So I have a patreon. And on the second of the month, I send out something to my people. Last month, what I was SUPPOSED to send out was the first three Yasmin of the Desert stories. Then this month I would follow up with 4&5, and in June they would get 6&7. 8 is done, but I needed time to catch up. Plus 1-7 is a novel-length collection that will come out one of these days.

All well and good.

Except that when I uploaded last month to bookfunnel, I grabbed the wrong file. The 7 file and not the 3 file.

Whoops.

Got an email from a confused patron a little while ago asking what he had screwed up. Wasn’t him. Grabbed the file down and opened it and “well, shit…”

Fortunately, I write a lot. So I sent everyone an apology email.

Looked around and flipped a coin in my head for what I would send out instead. Like I said, deep trunk to select things from.

The goal in 2019 was 20 novels. (Novel being single arc of story 40,000+ words). Did that. Most of them have not come out yet. Last December, was in Minneapolis visiting family and staying in a hotel. I write. That’s what I do. Started a story, but damnit this was NOT going to be the 21st novel, so I deliberately chopped it at 18,000 words. Nice solid novella as an origin story for a 1970s hero in a new genre we’re going to call Discopunk.

I had even done a cover for it, back when I was teaching myself such things under the tutelage of the Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) and it’s not half-bad.

So I hopped up from my leisure, grabbed the Mac, and got to work.

I love vellum. Import a word file. Import a front-matter doc that is already set up. Tweak a few things. Fill out the title information. Add the cover file. Tell it to format the document into epub, mobi, kobo, iBooks, and print.

And done. Pretty, too.

Then I uploaded it to Bookfunnel and got a new download link for my patrons.

Sent them a second apology email with the background of the story and the new download link, and looked up at the clock.

The first email had hit my box at 17:02. I hit send on on the replacement email at 17:38.

Raw docx file formatted, generated, uploaded, and delivered to my patrons in just under 45 minutes, and I wasn’t even pushing that hard.

That’s what I’m talking about, when I tell folks that the tools these days are THAT EASY. There is an investment in time, hardware, and prep, but once those are sunks costs, the rest is easy.

That’s how I can afford to do Boundary Shock Quarterly or Blaze Ward Presents. Or just put books up on my website shop for cheap so people can give me money instead of giving it to the 900 pound books gorilla.

So that was how I spent the last hour of my Sunday night. Might yet get around to watching a silly movie, but right now, I’m going back to goofing off.

How are you taking advantage of the tools of modern publishing?

🙂