The Two Minds of B.E. Sanderson

I'm of two minds.  On the one side, I have the creative mind.  It writes books and does covers and pretty pictures.  On the other, the business mind.  It does all the other stuff - accounting, marketing, formatting, publishing, editing, etc.  And they can't seem to work at the same time.

Most days, I can keep them apart.  Business works in the morning.  Creative works in the evening.  

But when one of them is particularly focused on its job, the other one takes a vacation.  When I'm deep into the writing, I can't seem to get Business to do the stuff it needs to do.  When I'm deep into work chores, Creative doesn't want to work and laughs at me when I try.  

Like when I get a bunch of spreadsheets to do for the pay-job... I can't write that day.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work the other way because the pay-job stuff is time-sensitive.  It comes in and I do it, regardless of where I'm at with the writing.  Lucky for my writing, it doesn't happen too often.  I get the spreadsheets done in the morning and by evening, I'm ready to let Creative loose.

Right now, I've been wrapped up in post-publication stuff.  Business has taken over and Creative is at the beach napping under an umbrella.  I want to write.  I have ideas.  But I can't seem to get that part of my brain in gear.

Occasionally, the two minds have jobs that overlap.  Marketing, for instance.  It's a job for Business, but in order to get snazzy copy, Creative has to cooperate.  Trying to wake her up to write ad copy for FB posts first thing in the morning is like waking a hibernating squirrel.  Gah.  I should set those things up at night, but try and get Business awake enough then to remember to prod Creative... Gah.

Unfortunately, Creative is easily derailed.  Of course she is, she's creative.  She gets distracted by everything.  Like I said... squirrel.  If Creative had half the focus Business does, I'd be cranking books out all over the place.  But no.  Then again, if she was focused, she wouldn't be creative.  Or something.  I guess.

Not sure what the answer is.  Muddle along?  I do have 16 books out now, so it's not like it isn't working entirely.  Some days I just wish it would work more efficiently.  

What about you?  Do your creative and business sides work together?  

Note:  I am not insane.  Really, I'm not.

Spreadsheets for the New Year

As you all probably know, I'm a spreadsheet geek.  On the personal side, I have spreadsheets for the books I've acquired and for my weight and activity (where I also keep track of writerly things like word counts and pages edited).  I do spreadsheets for the payjob.  And I have spreadsheets to keep track of things for the writing business.  Those last ones are the ones I want to talk about today.

I have a whomping huge spreadsheet to keep track of my expenses and income.  All six years worth.  That one's particularly ugly this year, so we won't really talk about it much.  When I finish updating it, it will tell me how far in the hole I am and whether I made any progress anywhere.  The closest any of my books is to being out of the hole is Accidental Death.  It's only $102.51 in the negative.

My other two main spreadsheets are Book Sales Data and Sales Totals.  

Book Sales Data has a tab for each month of the year and on each tab, it has sales information for each book - color coded by book on the rows with columns for each possible sales item.  Each potential US price gets a column, other countries get columns (except the EU countries only have one column because they all use the euro), there are columns for KU and print and returns. This sheet is for quantities only.  I used to do quantities and amounts, but I deleted the amounts section several years ago because it wasn't necessary here.  I keep all that over in the Sales Totals spreadsheet.

The Sales Totals spreadsheet is another whomping huge one.  This sucker tells me everything - quantity, amounts, page reads, etc. on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis with comparisons and charts.  I use the Book Sales Data sheet to feed this one.  (I have to, or this one would be even huger and the weight of it would probably topple my computer.)

The first tab of the ST takes the data from the BSD.  It's a lot like the BSD in that there are color-coded lines and columns for each of the possible sales items. Rather than try to explain it, here's a screen capture of what I'm talking about.

Pretty, pretty rainbows.

I couldn't capture the whole sheet, so I just gave you a month and the quantity side.  The earnings side looks the same, except the numbers over there will have dollar signs, when I have numbers to put into it.  The colors are for more than just looks, too.  They help me keep track of things with a glance.  Dying Embers will always be that shade of blue.  If I'd thought this though way back when, series would all be the same color, but I didn't.  And it would've messed up my rainbows anyway.  

If you look beneath the rainbows, you can see the tabs to where all that information works.  The Daily is quantities of everything sold.  The Daily Pgs is for Kindle Unlimited.  Overall keeps track of everything over all the years.  Monthly breaks it down.  Pgs Read does the KU by month and book.  It's all pretty self-explanatory.  

