The Writer, The Author, and the Business Owner

By Sandra Peoples

What is a writer? A person who writes things of course. An author is defined as the originator or creator of anything or one who writes literary works. A business owner is a person engaged in a commercial enterprise, occupation, company or calling. What do these three have in common?

The writer is in business because they author pieces of work. People generally refer to writers as people who create work for magazines, the world wide web, any other forms of content. A writer can be any person who possesses the skills to get people to comprehend what it is that they are trying to say.

The author is also a person who writes, but is mainly associated with having written a book.

The business owner can be a writer or an author because like it or not when you decide to write things for pay, you are starting a business.

A writer is an author and a business person, though many writers feel that they are not. And this is a huge misconception in the publishing industry. When you make the decision to be serious about your writing career you will want to learn how to be a business person as well. Which means that you will begin to invest in yourself. In your talents. In your career.

This is something that must be taught because if not, writers and authors will never take their businesses seriously and in turn will never see the kind of money they can truly make.

As a business owner, it is crucial to learn how to start and run a business, even if the vast majority of your time will be spent online.

You have have to learn how to market your business, how to get customers, and the list goes on.

The writer, the author and the business owner all face the same issue: getting people to notice them and the product they have for sale.

• Your book is a product that must be sold.
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• Your writing skills are services that must be packaged and marketed effectively.
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• Your business is a combination of products and services.

Once you learn to think like the entrepreneur that you are, you will start to see things take a dramatic turn for the better in your life.

Notice that this is referring to those who want to make a career out of writing. Not the people who are one hit wonders. Meaning, writing a book or publishing an article and never doing anything again.

This one time stuff is the reason why so many people's writing careers never take off. You can't do just one thing and expect to gain a huge following. Consistency is the key to success.

Now, a true writer has the ability to write more than just a book. They can write articles for magazines. They can write web content for others. Many choose to just focus on writing books, and that is fine, but a true writer can write anything.

So the question is, are you a true writer, or are you a one hit wonder? Is this your career or are you just an imposter.

Inquiring minds want to know.