The icky business parts of writing

Some of you know (or may have figured out) that I'm doing a deep dive into self publishing as a business platform. There's a ton to learn in this area, especially since it keeps growing when I'm not looking. I'm listening to podcasts (the guys at SelfPublishingPodcast.com are fantastic and entertaining), reading tons of books, blogs, and articles, and generally just obsessing over the business and marketing side of my writing. It helps to work in Marketing as a "day job." Lots of transfer back and forth.

I'm going to do my best to start documenting things as I discover them, because I think this can be really helpful to other writers and indie creators. 

Duh. Of course it is, or I wouldn't be digging into it. But I'm finding that even though there's a wealth of data and information out there, some of the pieces are scattered, and they often seem completely disconnected from each other. 

I've written about go-to software recently, calling out Scrivener and Evernote, especially, as "Tools That Shall Not Be Lived Without." I can fanboy those two pieces of software alone for hours, and most people won't understand a word of what I'm saying or why I'm so excited about 'em. I'm starting to discover more gems like these, things I might never have thought useful before digging into thinking of my writing as a business.

Asana is my latest obsession. It's a project and task management tool that is free for up to 15 people — available in your browser and in an iPhone app. Putting the various people I rely on into Asana makes it easy to create and assign tasks, track and comment on progress, and generally just make sure things are getting done. 

That's handy, because I'm discovering that success as an author is going to be a team effort after all. I've operated in a vacuum for most of my writing career, and though I've accomplished quite a bit, I keep falling short on certain goals. I think I've finally figured out why. I need to have more than a social network. I need a support network. I need people who care about the outcome of my business as much as I do. And the only way to build that network is to start inviting people in, giving them some ownership over various bits, and trusting them to do the job. 

I'll document everything else I discover as I find it. If there's something you know about, something that would be interesting and useful to me and to other indie authors. let me know! I'm always open to new tools and new ways of approaching things. And I want my blog to be a resource for anyone interested in pursuing the author's life as a career. 

Also, if there's something you're curious about, and you can't seem to find any answers to your questions, loop me in. We can go discover it together. It's always more fun and more productive to approach this stuff with a friend. Writing can be a pretty lonely life, but it doesn't have to be. Let's build writing careers together.