Every time I publish another book, I have to update everything - adding rows and columns, etc. - but for the most part, this works for me all year long.  Sucking in data and presenting it in a format I can easily digest.  

Every month, I have to plug in formulas to make ST pull from BSD, but that's only because I'm too lazy to do it all ahead of time.  I used to populate the thing with formulas at the start of the year.  Then it got to be such a pain, I decided to do it month to month, as things sold.  Why put a formula into a cell if there will never be any information in that cell?  So, I stopped.

Anyway, you probably won't ever want or need anything like this.  It keeps me out of trouble and even when the sales are light, it gives me a clear outlook on where I've been and where I'm going. 

If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them as long as they aren't too involved like I'd be building your spreadsheet for you.  I've often thought about offering my services to make spreadsheets like these for other authors, but the sheer weight of these things and the data involved makes it less than ideal.  And the time it takes to create and maintain one would make the process costly for other writers. 

And besides, few writers are as geeky as I am.  I like knowing exactly what's going on with the business at any given time.  Even when the news is bad.  

Speaking of which, I will be doing at least one wrap-up post here sometime next week to talk about 2020 sales and junk.  See ya then.  I won't be here on Friday.

Time Again for Spreadsheets

I said something yesterday about doing a post about spreadsheets over here today.  Then it occurred to me that I've probably done a similar post in years past.  So, basically, if you've heard it all before, you can skip this post.

If you've been around here long enough, you know that I'm kind of a spreadsheet geek.  (Okay, I'm a geek in other ways, too.)  I make spreadsheets for all sorts of stuff - books I acquire, weight loss, word counts, expenses...  I also do spreadsheets for work, but that's another story. 

I like being able to see the data, track the data, research the data.  Look for patterns, compare  numbers, check for errors, etc.  Whether any of this does me any good is anyone's guess.  It keeps me out of trouble.  Right now, it's the time to start working on the spreadsheets for 2020.

My two main writerly spreadsheets are for tracking book sales.  There's a small one and there's a big one.  The small one - Book Sales Data - feeds the big one - Sales Totals.

Any time I see any sales activity, I plug it into Book Sales Data.  That one has tabs for each month and on each tab, it has each book and each book has a column of dates.  It also has columns for the price it sold at and where (country-wise), pages read, etc.  So, if I sell a book today, I'd type a one in say the Dying Embers section in the $3.99 column.  Or if someone in the UK read 100 pages of Wish in One Hand, I'd put 100 in the KU UK section (which could then feed a formula in another column to give me the percent of book read).

It's all very geeky. 

Anyway, the numbers go into Book Sales Data, which then feeds the behemoth Sales Totals spreadsheet to give me yearly totals and allow me to analyze things like how many books I've sold in any given month, how much money I've made, etc.  And then compares it against previous years, etc. With things color coded by book, so I don't get lost in the data forest.

It's a rainbow! Yep, geeky.

I'm not sure I like all the colors I chose for the books, but it's there now and after all this time, changing colors would totally harsh my groove.  BOAI is brown, dammit, and it will always be brown.

I suppose this all comes from my sales/management/computer tech/data entry background.  The sales force (me) needs to know what's selling and what's not and the management (me) needs to be able to see it all at a glance, so the computer tech (me) need to put it all in a useable format so data entry (me) can input everything easily.  Umm...

I can also take all of this and be able to provide the CFO (Hubs) with answers to any questions he might ask pertaining to book sales.  He doesn't ask, but it's there if he does.  Sometimes, I just blurt out stuff like 'hey, I reached 3000 books sold this morning'.* Or I show him the graphs when compare sales by month or by year.  Because they're pretty.

Oh, to have a sales spike like May of 2015 again...

I have another spreadsheet that tracks expenses pertaining to each book, but let's not talk about that one.  It depresses me and I haven't updated it in months. I should probably do that before year end, though.  Blerg.

Now, I started doing this when I first started selling books in 2015, so it made adding to it each year relatively easy.  If you were going to do one, that's the time to do it.  If you're already years into your book sales, it can still be done, but it would be a bear to recapture all that old data if you haven't already got it.  You could start from here.  You know, if you want to be geeky like me.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I just had a geeky spreadsheet idea to fix a problem I've been having with something I do for the office.

Any questions?  Comments? 

*happened last week, but I forgot to add it to the Sunday Update.

