During the dot com boom,
I designed business plans
for many (too many) businesses
that were focused on eyeballs,
not profitability.
Their plans were to sell
their businesses
to venture capitalists
or established businesses
and allow THEM
to figure out profitability.
Some of these profit-less businesses
WERE acquired
but most of them went belly up
during the dot com bust.
Today, I see a similar phenomenon
in the book business.
Many Indie writers
are focused on readers,
on getting to the top
of the bookseller charts
and they are paying huge amounts
of marketing
to get there.
Most of these writers
barely break even.
Some lose money
every month.
They feel
if they obtain enough readers,
profitabiliy
will magically happen.
And for a few of them,
that MIGHT
miraculously happen.
But you and I both know
what will happen
to most of them.
I suspect this is happening
in other industries also.
Unit sales or eyeballs or readers
aren’t the same
as profit.
Decide what your ultimate goal is
and design your tactics
around that.
It might mean
giving up
that top of the charts position
for profitability.