Words from the Authors

Several months ago, I had the honour of being featured on Michelle Cornish's Blog for a Q&A author interview. By chance, I was inspired to revisit the interview and thought this piece below is of particular value to our blog readers:

"The first thing the co-writers, and therefore business partners, should do is create a thoughtful contract. This is a brief document discussing what is expected from each person (what they promise to do), the title of the book, followed by a paragraph outlining the contingency and succession plans.

Here you would discuss what happens if the relationship dissolves, if one person fails to accomplish their side of things, if one or both writers pass on who will now own the rights to this project (once it is published). This way each of you know who you will be working with and what current wishes each of you have. Of course this should be dated, signed and (preferably) witnessed.

The second thing you will be getting in place is the business plan, and this has several sections starting with the purpose of the project, evaluation of each other’s talents and skills and desires, what each other is willing to take on or learn that will take you to the next level.

You will be looking at the operations of things, the day-to-day activities. You will talk about marketing ideas, who will take on various tasks, how you will start and where you plan to go from there. At the very start of the relationship many of these things will be vague, but as time moves forward you will fine tune and update the business plan every 3-5 years. It takes, really, just a couple days of deep discussions and getting things on paper in a simple, brief format that you can both easily refer to. "

https://www.michellecornish.com/blog/lillian-brummet-author-interview