I’m happy to say that I’m finally done uploading my stories to Radish!

That was a project I thought was never going to get done. I just finished last night. I did hold off on two stories because I have a plan to price one of those books differently come January, and I’d rather have that price change go into effect before I put it on Radish. Otherwise, I’d have to contact someone at Radish to get the price change done. That’s an unnecessary step.

Now I have to go into my Book Catalogue and put in the Radish links on the stories that need them. While I’m at it, I plan to put in links for Scribd, too. I’m not sure when I’ll put the links in, but I’ll try to get them done before the end of this month.

I’m still working on getting the AI audiobooks up on Kobo.

I’ve been going in the chronological order that is on my book list, though I did break that to get the entire series in Husbands for the Larson Sisters because of Daisy’s Prince Charming which came out in July. I usually upload the audio files during the day when everyone is at school or at work. That way I don’t have to fight for a good internet connection. The audio files will time out if someone else is using up the internet.

To be honest, the process bothered me at first, but now that I’ve got a routine down, it’s okay. I’m tied to the computer during these hours that it takes to upload each book. It takes about 4-5 hours to get everything uploaded for one book if I keep at it, but during that time, I’m also doing laundry, cleaning a room, cooking, or doing something else around the house. I have also been doing some writing, which brings me to my next item on this “What I’m Doing” list. 😀

I’m working on the Marriage by Obligation Series.

I already have the first book done, but I’m just started working on the next three books. These books are all considered “on hold”. I won’t go into a political discussion on this blog, but I’m not very optimistic about how things are going in the country. Because of how uncertain things are, I’m hesitant to make too much out of writing these books. I am going to proceed as if the economy will hold up enough to get these out, but if things take a serious plunge, I’m not going to publish these books. We’ll see how things are in January. At that time, I’ll decide whether to put these out there or just tuck them away.

I haven’t done anything with paperbacks.

Paperbacks are probably the most time consuming of all tasks, and I don’t enjoy working on them. What I want to do is give my paperbacks an overhaul. Amazon used to own CreateSpace, and back then, the quality was excellent. But then Amazon got rid of CreateSpace and required authors to use the KDP dashboard to make paperbacks. Not only did they do that, but now when you order these paperbacks, the quality is not that great. The trim along the cover is “off”, and sometimes the pages aren’t straight like they’re supposed to be. (This is even for the books I made long ago in CreateSpace.) Draft2Digital is what CreateSpace used to be. Also, I have changed some covers since publishing the older books, and I wouldn’t mind updating that, too.

But all of this, like anything else, is going to take time. The downside to starting out in publishing back in 2009 is that you didn’t have all of the things to look professional like you do now. Back then, it was hard to get pictures that featured people in historically appropriate clothes, and it was hard to get books looking like the traditional publishing houses’ books. You also didn’t have the ability to create audiobooks, and your choice of retailers were limited. In 2009, it was just Amazon and Smashwords. (Can you believe that?)

I’ve been doing what I can to keep up with the times, but it has been slow going in some areas. Paperbacks is one of them. Today when I publish a book, I can take care of the ebook, the audiobook, serial format, and the paperback at one time. Today I can get a cover that fits the time period to a T so I’m not stuck changing covers later. Today I can get it on all of the retailers at one time, too. For anyone starting out in this business right now, I understand why you’re overwhelmed. There is a lot involved in all of this. I would rather be catching up on this stuff with my older books than having to learn all of this with the first book.

I’m officially caught up on registering all of my books with the US Copyright Office.

This one was a full-long summer project. I hadn’t realized how many books I didn’t register. 2020’s restrictions and lockdowns put a hold on this task, so there was a list I had to do. I had 13 books I hadn’t submitted yet. Also, when I went through all of my US Copyright Registration forms, I realized I was missing three books from the pre-2020 era. I’m glad I found them so I could take care of them. You never know when a copyright issue is going to come up, and you never know what book is going to be targeted.