Worksheets

Below are worksheets to complement Business Planning for Authors and (scroll down) Estate Planning for Authors.

You can copy and paste the pages (for your personal use, not to be re-published) to a word processing page and add your information. 

Be sure to date the documents when you first prepare them and each time you update them, as your plans change, so you'll know which one is the most current.


Business Plan Outline/Template

Vision

  • Who I am:
  • What my stories are:
  • What my readers will get from my stories: 

Objectives

  •  1 year:
  •  3 years:
  •  5 years:

Strategies

  • Productivity:
  • Craft:
  • Industry:
  • Review date:
  • Inspiration (Artist's Dates):
Date: _______________________

  

Know Yourself to write a customized plan


First: why do you want a business plan?
  • Motivation when the work drags, the reviews are bad or the rejections pile up.
  • Focus, when you have a dozen ideas and can't settle on what to write today.
  • Preparation for foreseeable challenges.
  • Establishing a structure for thinking about and understanding your brand and your readership.
  • Other:


Second, why do you write? In other words, are you primarily a:
  • Teacher
  • Entertainer
  • Idea-generator
  • Comforter/nurturer (offering reassuring stories like comfort foods)
  • Challenger (to stretch the reader's imagination)
  • Comedian
  • Word stylist (literary fiction)
  • Worldbuilder
  • Other:


Third, what skills do you already have that you know are good?
  • Grammar, punctuation, etc.
  • Instinctive understanding of storytelling and structure
  • Great ideas
  • Great ear for dialogue
  • Special expertise of broad or niche interest (e.g., doctors writing medical thrillers and lawyers writing legal thrillers)
  • Other:


Fourth, what skills do you know you need to work on? These should be addressed in your Strategies.
  • Grammar, punctuation, etc.
  • Storytelling tools and structure
  • Idea generation
  • Unnatural dialogue
  • Other:


Fifth, how will you know when your business as an author is successful?
  • Enough money to quit the day job
  • All the money in the world
  • Good critical reviews
  • Good fan letters
  • Recognition by your peers
  • Other:


Sixth, what is your writing process and what can you reasonable expect for productivity?
  • Slow, producing one book a year, and unwilling to increase your output.
  • Fast, or capable of going faster, so as to produce a book a month, every month of the year
  • Somewhere in between, with a non-burn-out-producing rate of ___ books per year.
Date: ____________


ESTATE PLANNING WORKSHEETS

The lists below are intended to make it easy for you to gather the necessary information into a single document for each of three basic purposes: consulting with professionals, instructing your personal representative and instructing your literary representative.

You can copy and paste the pages (for your personal use, not to be re-published) to a word processing page and add your information. For the assets (both the inventory and the memorandum for distribution of small items), another alternative is a simple spreadsheet or word processing table with columns for the description and location of the item. For the memorandum to distribute items of sentimental value, you can add two more columns, one for the name and address of your first choice of beneficiary, and one for the name and address of the second choice of beneficiary.

Be sure to date the documents when you first prepare them and each time you update them,so the recipient will know how current they are.


I. Basic information needed to draft an estate plan

1. Your name, address

2. Name of spouse

3. Name, address and age of children

4. Name, address, age and relationship (e.g., sibling, cousin, friend) of other likely beneficiaries (including extended family, friends and charities)

5. Name and address of first choice for personal representative

6. Name and address of second choice for personal representative

7. Name and address of first choice for guardian of minor beneficiaries

8. Name and address of second choice for guardian of minor beneficiaries

9. Name and address of first choice for literary representative

10. Name and address of second choice for literary representative

Date prepared/updated:  ____________


II. Information for your personal representative (or executor)

1. Final instructions (choice of funeral home and related instructions)

2. Memorandum containing instructions for distribution of small items of sentimental value. Sign and date the memorandum.

3. Location of your estate planning documents (e.g., will and/or trust)

4. Location of your safe deposit box, if you have one.

5. Name, address, contact info for your preferred legal adviser for probating estate

6. Name, address, contact info for your preferred financial adviser

7. Basic inventory of assets, with a description and the location of relevant documentation (deeds, vehicle titles, contracts), e.g., file cabinet or safe deposit box. Include your real estate (primary home, secondary home, time shares) and personal estate (vehicles, bank accounts, stock market accounts, jewelry, tools and art). Note: Be sure to date the inventory.

8. Basic list of your major debts (mortgage, vehicle loan, school loan, credit cards), with a description and the location of relevant documentation (mortgage, promissory note, billing).

9. All of the information, except the literary legacy instructions, in the list for the literary representative.

Date prepared/updated:



III. Information to provide to your literary representative

1. Complete list of your books, whether in print or out of print (maintaining an up-to-date bibliography at your website is an easy way to have this always available, so all you have to do is provide a link to the site, but it's good to have a print-out too)

2. List of books under contract, including the publisher, contact name at the publisher, and the physical location of the contract (e.g., file cabinet)

3. List of options held on your work, including the company holding the option, the contact name at t he company, and the physical location of the contract

4. Account information for online retailers, including the retailer name, your user name/ID, your password, and the location of any contract

5. Information to access your website, blog, and other social media tools, including the URL and administrative-level passwords. If you have a webmaster or similar professional managing these, then the name and contact information for the professional.

6. General instructions with respect to your literary legacy:
a. What to do with unfinished manuscripts (burn, publish as-is, hire a ghostwriter?)
b. What to do with the drafts and notes of published manuscripts (burn, publish, donate to a specified charity?)
c. What limits do you want imposed on use of your stories (e.g., tv/movie deals, use in advertising, etc.)?

Date prepared/updated: ______________


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