Day 164: Lots of launch work

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After I posted my blog post yesterday, I got a bit of a headache (my neck was rather stiff) so I didn’t work as much as I wanted. But I still got a fair amount of blocking done before I went to bed.

However, I took medication for my headache, which made me sleep extra long, so I lost a lot of time today. I also had some house chores to do, so that took a little time.

I had some work to do for the launch of my new book. My graphic designer gave me the updated ebook covers for volume 1 and for The Gentleman Thief, and also the paperback covers. I had to send back minor corrections to the paperback covers, but the cover especially for the Gentleman Thief is AMAZING.

I then compiled the Gentleman Thief .epub files and again had to fiddle with the .docx compile settings in Scrivener so I could create a .pdf file for the paperback interior. I then created a .pdf copy for BookFunnel, and uploaded both files to BookFunnel for my newsletter drip sequence.

Updated the drip sequence in MailChimp isn’t hard, but it’s tedious. I ended up writing two extra emails for the sequence, one about the Gentleman Thief Reader Magnet and another with some information about my new series.

Then I wrote an additional email about the Gentleman Thief in the sequence of newsletters I’ll be sending to my mailing list around the launch, so my newsletter subscribers will get their copy of The Gentleman Thief first. I’ll send that out as soon as I get the paperback version of the Gentleman Thief live on Amazon.

I also had to update the other launch emails with the corrected cover for volume 1 that my graphic designer sent to me.

And finally I compiled the final .epub for volume 1! And I compiled the .docx file and made the final .pdf of the interior! This is all so exciting!

All I need now is the paperback covers and I can release the paperback versions of volume 1 and the Gentleman Thief. I won’t be releasing an ebook version of the Gentleman Thief since it’s my Reader Magnet, but I will be putting the ebook version of volume 1 up on Amazon on November 23rd for preorder with a release date of December 9th.

I’ve been obsessively checking my launch checklists to make sure I haven’t forgotten to do something. It’s very stressful! I think next time I should separate my tasks by dates.

I took long breaks for mealtimes and did some reading. I know refilling the creative well is important, but somehow it feels more like wasting time.

And now it’s after midnight. And I feel like I didn’t really get a lot done.

Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 48 minutes
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 0
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 3 hours, 43 minutes

My takeaway for today: Add dates to my launch checklist next time

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