If you're just a Service Provider, and looking to get better at providing services to Authors and Publishers, here are a few things to keep in mind

1) You have to find your right set of Clients
1b) This includes what price your services are, and what Clients respond to that price point. Clients are very very different at different price points - find the price point and client set that best suits you
1c) It includes the level of customer service the Clients expect. Paradoxically, the lower your service cost the higher support authors would expect. The lower you go down the spectrum the more authors value their money and expect more and more bang for their buck
1d) It includes finding a situation where you can do great work. One service provider might not mind a client who is very hands on. Another might hate working with such clients

2) You have to find the Right Product or Service to sell
2b) Authors and Publishers value products and services in ways that are very different from what you might imagine. Make sure to experiment with product offerings and prices and delivery mechanisms
2c) One thing Authors and Publishers really value are products and services that eliminate their pain points
2d) Often, products that you think Clients would not even buy, they value at a very very high price
2e) Focus on products that can be created once and sold multiple times. If that isn't possible, focus on products where the cost of every incremental product 'created and sold' is very low

3) Avoid selling products or services that require a lot of customer interaction
3b) Firstly, the cost of customer interaction and customer support is very high - it can vary between $15 to $50 per hour
3c) Secondly, there will always be customers who put the I N T E R A C T I O N in Customer Interaction and will dry up your entire customer support budget. It is not unusual to have customers who will email 99 times or call up 10 times or do live chat 127 times
3d) Thirdly, customer interactions can be messy. Without face to face interaction there is lots of scope for things to be misinterpreted
3e) If possible, sell a product or service where customer interaction is minimal

4) Do not sell a product or service where someone else determines the results, and/or which depends on someone else to provide you something
4a) You can look at examples like NovelRank where they got removed from the Amazon Affiliate Program after 8 years and suddenly had no revenue source left
4b) You can look at examples like Facebook App Developers who got access to customer Facebook timeline removed. Suddenly they lost all means of growing their customer base. Remember when Zynga IPO'ed at $4 billion?
4c) The One Rule of Business you can depend on is that if you are dependent on an external company they will either take over your business for themselves, or they will kill you off. A Leopard never changes its spots - most companies are built on profit motive and will take your business and profits if you make it easy for them
4d) Look at companies like Apple and Microsoft where they are building the Device, the Operating System, the Browser, the Apps, the Cloud Platform, the Messenger, and everything under their control. They are doing that to avoid getting eliminated by someone who controls one part of the ecosystem and leverages that against them
You must do the same

5) Make sure you are happy making/providing the Product or Service that you sell
We all get only a hundred years to live. Not worth wasting even one day working on things we hate working on

6) Make sure you work only with Clients you are happy working with, and where they are happy working with you
Both sides are critically important

7) Stay profit focused from the very start
7b) If you are not profitable in the beginning, there is unlikely to be some magical fairy who flutters by and suddenly makes you profitable

8) Measure your Key Metrics - What Gets Measured Gets Managed (Peter Drucker is a genius)
8b) Key Metrics you should measure - Profit Rate, Revenue Rate, Growth Rate for Clients, Growth Rate for Earnings, Expenses
8c) Key Metrics you should consider measuring - Customer Retention Rate, Customer Referral Rate, Virality (how many new customers does each customer refer), Team Happiness, Team Efficiency
8d) What Gets Measured Gets Managed (Peter Drucker) - identify the key metrics and measure them and AUTOMATICALLY your business will start doing MUCH BETTER

9) Control Every Aspect of Your Destiny
9b) The Product you Make, The Sales Team, The Customer Acquisition Team, The Marketing Channels, The Store you Sell Your Product From, The Channels to reach your Customers - you should own and control each of them 100%
9c) The First Big Advantage of controlling each of these aspects is that you can ensure high quality products and services, and consistent delivery of high quality
9d) The Second Big Advantage is that no one can steal your business
9e) The Third Big Advantage is that you can measure performance of each aspect of your business and make changes as required

There is a lot of money in the ecosystem, and most service providers are just starting off. So if you provide a high quality product in a good win-win way, you will do well

The one really big thing we would recommend is avoid the low end of the market like the plague - the less people pay, the crazier their expectations get