Organizing Your Book Files, and More

by

In today’s Journal

* Organizing Your Book Files
* A Little More on Payhip
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Organizing Your Book Files

Thanks to Vin Zandri for this topic. See Of Interest.

As always, I can only share what I personally do and why. What you take from it or do with it is up to you.

I’ve always found it most convenient to keep everything for each book in a file folder (on my laptop and in my Dropbox) for that book.

The folders are “nested” so every aspect of every novel is easy to find.

In a file folder named HarveyStanbrough.com, I keep folders labeled

  • 0 Novels (includes novellas)
  • 1 Short Fiction
  • 2 Collections
  • 3 Nonfiction
  • 4 Poetry

There are a lot of other folders in that one too, but they have nothing to do specifically with books.

I numbered those folders so they’ll remain in that sequence and appear at the top rather than alphabetically.

When I open the Novels folder, I find folders labeled

  • 1 Blackwell Ops Series
  • 2 Other Thriller Action-Adventure
  • 3 Crowley Saga
  • 4 Other Westerns
  • 5 Journey Home Saga
  • 6 Other Science Fiction Fantasy
  • 7 Mystery & Pulp PI

Again, the numbers keep them in place.

In the Blackwell Ops Series folder, I have folders labeled

  • 0 Bible (for consistency, novel to novel)
  • 1 Blackwell Ops SG Subseries
  • and then a separate folder for each title in the series, from “Blackwell Ops 1 J Tilden” through (so far) “Blackwell Ops 22 TJ Blackwell.”

Notice each folder includes the series number and the operative’s name. Because who can remember all that?

In each individula book folder, I keep

  • the .doc or .docx manuscript file
  • the .epub file
  • the .mobi file
  • the .pdf file
  • the original PagePlus file with which I created the cover
    the original 6250 x 9375 pixel “master” cover
  • the 2000 x 3000 pixel cover (upload to Amazon et al)
  • the 300 x 450 pixel cover (book page)
  • the 180 x 270 pixel cover (genre page)
  • the promo file

Why? Because when I need to upload anything to my website or to a publishing platform, everything is right there. This is a massive time saver.

But what about a non-series folder? I’ll use “2 Other Thriller Action-Adventure” (from the HarveyStanbrough.com folder above) as an example. Inside that one, I have

  • AA A Rough New World
  • AA Jobs Like That
  • AA A Little Time
  • Cazadores Lounge and Lonely Place
  • Confessions of a Professional Psychopath
  • Jona Peach
  • Nick Spalding Series*
  • No Kind’a Time
  • Nothing for Nothing

Again, I use the whole title as the folder name. Specificity matters, especailly when you have a lot of books.

Inside each book folder are all the files I listed above (the mss, efiles, cover files, etc.)..

The “AA” prefix denotes the book is a novella. Like the numbers I used above, the “AA” keeps those three files together at the top. (If I wanted them together at the bottom, I’d have added the prefix “ZZ” or something.

*Notice “Nick Spalding Series”: That series is completed at four novels and isn’t “big” enough to deserve a place in the higher nesting level (like Blackwell Ops or Wes Crowley Saga etc.), so I put it in with “2 Other Thriller Action-Adventure.”

Inside “Nick Spalding Series” folder is another folder for each of the four books in the series. In each of those book folders are all the same items I described above (the mss, efiles, cover files, etc.).

And that’s it. This simple file system is easy to set up, and it makes finding whatever file you need for whichever book super easy.

But again (and I’m sure Vin would agree) I recommend setting it up before you have a ton of IP. Then just keep adding to it as you write more books and stories.

Which leads us to short stories.

Inside the “1 Short Fiction” folder, I have a separate file folder for each persona: Eric Stringer, François, Gervasio Arrancado, Nick Porter, and Harvey Stanbrough.

Inside each of those, I have an individual folder for each short story that persona wrote. Each individual short story folder contains all of the items I listed above (the mss, efiles, cover files, etc.).

Of course, the same thing goes for all the nonfiction book, etc. Hey, a publication is a publication. In organization, the length of the story makes no difference.

My particular organization system might or might not work for you. Much depends on how your mind works. But I urge you to put together some sort of system so you will have everything handy when you need it. Because sooner or later, you WILL need it.

Still More on Payhip

I had trouble setting up the store at Payhip. I’m sure most of that was due to my own lack of experience. Your results probably will differ. Then I remembered I’m using it mostly as a store so readers can buy the individual books directly.

I also realized if I “hid” all my individual book pages on StoneThread Publishing, that would eliminate the buy links for Amazon and Books2Read (Kobo, B&N, Apple, and everywhere else).

So I finally decided to go through and add the Payhip link to each individual book page on StoneThread Publishing.

If the reader clicks on a very bold “Or Buy Direct for only $5.00!” or whatever price, s/he will be redirected straight to the book page at Payhip where s/he can read the description again and click either Add to Cart or Buy Now.

Visit any of the fiction book pages on StoneThread Publishing and click the huge “Buy Direct” link at the bottom of any page to check it out.

At the bottom of each book page on Payhip, the store also has a “you might also like” section.

So all of the Payhip stuff is almost done. I only have to add a few books and then just keep writing.

Hope the above is helpful.

I’ll talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Easter and Going Direct!

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 970

Writing of

Day 1…… XXXX words. To date…… XXXXX

Fiction for April…………………….….… XXXXX
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 225792
Fiction since October 1………………… 528848
Nonfiction for April……………………… 1880
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 130600
2024 consumable words……………… 356392

2024 Novels to Date……………………… 6
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 88
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 239
Short story collections………………… 31

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

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