It's Just Bad Business

Now, this is only peripherally a writerly type post, but bear with me...

Earlier this week, I got an email from Goodreads telling me that I have a credit on my marketing account or some such thing and that I needed to do something about it. 

First off, I thought it was a spoof email and I sure as hell wasn't clicking any links* in it.  Why did I think it was a spoof?  Because, to the best of my knowledge, I had never marketed with Goodreads or put any money into an account with them, so how could I have a credit?

Well, it turns out that at some point in 2015, I had done something.  My best guess?  They offered me a $1 credit to play with.  So, I used the credit to set up an ad for Dying Embers.  One person clicked the ad and then the ad was done.  Leaving a whopping 50c in my account with them.

According to the email, that 50c is going to become the property of the state of Delaware if I don't claim it.  (From what I gathered, I can contact support at Goodreads and have the money transferred into my bank account.)

Delaware?  But Goodreads is in CA.  Hubs says a lot of companies incorporate in DE, so that explains that.  :shrug:

Anyway, I've already wasted more than 50c of my time dealing with this, so I moved the email into the Archives so I wouldn't have to look at it anymore. But it stayed in my head. 

This is bad business.  It's also bad government, but I won't get into that here.  Think about it... Goodreads - a business - offers its customers a credit (not real money) to encourage sales of its marketing but when the credit isn't used in its entirety, they're willing to send the remaining credit as actual money to either the customer or, according to the laws of the state of Delaware, to the state of Delaware.  But it was never actual money.

I never gave Goodreads my account number.  I never transferred any money to them via bank or credit card.  It's not my money.

And it's not the state of Delaware's money.

It's Goodreads' own money.  Because even though it wasn't actual money when they gave me the credit, it's actual money now - ready to be plopped into a bank account somewhere.  Sure, it's only 50c for me.  But what if 1000 authors received the $1 credit and never put it to use?  10000?  Now we're talking money any one of us would certainly like in our own pockets.  Drop in the bucket for Goodreads, right?  Probably, but that's not the point.  It's bad business. 

And it's bad government because I'm sure this thing where they're offering to give the money back - well, not really 'back', per se - is driven by some strange ass law in DE. 

Part of me wants to claim the damn 50c because I don't want the state of Delaware to have it.  It doesn't belong to them.  But it doesn't belong to me either.  It belongs to silly-ass Goodreads.  And it always has.

Frankly, I'm surprised that a business like Goodreads would make such a gaff.  Especially since it's now owned by Amazon.  But the credit was given before the takeover, so maybe that's the answer.  :shrug:

Any of you get a letter like that from Goodreads?  Have you ever used Goodreads to market anything?  How'd that work for you?

* I don't click links in emails unless I know exactly who it's from, why I'm getting a link, and where it's going to take me.  In this case, I went directly to Goodreads and checked my marketing account (not easy to find, BTW) to verify that the email was correct.  No link clicking necessary.

A Business Like No Other

I've seen a lot online* recently about treating this writing/publishing thing as a business.  And I don't disagree.  It is a business.

Unfortunately, for most of us, it's a business that's not making enough money to keep a bird alive and would close it's doors in a day if it were any other type of business. So, treating it as a business... in say the same way one would look at a store or a restaurant or an accounting firm... isn't exactly feasible.

If the business my father started back in 1983 behaved the way this writing business does, it wouldn't have made it 36 years.  Sure, the first few years sucked.  That's to be expected in any new business.  But by five years in, if you're not making money, you should probably send all the employees home and close the doors.

Oh, I get how the whole 'it's a business' thing helps keep the mindset of 'show up every day, work your hours, etc.'  So you're treating this as a job and not a hobby.

But let's not fool ourselves overly much.  This is a business like no other business.  We work in our pajamas for petesakes.

We don't have employees, per se.  (Editors and cover artists are contractors, not employees.)  We are every employee wrapped up into one person.  And most of us should probably be fired from at least one of those positions.  Except we can't fire ourselves from anything because if we stop doing it, we're screwed.

We keep strange hours and they differ from writer to writer and sometimes from day to day - or to paraphrase Steven Wright "Open 24 hours... but not in a row."

We almost never know or see our customers.  "Hey, look at that, someone in the UK is reading Natural Causes. Don't know who or why or how they found it, but cool."

90% of our work is in our heads, for petesakes.

