Cheat Sheet for Book (or Art) Business 101 - Tips for Self-Publishing Success

Aug 27, 2026

A practical cheat sheet distilling guidance on making money from creative work through sound business choices and disciplined craft. It emphasizes continuous learning, aggressive management of ignorance via reading and explanation, and using fiction to convey truth through emotion and theme. The advice also covers risk control, reinvesting profits, budgeting contest fees, coping with rejection as a reforming force, and following an internal compass to guide submission and career direction, plus decisions about whether to keep a day job.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLifestyle

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time9 min

AccessFree to download

Cheat Sheet for Book (or Art) Business 101

Business mindset and learning

Fiction, reading, and writing discipline

Funding, risk, and contests

Rejection and internal compass

Career timing: quitting or keeping a day job

• Cheat Sheet • for :: Book (or Art) Business 101 :: by L A N C E L O T S C H A U B E R T The following tips come straight from my article series How the Sound Logic of Self-Publishing Finally Won Me Over 1. Making money off of your work is as much about making logically sound business decisions as it is about being great at your craft. Work on craft and work on being abetter businessman: you are a business. 2. Declare war on your own ignorance. This means autodidacticism supplemented by frequent trips to the library—the top three job qualifications for any job are reading comprehension, logical thought, and the capacity to explain yourself verbally. (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric.) 3. Novels and poems are telescopes for seeing other lands. Use them as often as you can —read a lot and write a lot. Especially read old books: I recommend something like the following ratio that I call The Life Learner’s Waltz: [a. read 1 old book](a. read 1 old book) (novel or classic). [b. read 1 modern novel](b. read 1 modern novel). [c. read 1 nonfiction book](c. read 1 nonfiction book). d. repeat: old book step, novel step, nonfic step Co p y r i g h t © 2 0 1 6 b y La n c e l o t S c h a u b e r t • fo r m o r e , v i s i t [la n c e s c h a u b e r t . o r g](la n c e s c h a u b e r t . o r g) 4. Fiction bends the truth as a reverse prism will bend light waves: refracting the details of specific colors together, uniting them back into the brilliance of white light. Fiction and exaggeration isn’t lying at all but a way of conveying the truth of both the emotion and themes through a trick of light. That means every book makes a sermon of sorts. What are the books you’re reading smuggling into your mind? More importantly: what do you want to smuggle into the minds of your readers? 5. Make bets you know you can win 9 times out of 10. Even if the impossible happens, you will win in the long run. Bet on things that have a margin of safety built in and will provide a suitable return over the long haul. Rule \#1 in this department? Don’t lose money. 6. If you want to make money as a writer, you do not pay to publish. You reinvest profits. That includes fees to competitions—only pay out of money you made. a. CONTEST FEE = MONEY MADE WRITING / 10 7. The point is daydreaming. Not awards. Not money. Not the elusive praise from that Biology teacher who called you a turd-flinging monkey while you mis-dissected a pig fetus in your sophomore year of high school. Daydreaming of the future, of another world and abetter tomorrow. Dream. Record those dreams. Move on. That’s why we do it. 8. Rejection will point you in a way you did not intend to go. Embrace the wayward path because not all who wander are lost. Some wander with purpose. Some people are border stalkers wandering the lands between the known and unknown, the accepted and the rejected—that’s how they give us visions of tomorrow, of things we’re unwilling to accept. Rejection reforms you. Let it wash over you and cleanse you from the impurities that hold back your career. 9. Trust your internal compass. I was probably on my third time through Stephen King’s On Writing at the end of college and enchanted by the idea of hanging my rejection slips on a wall so I drove a nail into my upstairs and mimicked him. And I too eventually had to get a larger spike—a massive roofing nail—to hold it all up. And I too found that the more I paid attention to that internal compass, that internal scorecard, the more I started getting personal notes and acceptances, sometimes from the strangest of places. The McSweeney’s piece, for instance, was written in an hour and sent immediately without revision. I don’t recommend this, but somehow I knew on that one would win. I got an email accepting the piece that afternoon. The point is the compass. I’ve dabbled in other things and the same process will happen: first timid from rejection with a lot of stops and starts, then a gener

FAQs

How does the guide connect creative craft with making money?

It argues that earning from your work depends on logically sound business decisions as well as being great at your craft. Treating yourself as a business means balancing artistry with practical judgment.

What learning habits does it recommend for improving skills?

It urges “declare war on your own ignorance” through autodidactic study supported by frequent library visits. It highlights reading comprehension, logical thinking, and the ability to explain yourself verbally.

How should a writer handle rejection, according to the guide?

Rejection should be embraced because it points you to a way you didn’t intend to go. The document frames rejection as cleansing and career-reforming, driven by an internal compass and integrity.

Aug 27, 2026

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