A few years ago I wondered aloud to a colleague about why authors didn’t pay more attention to the business side of their careers. I was rewarded with a snort and the answer that writing is a creative pursuit; authors couldn’t apply the same yardstick used to measure selling a product or a service. That’s never made sense to me; you are selling a product–a book. Could it be that you just didn’t identify yourselves as small business owners since your product was so closely tied to others for its success or failure?

I decided to create a site that would show how to develop your writing career by applying business principles for managing it. My goal isn’t to teach you how to run P&Ls (though a publisher will use the info these present when preparing an offer for a manuscript). It is to discuss the best practices for authors pursuing a writing career. I’ll be posting every Saturday afternoon (unless otherwise noted) reviews, short tutorials, and observations. Come on back, check out my list of services (www.carenestesen.com/services), and bookmark the site (www.carenestesen.com). I’m looking forward to building this community with you.

About Johnson Lit Agency Inc.

For the foreseeable future I’ll be on hiatus from my job as a literary agent. I will not be considering new projects at this time. All query letters received will be deleted, unread, from my inbox. Please consult Publishers Marketplace or Mediabistro for agency/agent listings.