So, treat it like a business if it gets you motivated and your butt in the chair doing your job.  Personally, for me, it would be easier to treat it like a business if it was actually making money. Or maybe it would make more money if I treated it more like a business.  I'm not sure about that, though.  In the past, I've shown up and put in the hours and still no monies, which makes me less likely to want to show up and put in the hours now.  Especially when I can spend time doing spreadsheets and actually getting checks for my time.

Treat it like a business, but always remember that non-writing businesses don't work this way.

* Complete disclosure - I didn't read the online articles, so they could've said exactly what I'm saying.  These are just the thoughts I had after seeing people talking about the subject.

This is a Business

This is a business.

Sometimes I need a gentle reminder.  Sometimes I need a smack upside the head.  So let me say it again...

This is a business.

I tend to forget, in the course of letting my creative side run amok, that this is not about skipping rocks across the publication pond to see how many times they bounce on the surface before they sink.

Or maybe it is.

If you're into rock skipping, you know you have to pick just the right rock or it'll hit the surface with a big kerplop and disappear beneath the glassy water.  It has to be flat.  It has to be smooth.  It needs rounded surfaces to skim across the water.  Otherwise, it's a fail before you even let it go.

You also have to pick just the right day to skip rocks, when the water is kind of glassy.  Can't skip rocks across waves, doncha know.  I tend to suck at this part.  Not for actually skipping rocks, but for this analogy.  I'm really not good at knowing when the best time is to launch my rocks across the publication pond.

I kind of even suck at picking the right rocks sometimes.  DE has been a great rock.  It's still skipping right along there.  (As long as I continue to nudge it.  Helps that it has the most reviews.)  Others?  Kerplop.

Okay, I've beaten that analogy to death.  The point is this is a business.  I've talked about ROI (return on investment) from a marketing standpoint, but never from a publishing standpoint.  If a book will cost x-dollars to publish, will it conceivably make that money back?

To date, not a single one of my books has recouped the initial investment.  Accidental Death has come closest.  I'm within $100 of making a profit on that one.  But paying for marketing makes that kind of a 'one step back, two steps forward' thing.  The worst at recouping so far has been Wish in One Hand - because reasons*.  I'm still in the hole big time on that one.

So, when considering where to go with my writing and my publication schedule, I really should be thinking about how to get out of the hole (or, rather, how to not make the hole even deeper) instead of how to get all the books of my heart published.

Not sure how that will go.  Right now I suspect this writing dry spell is directly related to thinking about the business side of things.  The tiny CFO in my head is at war with the Director of Creative Development.  One wants to audit, the other wants to dance.  And the CEO is beginning to see that the DCD has had far too much leeway for far too long.

DCD:  "Don't make me look at the spreadsheet again.  Please.  It's all too depressing."
CFO:  "Look at it.  Look. At. It."
DCD:  :whimper:

Anyway, it's the start of the year.  Good a time as any to think about things, look at things, and get my mind right.


*Mainly, I paid too much for a shitty cover from a 'real artist' who was supposed to give me something beautiful and gave me, instead, something that looked like it was hacked together from bad video game screen captures.  But I launched with it anyways.  Which sucked.  Then I had to pay for a better cover so my subsequent djinn books' sales wouldn't suck.  Live and learn.

Using Amazon Perks More Effectively

Okay, so if you sell books exclusively through Amazon, you know you have these perks you can utilize to help boost sales - chiefly, the Kindle Countdown Deals (KCD) and the free book days. 

Once every 90 days, you can choose to discount your books or have them free for up to 7 days.  With the discount, the days have to be in a row.  With the free, you can sprinkle them around.  Every 90 days you can use one or the other, but not both. 

I've used the KCD and the free promotions, but probably not to the best of their abilities.  And I don't always remember to use them every 90 days. 

The sales I had for Project Hermes, Sleeping Ugly, and Blink of an I were built to use up my KCD before my 90 days ran out. It's a use it or lose it kind of thing.  You get a whole 'nother 7 days when your clock resets, but you can never get back the days you didn't use.  So, I figured, why not use them.

Part of my problem was not keeping good track of when my 90 days were for each of my books.  So, yep, built another spreadsheet.  (It's what I do.) 

As you can see, I've got a line for each of the books (sorted by series), with columns full of dates - when my exclusivity starts, when it ends, and the next one and the next one.  I also mark when I've used my perks by putting a solid box around the date I'm currently in.  So I can plan accordingly. 

