Post-Publication Organizing
October 4, 2024 by Harvey
In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Post-Publication Organizing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Today I’ll be writing and also working on that Average Matters post I’ve been talking about. So it’ll be ready in a day or two.
Quote of the Day
“Not at all sure why this idea of writing at Pulp Speed sort of hits me right. I think because it flies in the face of all the myths. … If you think it can’t be done, ask yourself why? Why is your belief system telling you that?” Dean Wesley Smith
Post-Publication Organizing (The Inventory Spreadsheet)
Again, this is a topic I first shared way back in late 2019. I updated it and brought it forward about a year ago, and here it is again:
If you haven’t set up your inventory spreadsheet yet, just bite the bullet and do it already. And if you don’t have very many works yet, count yourself smart for starting early. It’s much more time consuming to add everything after the fact.
But if you do have more than a few dozen bits of IP floating around—novels, novellas, short stories, articles, essays, poems, collections, blog posts and so on—it’s never too late.
You just might need to take a few days off from everything else in order to get everything organized.
But trust me, after you’ve done it, you’ll sleep better.
The original version of this post is a follow-up I wrote to Dean Wesley Smith’s “The Power of Having Inventory.”
I recommend you read his post. He will have a slightly different take on what to do and how to do it. The rest of this post is all about my own experience and what I recommend.
My own inventory is incomplete, but it’s as complete as it’s going to get other than adding new IP as I write it.
I only started keeping track of my IP from early 2014 when I started writing fiction in earnest.
But all of the articles and essays I wrote for The Writer, Writer’s Digest, The Explicator, the now-defunct ByLine Magazine and many others are not listed on my IP inventory. And of course they should be.
Also missing are blog posts I wrote in the years before 2014 (I started blogging about the language back in the mid-1990s) and all of my individual poems. Over the years, I’ve written thousands of poems.
Some poems and collections were award-winning, some were later set to music by others, and most are included in one collection or another. The poetry collections (though not the individual poems) are now included on my inventory spreadsheet.
But a lot of my older stuff remains unaccounted for. Which is fine. Maybe one or more of my heirs will want to track it all down and get it organized, but at this point I really don’t care.
I do at least have the archives of this Journal as well as all of my nonfiction books and audio lectures on a separate spreadsheet. It’s all IP.
I offer all of this as a cautionary tale.
Especially if you’re just starting out, learn from my mistake and list everything you write. And do so with an eye toward licensing it someday: all of it.
My own inventory spreadsheet was practically an accident.
Many people have an “I love me” wall or shelf, a place where they keep their plaques or trophies or other marks of achievement. My main inventory spreadsheet was originally only that, a kind of electronic “I love me” wall.
It was a place where I could see at a glance not only what I’d written, but when I’d finished it, the publication date, the Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs), ISBNs, etc. It was a quick glimpse of my accomplishments.
That initial master spreadsheet also encouraged me to create my Annual Production spreadsheets. I’ve kept one for every year since 2014.
But whereas I update the inventory spreadsheet after each publication, I update the production spreadsheet every day. In my annual production spreadsheet, I use formulas to let the software perform the ongoing cumulative calculations.
On it, at a glance, I can see what I wrote in a given month and year, what dates I started and finished a piece of writing, and my word count totals for the day and month and year.
And of course, all of that motivates me to write even more. It’s partly because of the catalyst of that production spreadsheet that I’ve written as much fiction as I have today.
And all of the fiction I write is also on my master inventory spreadsheet. I also have a separate spreadsheet for novels and another for short stories, but those aren’t essential.
I update the master (almost) every time I finish a work. I update the others when I think about it or want to do a count.
I still haven’t added my individual vignettes or flash fiction stories to my spreadsheet either, and I probably won’t. I encourage you to do so with your own work though if you write those.
Once it’s set up, an inventory spreadsheet is a massive time saver. What goes into a spreadsheet? As I said earlier, look at Dean’s post to see what goes into his. His and mine are different.
My overall master inventory spreadsheet includes
the fiction or nonfiction or collection title,
the author name (for when I use pen names),
the genre and series (if applicable),
the total word count,
the date I finished the work,
the publication date,
the D2D (Books2Read) universal link,
the eprice and paper price (where applicable),
the ASINs and ISBNs (ebook and paper, again where applicable), and
other distributor and purchase links.
For publication of short stories or articles through traditional mags, all of that information is included (as applicable) plus the date rights revert, how much I earned on the license, etc.
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Yet it takes only a few seconds to hop over to my inventory spreadsheet and add another piece of IP when I finish it.
Finally, it’s also a good idea to glance over your inventory from time to time. The title of a poem or other work might lead to another new short story or novel. That has happened to me several times.
So even if at the moment you see yourself as a hobby writer, I suggest you create and maintain an inventory spreadsheet. You never know what a catalyst it might become for you and how much it might help simplify things when you become rich and famous.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Pulp Speed Post Once Again If you’ve never read this post, I strongly recommend reading it. I’m kind of glad he brought it forward again. You’ll see more about this in my upcoming post on Averages.
The Artisan Author … On Ice! Just thought I’d pass this along.
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 1160
Writing of The Darling Members Club (novel)
Brought forward…… 6632
Day 1…… 3601 words. To date…… 10233
Day 2…… 4137 words. To date…… 14370
Day 3…… 4433 words. To date…… XXXXX
Fiction for October……………………… 12171
Fiction for 2024………………………… 753679
Nonfiction for October………………… 4120
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 307710
2024 consumable words……………… 885428
Average Fiction WPD (October)……… 4057
2024 Novels to Date………………………… 13
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date…………………. 15
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..……. 95
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………. 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………..… 252
Short story collections…………………….….. 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies. They will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog. Please support TNDJ with a paid subscription. Thank you!