I Can Do Everything! (or, “Man, I Need to Hire a Secretary!”)

Being an indie author sometimes makes me wish I was Shiva. 😛

As I’ve stated before, I’ve been negligent on blogging for the last month. It wasn’t just this blog that suffered, though. Most, if not all, of my other projects were put on hiatus so I could finish editing my two latest books, 42: Discovering Faith Through Fandom and Ninjas and Talking Trees, in time for Gen-Con 2015 next week. But it was only one of the many things I had to do.

One of the perils of being a self-published author (as I think I mentioned in an early episode of “But I Digress…”) is you have to do everything, or at least almost everything, yourself. Your work doesn’t stop with writing the book and making recommended changes. You have to become an entire publishing house. You write, you edit, you hire cover artists (assuming you don’t create the cover yourself), you do layout, you promote the book, etc., etc. Unless you’re an excellent project manager, this can be tiring, especially when you also work a day job and have a social life. In the last month, I’ve found myself thinking many times, I just want to write! I understand now why some authors forego self-publishing, despite its advantages, in favor of traditional publishing: they have much less to worry about. Their attention isn’t nearly as divided, so they can focus more on their craft.

Strange (or selfish) as it may sound, one of the reasons I want to get married is because I’d like to have a wife who could help me with some of this. Yes, I admit it: I’d like her to be my secretary. Here’s the thing: she wouldn’t be my subservient, but my partner. We’d work on things together as equals.

Regardless, I already practice this to some extent. I hired friends/professional editors to look over these books so it wasn’t just me. Fresh eyes can see things I don’t. The artist who created the cover for 42, Ruth Pike, also did the back cover and some promotional materials. My friend Nick Hayden then did the layout. Anthony Gangemi drew the artwork for Ninjas and Talking Trees, which required a bit of faith on my part because it was the most expensive cover I’ve commissioned. I was thinking back on a self-publishing seminar where the instructor insisted authors should invest money in our careers. But I had to add the text and do the layout myself because Nick was unavailable. Then I had to wait for CreateSpace to process everything. (Thankfully, their shipping department is awesome, and my orders arrived four or five days early).

Let this be a warning to you: if you want to be an indie author, expect to put in extra work.

It’s worth it, though. 😉

P.S. Please leave reviews for my books on Amazon and Goodreads!