The other day, Silver accused me of being organized.  I scoffed.  Traditionally, I have been about the least organized person I could think of.  But, I guess, as I got older and had more time on my hands, I did become organized.  Hence the spreadsheets.  :shrug: 

Being organized has helped a lot with this business part of writing.  (Not so much with the writing part of writing.  That's still an unorganized mess.)   I'm probably still not using all the perks to the best of my abilities - say, getting advertising set up in time for it to be effective - but I'm working on it. 

I hope this helps give you some ideas on how to keep track of this stuff.  Use it if it helps and if it's no use to you, thanks for reading all the way down to here anyway.

Do you use the perks?  Any ideas on how to better utilize them?

A Time for Everything

This morning, Elizabeth Spann Craig had an interesting post on her blog on balancing business and writing.  As always, she makes some interesting points and gives her take on things.  And I agreed with pretty much everything.  Except she says she gets the writing out of the way first. 

As you've probably heard me say before, I don't write in the morning.  Years of homeschooling got me in the habit of writing at night.  And while I haven't had to homeschool in years, I'm still in that habit.  Plus, now Hubs isn't going off to a day job either, and we share an office, and the majority of his work has to be done in the morning.  You can see where I'm going with that, right?  The office is nice and quiet at night. 

And now my pay-job is busiest in the morning. So shifting the schedule to write during the day is not going to work for me.

So, I write and edit at night.  I do business stuff - marketing, networking, emailing, spreadsheeting, etc. - in the morning, too.  That stuff is easier to pause when something comes up than writing.  I like a nice uninterrupted stretch of an hour or three to put new words on the page.  Or to get really rolling on edits.  I start after dinner and work until bedtime or brain fatigue kicks in.

But that's me.

Now, I don't think Elizabeth was saying her way is the only way to write.  Of course not.  She was simply giving what works for her as a template for what might help other writers find their balance between writing and the business of being an author.  And I'm certainly not saying my way is the only way.  As I've always maintained, there is no right way to do this crazy thing we do.  You've got to find your own stride.  And if your stride isn't working for you, try something different until you're in your own groove.

My groove ain't for everyone. 

Now, you might notice that I talk about working in the morning and writing at night.  What about afternoons, you say?  Well, I'm pretty much a useless toad from lunchtime to dinner.  I don't write, I don't work, I don't exercise, I don't do housework.  If it doesn't get done in the morning, it ain't getting done until the next morning.  Except for writing.  And unless I'm on a deadline.  Then all bets are off and I work whether I'm a useless toad or not.

How about you?  When's your most productive time of day?  Are you a morning person or a night person?  If you're an afternoon person, I am in awe of you. 

The Foolhardy Venture

Blink of an I is back from the editor and I've started on the final round of edits for that (well, final editor edits, then I'll do a final read-through for the little things).  Early Grave went to the editor yesterday.  I should be getting the bill for that today.  And thanks to the spreadsheet work I do, I have the money to pay the bill.

I was thinking about that last night when my brain probably should've been tucking itself in and winding down to, you know, sleep.  If you told me I would bust my ass everyday at my job and not get a regular check for it, I would laugh in your face.  But that's exactly what I do. 

Some... okay, most... would call it foolhardy.  Hell, so would I.  If my daughter came to me with this scheme, I would shudder in fear and wonder 'but how are you going to eat?' 

I mean, I'm lucky.  Hubs has always taken care of the paying for eating and housing and utilities.  He's even funded the majority of my foolhardy venture.  At some point, though, I had to get off the dole.  I had hoped to get off of it by my books paying for themselves.  Ummm... not yet.  There's always hope, but not yet.  I had this grand dream that by the third year of publishing, I would at least be funding myself.  Ummm...  I averaged about $30 a month last year.  That won't even pay for the editing on one book.  Forget covers and marketing.

So, I took up this spreadsheet thing.  It's kind of like taking in other people's sewing.  I get paid by the piece.  Not much, but it's paying the publication bills.  And it's enjoyable, in a teeth-gnashing kind of way sometimes.  Plus, it leaves me time to do my job - which is writer.

Yesterday, I did spreadsheet work in the morning, edited from then until the afternoon (when I got it done - otherwise I would've been editing into the wee hours of the night) and then did more spreadsheet work.  Today?  I started editing about 6am, then took a break to write this.  Whether I get any spreadsheet work to do today is anyone's guess.  If I do, I'll get it done and go back to editing.  So I can publish Blink on or around the 21st.

