The Plan:

1. Executive Summary

Tr@ction is a publishing-based business that operates under both a for-profit and nonprofit sector. On the nonprofit side, it offers a free platform for authors to publish their works online, additionally creating a community space for authors and readers through forums and competitions hosted on the website. The profit side, meanwhile, will take the most popular stories and officially make them into physical, purchasable books, allowing authors to enter the publishing world with predetermined popularity–and, above all, to profit from their works. Tr@ction will, of course, share in this profit, taking about twenty percent of sales from authors (as is the current norm in the publishing industry). Our business strategy will be community-based, aiming at customer trust and loyalty above other factors. Our nonprofit side will offer the benefit of a supportive community catering to multiple niches, while our for-profit side will combat the normalized difficulty of getting attention from publishers and editors. Target customers will be teenagers and young adults, who show consistent trends of spending more time online, consuming eBooks and online novels rather than physical ones (Appendix A). Our business will capitalize on this, using the relatively cheap production costs of a website (for example: two thousand dollars needed for some websites on the more expensive side) to kickstart easily and with less risk. We will begin the business using about ten thousand dollars of the owner's personal capital, negating the necessity of a loan and allowing a smooth transition into our success as a future publishing house.

2. Company Description

Mission Statement

Our mission is to create a colorful online community that both pushes emerging authors into the spotlight and offers an entertaining platform for readers. We want to create a space where all stories can be heard and where authors can turn loyal followers into published success.

Goals

Within a year, we aim to have published at least one book, whether that be a collection of short stories or a novel-form story. Within two years, we aim to publish four books, having hopefully gained enough popularity by that point to attract more authors and readers. Our final, five-year goal is to have built an active, flourishing community of over one million members, with over twenty successful books.

Objectives

• Create a minimum viable product (website with all basic features)

• Build an initial community of over one thousand users

• Publish our first book

Philosophy

To create a safe space for authors and audiences of all sorts to interact and interact with one another.

Customers

We will market to young, unpublished authors and similarly aged readers (teens to young adults) with time on their hands and a thirst for entertainment.

Industry

The publishing industry on its lonesome is already massive, bringing in around thirty billion dollars yearly to the United States alone (Appendix B). This industry continues to grow. In the short term, more paper books are bought daily, whether for school assignments, personal interest, or many other reasons, they remain strikingly popular. In the long term, however, this industry is slowly shifting online–a trend that our business plans to capitalize on.

Strengths

Our company holds a number of strengths that would make it ultimately successful. It has a community backing it, for one, and is therefore much more likely to retain customers than some other publishing companies. Additionally, it will begin completely online, which will allow it to easily kickoff and slowly grow from ad revenue until we have made enough to publish a book. We also take a different approach to publishing, allowing it to be less cut-throat and therefore earning trust from authors and readers alike. We will leverage these strengths by appealing to them, focusing on our built community and showing our care for them to ensure that our reputation and business continues to flourish.

Ownership Structure

Our business will start as a sole proprietorship. This is mainly because it will begin at a small scale, aimed only at developing a community and thus not requiring another ownership structure. As the business develops, however, and we set about publishing books, we will likely make a partnership with another organization to shoulder these costs.