My current publishing to do list

This is what my current writing space looks like. It’s hard to see, but there’s a board taped to the wall with the label “Publishing To Do.” Even though that board is right next to me whenever I’m working on stuff, I hardly ever look at it, and the tasks just keep piling up. So to put a little pressure on myself to get them done, I thought I’d list them here.

For those of you who are just curious, consider this a look behind the curtain of a working self-published writer.

• Publish Star Wanderers: Tales of the Far Outworlds (Omnibus V-VIII) — I actually haven’t bothered to write this one down, but since it’s the top priority task, it’s the one most likely to get done. Everything is finished except the book cover, and I’m finalizing that with the designer right now.
• POD Star Wanderers: Deliverance (Part VIII) — “POD” means “print-on-demand.” All the other Star Wanderers books are out in print now, except for this one. Coming soon!
• Optimize keywords — There are a bazillion things I need to do to optimize my keywords on Amazon, as I learned just recently. Better get on that.
• Optimize categories — Same as above. Starting here.
• Upload books to DriveThru Fiction
• Figure out how to format PDFs for DriveThru Fiction — I hear that customers at DriveThru Fiction like to buy PDFs that they can print out and bind as books themselves. I have no idea how to format that sort of thing, so I need to find out from someone more knowledgeable than me and figure out how to do that. For all of my books. Blargh.
• Upload books to ARe/Omnilit
• Upload books to Xinxii
• Upload books to Google Play — The main reason I haven’t uploaded my books to these sites is because I’m going to be getting new covers for all the Star Wanderers books soon. Why do something twice if you only have to do it once? But yeah, I should probably just take a day or two and upload all the current versions anyway.
• Update Amazon Book Descriptions via Author Central — This is made complicated by the fact that there are separate Author Central pages for each Amazon store. AARGH.
• Figure out Amazon Affiliate Program — I am probably leaving a fair amount of money on the table by not putting those affiliate tags on each of my Amazon links, so yeah, better get on that.
• Donate books to the Provo Library — I’m not sure if they’ll take them, though. My roommate says they won’t, but my brother-in-law’s father works there, so maybe he can help me find a connection.
• Donate books to the HBLL — Since I’m a BYU alum, I’m pretty sure I can convince them to take my books. I’ve seen other self-published stuff in there.
• POD Star Wanderers Omnibuses — Since I need to get new covers for all the individual ones first, this one falls kind of low on the list.
• Figure out distribution on Xinxii — I heard from somewhere that they do free ISBNs now. Then again, that might have been a holiday deal. Either way, it’s something to look into–after I upload all my books there, of course.
• Fill out Smashwords interview — This will probably be the funnest thing to do on this list.
• Add books to Find Read Love — As well as any other book sites that are awesome.
• Get active on Goodreads — If there’s any social media site that isn’t a waste of time, it’s probably Goodreads. I should try to be a more active user of that site, not just as a writer but as a reader. For starters, I should transfer all of the stuff from my book review section and join some groups that look particularly interesting. I’m already a member of Sword & Laser, but I haven’t done anything more than introduce myself on the forums. I listen to their podcast, though, and really love it.

That’s the list, more or less. I would absolutely love it if I had an assistant who could take care of this stuff, but I’m not currently making enough to hire one, and it would just be weird to take on an intern. Besides, the main reason I haven’t done any of this stuff yet is because I’m lazy. If I did a bit here and there, I could probably knock it all out in a couple of months. Maybe if I made a new personal rule to do something from this list before logging on to Steam? Hmm … that might actually work.

In any case, that’s what the publishing side looks like around here. When you’re self-published, you more or less have to do all of this yourself. It can be a chore sometimes, but it still beats writing personalized query letters. 😛