Longest 10 days of my life

I never knew 10 days could take so long!! I feel like time is dragging on, it’s killing me!

I’m halfway there, 5 days to go until I get my manuscript back from my editor. I even made a countdown timer (which has made time drag even worse haha).

Countdown timer

In the meantime, I’m keeping myself busy with all the little things that need doing before publishing. This is what I’ve achieved in the last week:

• Created author account and listed my book on Goodreads.
• Created a Twitter account. As of right now, I have almost 1,000 followers.
• Added title and metadata to assigned ISBN.
• Collated beta reader feedback.
• Ransacked a different bookstore to compare prices of similar books to mine.
• Emailed the store where I want my signing/launch (I feel like they will say no or not reply).
• Found some random blog that lists which large chains are open to stocking self published Aussie authors.
• Re-hand-draw all my maps and scan them in 600dpi, and add them to the InDesign book file.
• Go through the InDesign files and fix all the page headers that shuffled around after adding the maps (I may have been up til almost midnight doing this…).

I guess I have five long days to do the final stages of prep:

• Commission a greylead sketch.
• Commission my book cover designer to do the graphics for the title page.
• Create smaller copies of my world map and the Eastern Isles.
• Apply any editing changes when the ms returns from editor.
• List on IngramSpark and hopefully order myself a test copy.
• Order author copies and post out a few copies.
• Upload to Amazon as an eBook.
• Have a launch on November 9th!

Sigh. 5 more days…..