Game.

My day jobs have always revolved around enabling others. In fact, it's taken me a while to realise this, but there are really only three things I can do:

Writing. Speaking and Enabling others and at the heart of this is my love of stories.

There is no magic formula to being successful in business, but there are logical, practical, sensible steps that apply to every business. 

These key functions within the life of your business are universal, the difference is in the scale. I call these processes the Business Life-cycle and here's the flow chart to put it into context that I have developed when working with small businesses of all persuasions.

If you are a regular follower of this blog, you'll know that I'm passionate about supporting others to follow their dreams and that I enjoy sharing the tips, tricks, actions and inspiration I've collected on my own journey into self employment and also what I've learned from the experiences of the people I've supported on their journeys.

A number of colleagues, friends and business associates have suggested I compile my knowledge into a book and I'm currently in the process of writing my first non-fiction book.

In 2014 I completed a 365 day project: 'Operation Author: 365 Actions to Becoming a Successful Author' where each week I shared seven actions I had completed to further my writing career. 

It seemed natural to turn the lessons learned from this process into a series of books. The first of which will be out in the summer of 2015:

Operation Author: So you've published a book... now what?

So what's it all about? Well, here's the blurb:

  
To come up with this blurb, I conducted some research on similar business books to get some ideas. 

Here are some of the books that inspired me to write my own and helped me with my research. I've read some of these and bits of others, but they are a neat benchmark for where I see my first venture into non-fiction book writing going.  


   

I've used some of the tips from this really useful book in my own marketing. It's simple to use and gives a good overview of the characteristics of the main social media channels.



 

This is a great reference guide that I dip in and out of regularly.






I've been reading content on Joanna Penn's excellent The Creative Penn site for a while and pinning stuff from it frequently

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/blog/

Visit Amy Morse - Authorpreneur's profile on Pinterest.

What business books would you recommend to writers?