So, yeah, it's a foolhardy venture.  I'm kind of loving it, though.  And if I'm not making money at the writing thing yet, well, there's always hope.  Although, right this moment, I'm reminded of Dad's old maxim (paraphrased, of course): Hope in one hand and spit in the other and see which gets full fastest. 

LOL

Release Day Advertising and Numbers

Hey All. 

Here we are again with a break down of the things I did for the release of Wish Hits the Fan and how it's panned out so far. 

Starting last Thursday, I placed Wish in One Hand as free for 5 days (the max Amazon allows for) and both In Deep Wish and Up Wish Creek as 99c/.99p for 7 days (max for a Kindle Countdown Deal). 

I didn't set any advertising for Thursday, but I did kind of blitz Facebook and Twitter.  I ended up with 360 copies of WIOH out the door that day, and sold 25 copies of the other Once Upon a Djinn books. 

Friday, my first ads went up at Paranormal & Urban Fantasy Bargains and Author's Billboard.  235 copies of WIOH went out and I sold 11 copies of the others.

Saturday, more ads for PUFB and another ad at ebookdealsdaily.com.  82 copies of WIOH, 11 sales.

Sunday, no ads but additional FB and Twitter stuff.  50 copies of WIOH, and 9 sales.

Monday, the final ad at PUFB began.  36 WIOH, 2 sales.

Tuesday, the last day of the PUFB ad.  2 sales.

Wrapped into all of that are the 3500 pages read through Kindle Unlimited. 

So, basically, I spent $28 on advertising and made a little over double that.  Which is about what one should expect from advertising dollars, I guess.  I'm hoping for some additional residual sales as people who picked up WIOH read it and buy the others, and as people who downloaded the books for KU, read pages and I get credit for those.  We'll see.

I also saw some activity for my other non-OUAD books.  The only book out of the nine that had no activity was Dying Embers, so that's something.  And I saw more activity from other countries - UK, CA, AU, and Japan, of all places.  :shrug:

It wasn't an explosion of sales for release day - I only moved 16 copies of WHTF - but I'm calling it a win.  Especially considering that prior to this, I'd only sold like 85 books total over the first 8 books this whole year.

Still not sure what's up next.  I really need to get back to work on finishing Early Grave.  And then edits for Sleeping Ugly.  And writing the next book in Dennis Haggarty's world.  First, though, I have to find a way to recharge my gumption hump. 

Okay, that's it.  Any questions?

Tax Time

All the 1099s have arrived, so that means it's time to do the taxes again.  Which meant, for me, a hunk of time spent entering receipts into Excel, because I never keep up with that stuff and leave it all to the last minute.

Supplies, Equipment, Services, Postage, Marketing.  Those are my receipt types.  With columns for dates, amounts, vendors, and what the thing was exactly (paper, ink, etc.)  Last year, by my reckoning, I spent about $2K getting three books to market.  More than I made, but less than half of what I spent the year before, so I guess it's all good. 

Yeah, I do my own taxes.  We aren't to the point yet where I can't handle it.  If things change, we'll hire someone.  For now, I slap down the money for Turbotax (Home and Business, I think?) online.  I've been using them so long that they have all my pertinent information going back 10+ years and I'm used to them.

The other day, when I went to print my 1099s off Amazon, I discovered they've streamlined the process.  Previously, they issued a separate 1099 for each Amazon store (i.e. each country plus Createspace).  This year, it's all on one 1099.  Woohoo.  Let me tell ya, entering each of those 1099s last year was a pain in the patootie. 

Then I thought I was off by like $20.  I spent some time wondering where the hell I went wrong only to remember that the last two months of 2016 haven't been paid yet and the last two months of 2015, which were paid in 2016 were about $10 lighter than this year's.  And then I realized I had like $10 on my Draft2Digital 1099.  Eureka!  I love it when the numbers match.

Anyway, I'll be plugging away at that stuff sometime this morning.  After more coffee.  And my Monday call to Mom.  They should be done today, though.  Which is good.  And then I won't have to worry about it anymore.  Get 'em out of the way early, I say. 

What about you?  Are you a do them ASAP kind of person or do you wait until April 14th?  And if you're in another country, how's tax time in your world?

Business Stuff

It's the 26th of December.  By this time next week, it will be next year.  And you know what that means?  New spreadsheets for 2017! 

