Organizing Saves Time

In today’s Journal

* Neobook?
* Organizing Saves Time
* Pre-Publication Organization
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Neobook?

Anyone out there ever heard of Neobook? Seems to me this might be a viable marketing option for pretty much anyone who has more energy than I do. Something to look into. You can check it out at https://neobook.org/. (I am not affiliated in any way.)

I would be wary of that “get feedback” BS though. You don’t need feedback. Anything one reader would recommend another reader would be against.

Organizing Saves Time

I recently promised a post on organization. I was going to bring forward an older post. But when I looked back, I realized the current article would require an updated combination of two earlier posts, both from November 2019.

So rather than publish the whole thing today and run long, I decided to publish it in two parts.

Today I’ll put up part one, “Pre-Publication Organization.” This has to do with creating and maintaining a file system so you don’t have to duplicate work when it comes time to publish.

Tomorrow, I’ll post part two, “Post-Publication Organization (The Inventory Spreadsheet).” It’s both easier and far more important than you know.

Pre-Publication Organization

The following is updated from November 17, 2019. when I posted “Preparation Saves Time and Prevents Typos.” I’ve updated it where necessary.

Is your filing system lacking? Do you currently reinvent the wheel each time you upload a new work to a different store or distributor?

Can you quickly access the sales copy, ASIN, ISBN, appropriately sized book cover, and the original file for any of your works? How about the .mobi, .epub, and .pdf files?

I currently upload directly only to Draft2Digital and Amazon. I know others also upload directly to Apple and Kobo and all that, but I’d rather let D2D handle that for me. Of course, it’s up to you.

For those who remember Smashwords, if you don’t know it was absorbed by D2D.

I also used to upload to a bundling service called Bundle Rabbit. It has now become PubShare. I recommend uploading your work to them. Being included in bundles with other authors can only increase your own audience. Find PubShare at https://pubshare.com.

The Value of Folders—Even uploading to only a few places, I find having a folder for each new title a huge time saver. Here’s what I do for each title, often before the story or novel is even finished.

Create a new file folder. The name of the folder is the same as the title of the work. (Not even a shortened version. This saves time later when you have a few hundred titles.)

In that folder, in addition to many other files I’ll talk about below, I put the original Word document (.doc or .docx). Again, the Word file is named the same as the title of the work.

That document also is already formatted and has front and back matter already included. In other words, it’s ready to upload.

• I actually have a format I’d be happy to share with you if you like. It includes front matter, book title in the appropriate size, chapter heads in the appropriate  size so you only have to copy/paste, body text with first line indent, and back matter. You can easily replace my information with your own, then Save As whatever file name you like.
• The front matter consists of the title followed by my name or pen name, then a space, then “a novel (short story, whatever) from StoneThread Publishing”. After that comes this statement: “To give the reader more of a sample, the front matter appears at the end.” (This lets the reader know you’re trying to omit front matter from the sample offered by various vendors.)

Photos—I also put relevant photos in the folder:

• first is the original photo I used for the cover. It’s titled Title of Book Base.jpg.
• Then the finished cover itself in four sizes for longer works and three sizes for short stories:

1. Title of Book.jpg (the original huge file at 6250 x 9375 pixels),
2. Title of Book 2000.jpg (2000×3000, this is the one I upload to vendors and distributors),
3. Title of Book 300.jpg (300×450, the one that will go on the individual book page on my publisher site for longer works only), and
4. Title of Book 180.jpg (180×270, the “thumbnail” that will go on the genre page on the publisher site).

The Promo Doc—Next in the folder is the promo doc. For me, this is text document. I’m a PC guy so I use Notepad. The promo doc contains

• the title of the work,
• my author name (can be my name or pseudonym) to copy/paste,
• my publisher name (StoneThread Publishing) to copy/paste,
• the book/story description (sales copy)
• seven Internet search terms (Amazon allows seven—for my Blackwell Ops series, for example, the search terms are thriller, psychological suspense,mystery, crime, murder, assassin, and novel series), and
• the universal book link (from Books2Read, via Draft2Digital) and the Amazon buy link.

I think it might also be useful to add the word count somewhere in the promo doc, but I haven’t gotten into that habit yet. (grin)

See what I mean about organizing on the pre-pub side of things?

Now when I’m ready to publish the work, all I have to do is open the promo doc and copy-paste everything from it to the appropriate spaces on the platform.

Uploading and Downloading—I upload to Draft2Digital first. A few steps into that process, I download the .mobi and .epub files. Those go into the book’s individual folder too along with the original .doc or .docx. I don’t download the D2D-generated PDF file because it doesn’t include the cover.

But because some readers prefer PDF, I also copy the 2000×3000 cover pic (see above), paste it into the original Word doc as the first page in my novel or story, then click “Save as PDF.” Of course, that file goes into the folder too.

So when I’m finished, the folder contains the .doc or .docx, PDF, .mobi and .epub files for the book or story.

Then when it comes time to send a file to a reader for a direct sale, I simply open the folder, drag the appropriate file to an email, and hit Send.

If you upload to PubShare, you will have to upload either an .epub file or a zipped Vellum file. (At least that’s what was required for BundleRabbit). Again, I can open the folder, upload the .epub file that I downloaded from D2D, and I’m done.

My individual book folders, each of which takes only a few minutes to create between finishing the story and uploading it, are what make it possible for me to publish a new work to D2D in about 2 minutes and to Amazon in about 3. Seriously.

Not only do I not have the hassle of rewriting everything at each vendor or distribution platform, but the ability to copy/paste negates the chance of typos in what I’m uploading.

Try it, you’ll like it. (grin)

I hope this helps. Any questions on any of this, just email me.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Rejections Happen to Us All” at https://killzoneblog.com/2023/08/rejections-happen-to-us-all.html. No reason for rejections anymore, but this is a fun read.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 1210

Writing of Blackwell Ops 9: Cameron Stance (novel)
Brought forward from earlier start…… 4087 words

Day 1…… 1595 words. Total words to date…… 5682
Day 2…… 2101 words. Total words to date…… 7783

Writing of Rose Padilla (WCG10SF5)

Day 1…… 4283 words. Total words to date…… 4283
Day 2…… 3963 words. Total words to date…… 8246
Day 3…… 1463 words. Total words to date…… 9709
Day 4…… 2445 words. Total words to date……12154

Total fiction words for August……… 14299
Total fiction words for 2023………… 128846
Total nonfiction words for August… 7680
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 157580
Total fiction words since August 1…… 14299
Total words for the year (fiction and nonfiction)…… 286426

Calendar Year 2023 Novels to Date…………………… 2
Calendar Year 2023 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2023 Short Stories to Date………… 4
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………… 73
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………… 221
Short story collections…………………………………………. 31

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark, adherence to Heinlein’s Rules, and that following the myths of fiction writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.