New writers:
For those of you who would like to become professional authors who earn all / the vast majority of their income from book sales, there is a simple, early step (the first one, in many cases) you can take right this second that helps you start on that journey.
It may not look like some big, flashy process, but it helps set the foundation for your authorship.
Create your author email address.
I know, I know. You might be thinking, “Well, I can do that any old time, Tenesha!”
This is true.
However, there are many other steps to creating your literary enterprise that involve an email address. Therefore, creating one first can make things easier for you down the road.
For example, if you go ahead and set up your author email, you can then use it to create other things related to your authorship.
This includes items such as:
- Your authorship P.O. box or business address.
- Your authorship LLC.
- Your authorship social media profile(s).
- Your authorship website and hosting account.
- Your Library of Congress and Copyright.gov accounts.
- Your Adobe and Canva accounts.
- Your publishing platform accounts (KDP, IngramSpark, Barnes & Noble Press, etc.).
- Your authorship banking account(s) and credit card(s).
- Your authorship business cards.
- Your authorship cell phone.
When all of your communications related to creating, publishing, and selling books centers around one email account, this makes things easier to manage and more organized for you. It also helps keep your business information and your personal (family, friends, school, etc.) information separate.
Just remember that you’ll be sharing this email address with fellow business owners, literary agents, producers, and other professionals, so do what you can to make it clear and consistent with your brand across the web.
For example, if your email address is ErikaAWogo@Gmail.com, shoot for your social media profiles having similar handles without special characters or underscores if possible (@ErikaAWogo), your website URL being the same (ErikaAWogo.wordpress.com), and your pen name being the same (by Erika A. Wogo).
When people are looking up information about you as they try to determine if they would like you to be part of a conference, come lecture at a university, or become the latest guest on their radio show, it’s helpful if they can be confident that they’re looking up the correct person. When your name is consistent across platforms, that helps.
If you write as Erika A. Wogo, but your email address is EAWboox@yahoo.com, but your LinkedIn account says your name is Athena Wogo’chela, then your Twitter handle is @BestBooksEverEAW, yet your domain name is EAthenaWogo.net, it can cause a lot of confusion (that’s easily avoidable!). That confusion could end up costing you some opportunities. Make things as easy as you can for people who want to connect with you online.
Hope this helps, newbies! ♥