Yeah, I'm guessing you're not nearly as excited.  Neither am I.  It's a necessary thing, though.  So, this morning I created a new 2017 Sales Totals spreadsheet and a new 2017 Book Sales Data spreadsheet.

Last year, I totally screwed something up and ended up with a mess of both.  This year I'm hoping to avoid the mess because I made a template instead of creating a copy of the Book Sales Data sheet.  (Creating a copy somehow made all the formulas in the Sales Total Spreadsheet point to the new copy instead of the original, so when I wiped out the 2015 data, it blanked out my original Sales Total sheet.  It was awful.)  Fingers crossed this all goes super smooth this year. 

So, the new spreadsheets are there.  I still have work to do, of course, but they exist - waiting patiently for new sales to fill them up.  (Fingers crossed there, too.)

That's just a screen capture of the top of the sheet.  When I scroll down, all of my books are there in order of publication.  And each has it's own color, which then translates over to pretty lines on the Sales Totals spreadsheet.  It's like a rainbow.  And each month gets its own page in the workbook.  I've only created January and February so far, but I'll get to the others.  I have time.

It's just my totally anal way of keeping track of sales.  The Sales Totals spreadsheet has pretty graphs, too.  I'll probably show a few of those when I do a 2016 wrap up post next week.

If you're a writer, how to you keep track of sales?  If you're not a writer, do you use spreadsheets for other stuff in your life or work? 

Where the Magic Occurs

So, I was sitting around Saturday morning looking at stuff and junk, when I realized that I didn't like my Twitter header anymore.  Which led to the bright idea to take a picture of my actual workspace.  Which led to this post. 

This is where I work - exactly as it is.  No retouching.  No cleaning.  Just my spot.  As is.  Kinda like me.  ;o)

So, there I am - laid out in workspace style.  You see my coffee mug.  You see my pack of smokes and my ashtray.  You see the myriad of writing utensils - one cup for pens and pencils, one for markers, and the last for highlighters.  Two calendars - the plain one on the wall for keeping track of things and my bird of the day calendar in the corner. (Today's bird is the White Tern.) There's also a photo of my mom and dad.  The remote goes to my little stereo, but I rarely listen to that. If you look closely, you'll find my headphones hanging from the drawer knob. Better to listen to tunes without disturbing the Hubs. The two books under my monitor are old Funk & Wagnalls dictionaries (A-L and M-Z).  The corner of the frame you can see in the upper right is a copy of The Declaration of Independence. 

For the record, those drapes are never opened.  And the window behind them leads to another room.  (I didn't design this place, so no clue why there's a window looking out on the sun room, but no windows looking outside.) 

Looking at this closely, you can also tell I need to dust.  Yikes, my keyboard.  Don't let the dust fool you.  If you could zoom in, you'd see there's no dust on the keys I actually use.  In fact, there are hardly any letters left on the keys I use most frequently.  Again.  I can't keep keyboard letters intact for more than a few months.

So, anyway, there I am.  Pretty much everything you need to know about me can be found in that picture.  (Okay, so you can't tell what's on the monitor.  It's a manuscript.  Naturally.)  All it needs is food and a little sculpture of a fish.

If you designed a workspace* that told your story, what would be on your desk?

*I didn't design it that way.  It just ended up being that way.

Doing the Business Stuff

Well, it's February first and that means tax time is right around the corner which has me thinking about the business side of this endeavor.  And believe me, I try very hard not to think about that side - as evidence by the number of things my inbox holds that are waiting for me to attend to them.  (I leave it in the inbox until it's tended to, so I don't forget.  Which makes me aware of my laziness on a daily basis. Umm...)

Now I know why some authors hire assistants.  ;o)

I have to look at my PayPal statement to make sure that balances. I have to check FB invoices and make sure they match the amounts withdrawn from my bank account.  I have to verify my Draft2Digital statement to see if it matches what I have in my spreadsheet.  Amazon's payments should've hit my account this weekend, so I have to check that and verify whether everything jibes.  Then I have to start my taxes...

Ugh.

Crammed into a padded envelope tucked into the shelf beside me are all the receipts I collected for 2015.  Those have to be sorted through and entered into a spreadsheet so I know what goes into which box on the tax forms.

It's not really a big deal.  It's just that if I didn't kvetch about it, I wouldn't have anything to talk about.  And what would be the fun in that?  ;o)

Writing itself is an entirely creative endeavor.  But this isn't pure writing.  This is a business.  As such, I have business stuff to do to make sure this machine continues to run.  So I can continue to write and be creative. 

