Publishing is always changing, but recent events have made it vital more than ever to do a risk audit for your author business. Let me be clear. Doing a risk audit isn’t succumbing to fear or scare mongering! Any business, regardless of the owner’s view, will perform periodic risk audits to stay in business. It’s just good business! With recent events it is vital you do a risk audit for your author business.
What is a risk audit?
A risk audit is simply assessing the current business environment and looking at the strengths and weakness, as well as checking the horizon for anything which might affect your business. Again, I want to stress, regardless of your views, it is important to be aware of what’s happening in your industry and in the world from a political and cultural standpoint so you can be ready for changes. Because let’s face it, we all know the publishing world changes rapidly.
What do you look for?
Right now I would look at a few core areas of your business.
First, what genres, themes, or tropes do you write? How do they fit into the current environment and the one that’s coming next year? Will they be affected by Project 2025?
Second, where do you sell your books? Jeff Bezos, the current CEO of Amazon not only withheld the Washington Post’s presidential endorsement, but has publicly come out and congratulated the newly elected president, promising a good relationship. This is not the time to rely on a single income stream or to put your faith in one retailer. It never has been, frankly.
Third, where do you promote your books? Return to the first question. Then think about where you promote. Zuckerburg, the owner of Meta (WhatsApp, Threads, Facebook, Instagram) had a similar message to Bezos. I think we all know where Elon Musk, the owner of X/Twitter stands on the issues. If you don’t have a website or a home for your books, you need one — yesterday! (Let’s talk!)
Fourth, if you process payments through your own website or a service (Paypal, Stripe) think about what you write and terms of service. It’s common wisdom that if you write books which can be sold on Amazon then they’re generally accepted as not “adult content” which is prohibited on a lot of platforms. Payhip, which many people use also relies on Paypal or Stripe. But again, if the environment changes with Project 2025 this could change. Do you have alternatives? (I am currently researching some and hope to have more information on them soon.)
Don’t panic.
You don’t need to carry a towel (kudos if you get the Douglas Adams reference), but importantly, don’t panic. If you have questions, reach out. I’m happy to talk. I’m also seeing this conversation happen on author groups. But now is the time to do something. A risk audit is a perfect first step.
