Two weeks ago, I was chatting with an acquaintance who is also self-employed. A massage therapist, she rents space in a salon on Main Street in her city. We discussed the perks and perils of self-employment, and then the subject turned to marketing.
“In order for people to remember you, you have to be in front of them all the time,” she said, slapping her hands as punctuation. “How do people know about your business?” When I told her online, she said, “Eeuwww! Then you can’t use your personality! With me, people can see me!”
The next morning, I had a phone conversation with a business development manager of a regional publication who remarked, “You really don’t have a business.” My hackles raised, and I said, a bit steely, “Yes. I do have a business.” “Well, I mean you don’t have a retail business with an actual physical location.” “You’re right,” I told her. “I don’t have an actual storefront, but I do have a business.”
These back-to-back conversations got me thinking. Frankly, I was shocked that in our cyber-digital world that these two businesswomen held the apparent notion that physical presence is everything; that real businesses have an actual brick-and-mortar storefront with the owner’s physical body inside. To me, this smacks of “Build it, and they will come.”
Authors, editors, and web designers—those whose business is intellectual property rather than the sale of tangible products or services—often do not set up shop in the mall, a business park, or even a quaint artsy district. But to believe that they do not have a viable business is pure baloney (actually, its more colorful counterpart). First of all, renting space, and the overhead that goes along with that, would not be financially wise for these types of businesses. And all savvy business owners must be financially wise, especially in the early years, or they won’t be in business for long.
But both of these women did make a good point: all businesses need to be visible. And that includes yours, Authors. So what is your storefront? Your website. And it is vital that you have one.
I told my acquaintance that I do use my personality online—through my words. But it’s more than that. Everything from the colors, the font, the graphics, the pictures, the design, and all the bells and whistles we choose to have on our website reflects our personality and speaks of who we are. Our website not only tells the world what we do and have to offer, it also tells the world who we are as a real, live, in-the-flesh human being. And that is whom people connect and want to do business with and buy books from.
Setting up shop in cyberspace is the first step in becoming a business owner as an author. And don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t have a real business!