None of it should take too awfully long - except the taxes.  And I'll feel better after I get it done. 

Tomorrow.

Maybe the next day. 

Right now, I need more coffee, then I'll call my mom.  Then I'll exercise.  Then... 

What kinds of things are you putting off today?

A Business AND a Person

I'm a writer which means I am a self-employed business person. Or looking at it another way, I'm a business AND a person.  Everything I do computer-wise for either is done right here, sitting in my desk chair in front of my cluttered desk. 

I don't get dressed, get into my car, and drive to the office.  I get out of bed, use the bathroom, make a pot of coffee, and wander into the office. 

Which means that when I open my email first thing in the morning, I might get a note from a friend or a notification of a new chat message from my daughter, and an email from my mom, alongside pressing business stuff like a letter from my cover artist asking for approval of changes or a note that my marketing has been approved or rejected, and a notice from Paypal that someone has tried to suck money out of my account (only happened once and that was last year). 

Unfortunately, I'm not the kind of person who can usually put things off.  Which means dealing with issues before I am properly caffeinated.  I put off sending sensitive emails until I can word stuff without coming off like a total bitch, though, so at least I got that going for me.  I'm doing that right now, in fact.  I'll have to deal with it sometime this morning, but not until I've had a few more cups of coffee and at least one more cigarette.

It also means that shortly after checking my mail, I'm looking at my sales stats and updating my spreadsheets. 

Oh, I suppose I could be more business-like and not do work stuff first thing.  Set a time and not do anything work related until the start of my 'office hours'.  But that's just not me.  All the business things and all the personal things are rolled up into one entity.  Me.  Sanderson Enterprises - writing, publishing, veterinary services, catering, housekeeping, landscaping, marketing, secretarial services, tech support, grooming. 

Heh, I'm like a one-man Kelly Temps.  Which is kinda funny because I used to work for them.

Anyway, my business cards (if I ever had any printed) would say 'writer', but that one word encompasses so many things.  And I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go be a dishwasher.  Then I have to compose a reply to a marketing venue I'm dealing with.  Then I should probably exercise.  After which, I'll shower and then get back to work on editing.

A Meeting at Corporate Headquarters

The other day, the CFO (Hubs) and the CEO (Moi) of B.E. Sanderson Publications (again, not a real company name, nor the one I would pick for an LLC if I ever went that way) sat down for an impromptu meeting.  The CFO called the meeting at approximately 7am - as he is usually way more awake than the CEO.  Since the CEO hadn't had nearly enough coffee and the secretary (also Me) wasn't inclined to take notes, there will not be a blow by blow of the deets.

Sales were discussed. For a breakdown of that report, go here.  Marketing strategies were on the floor briefly.  A production schedule was outlined as follows:

Expectations are that we will put out four books this year - at or near the quarters (i.e. March, June, September and December).  Book one is already out - Dying Embers.  Book two is at the editor - Wrongful Termination.  Book three is in production.  Book four will be contingent on whether Wish in One Hand gets picked up by Baen.  If it does, then the fourth book will be another suspense.  If it doesn't, then book four will be the first in my urban fantasy series - with the second and third books in that series coming out next year.

Then we sidebarred and talked about the potential of losing readers because of the genre switch from suspense to urban fantasy.  It was decided in order to prevent that, we will leapfrog the genres - putting out the UF in December, and then another suspense in March, UF in June, etc. 

It was at that point the CFO pulled the COO (also me) aside to ponder how exactly new books would fit into the schedule when the production team (also me) would be busy with getting the already-written books ready for publication.  The COO provided assurances and talked about production schedules and pointed out ways to make the production floor more efficient.  The CFO was not convinced, but agreed to hold off naysaying until he could see how this year went. 

Then a discussion of finances ensued.  The budget for this year looks good.  The expectation is to have the first three books funding the next book at least by the time it's ready to go into production.  If that isn't feasible, the financing issue will be revisited at that time.

The meeting then adjourned, and the CEO made the CFO breakfast.  ;o)

I hope you enjoyed that peek into the business aspect of self-publishing.  I wrote it that way to be funny, but also to underscore the fact that this is a business.  At least, if I hope to be successful, I need to approach it that way.  Money going out, money coming in and customers I have to think about to keep that money coming in - so I can continue to provide the product they want. 

Any questions?