Nimble Books Strategy Refresh

February 24, 2006 by admin | No comments

After losing my job ats a product consultant at LexisNexis in December 2002, I switched gears to writing and publishing books. Nimble Books LLC has been in operation since June 2004. It’s been a great experience and I’ve learned a lot about being a publisher. But enough time has gone by for certain trends to become apparent, and it is now time for a strategy refresh.

  • A strategy is a coherent series of choices that leads to victory.
  • Victory, in this case, is financial independence. I’m lucky enough to have a real job that I thoroughly enjoy, but the weight of my financial responsibilities to my family is something that never leaves my shoulders. I want to have “no worries.”

Here are the macro facts of the Nimble Books situation.

  • As currently configured, Nimble Books is approximately a $15K/year business.
  • About 75% of the revenue comes from our series of Harry Potter books.
  • The lifecyle of the Harry Potter books is finite, but we can probably maintain revenue at more or less the same level by doing incremental products and addressing less lucrative enthusiast markets.
  • The Nimble Books website covers its hosting costs via Google AdSense, Google Book Search, and Amazon Associates, but doesn’t do much more. After 20 months of detailed daily monitoring, there is no reason to believe that these revenue streams will ever do anything more than show linear growth.
  • $15K/year is enough to help pay off debts and to help with Kelsey’s college, but it’s nowhere near enough to live on.

The Nimble Books strategy going forward:

  • Maintain the franchise by keeping products up to date.
  • Devote no resources to product development on the website; its primary function is personal expression.
  • Focus energies on developing a portfolio of new products; specifically, novels. Follow the Charlie Stross strategy of starting several series in different genres so that once one sells, they all sell.
  • Realistically, I can hope to write about one novel every six months.

Schedule:

  • Finish up current obligations (AFFC book, website) by June 30.
  • 4Q2006: complete PROLIFERATED.
  • 2Q2007: complete NOVEL IN FLAMES.
  • 4Q2007: complete comic mystery.

Stretch goal: complete and sell ten novels by the time I am 50 (five years from March 18, 2006). (I would be perfectly happy with one!)

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