Mark Leslie Lefebvre has worked in the book industry since 1992 as past President of the Canadian Booksellers Association, former Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations for Rakuten Kobo, and the founder of Kobo Writing Life, Kobo's free direct publishing platform. He has given talks about the business of writing and publishing across North America and in in Europe.

With just under thirty years of experience in bookselling and as an author who has embraced both traditional and indie-publishing opportunities, Mark is an advocate for helping authors understand the options available to them for finding success on their own unique author journey.

D.F. Hart holds an MBA with Accounting concentration and has worked in that field for over twenty-six years.

She also happens to write riveting crime thrillers as D.F. Hart, and contemporary and romantic suspense as Faith Hart.

Accounting for Authors by D.F. Hart, MBA and Mark Leslie Lefebvre

Do you avoid thinking about money as a writer? Does the thought analysing finances or balancing a budget turn you off? Are you looking for a way to embrace accounting principals to help you make the most of your author earnings?

Managing finances can be difficult for anyone, but writers often face unique challenges when it comes to budgeting, calculating production and marketing costs, understanding margin, and forecasting. Whether you are self-publishing, working with publishers, performing freelance writing duties, or any combination, having a solid understanding of basic accounting principals can go a long way to making your writing life easier.

And that's where this book comes in. In addition to being a mystery/thriller and contemporary romance author, D.F. Hart holds an MBA with Accounting concentration and has worked in the field of accounting for over twenty-five years. Mark Leslie Lefebvre has worked as a writer and bookseller for thirty years, and as a trusted book industry representative has helped thousands of writers understand the business of being a writer.

Together they have created an easy and fun to read guide to help even novice writers no longer fear the financial aspect of writing.

 

REVIEWS

  • "D.F. and Mark go through the equations that every author should understand, helping to both be able to run the math in these equations, and to understand *why* an author needs these equations."

    – Amazon review

  • "I used to be afraid of accounting concepts, until this book helped me see it in a simple way that truly helps me understand my author business."

    – ARC Reader

  • "This book will help you demystify some of the math required in this industry, and finally help you figure out if your author career is successful."

    – Amazon review
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

If I had to guess, I would say that you have picked up this book for one of two reasons:

•Possibility #1 – You want your author business to have as solid a foundation as you can make it.

•Possibility #2 – You are morbidly curious, thinking: "Accounting for Authors"? Seriously? What could accounting possibly have to do with me writing books?

The short answer? More than you might realize.

And this book will walk you through the 'why', then show you the 'how,' so that you can interpret all the data that comes at us as authors: number of sales, downloads of a free book, promo spend results—all of it, including most important figure of all—how much profit have I made?

I am going to walk you through some accounting and finance principles and concepts, using real-life examples and every-day language, so that you can more efficiently manage (and hopefully grow) your author business.

Because a business is exactly what this is. The moment you assigned your 'book baby' a price tag and put it up for sale, you became a published author—and if you independently published your book, you also became a business owner.

Now, I realize that some people do not like numbers and do not like math (confession: I do not like math very much, either!) and there's a good chance that those people reading this right now have just laid their head down on the closest hard, flat surface and are banging it lightly.

But D.F. [thunk] I do not want [thunk] to do numbers and math stuff [thunk]…I just wanna write!

I get that, and I feel you. I do. But trust me when I say that the health of your business is going to be better served if you at least understand the basics.

Now, having said that, let me get two disclaimers out into the great wide open before we delve too far into things.

1)I am NOT a CPA (and do not want to be one.) I am also NOT a tax professional or a lawyer (and do not want to be one). You should address tax and business structure-related questions and concerns with a qualified professional.

2)Nor will I be offering financial or other advice regarding 'should I do audiobooks or not,' etcetera. Those types of decisions need to happen as part of your own personal approach to being an author and what your goals are.

But what I can (and will happily) do is show you the basics of accounting, and some finance concepts, and how to apply them and hopefully, increase both your knowledge base and your comfort level if numbers are not your favorite thing.

And once you learn these concepts, you can rest easy, because unlike other author-related topics, there are two cool things about accounting that you may or may not know:

1)It is evergreen. The concepts I am going to share with you have not changed and will not change. At all. (Unless we are all overrun by aliens or something, in which case, we all will have bigger problems to worry about!)

2)Accounting concepts are universal. By this I mean, it does not matter if you are in the United States or in Europe or in Australia or wherever. These concepts will be applicable regardless of location, currency, the number of books you have out—or even what structure you decide on for your business. It also doesn't matter if you are Amazon exclusive, or a 'wide' author, or traditionally published, or a combination of these things. The concepts in this book will still apply!

The main goal of this book is to achieve the "Three E's":

1)Easy to follow

2)Educational

3)Entertaining

(Because let's face it, for a lot of folks, accounting and finance topics are the emotional equivalent of "Bueller…. Bueller…")

Okay, take a breath, grab something to drink, and get comfortable.

Are you ready?

Good. I am too. Let's get started, shall we?