A Day in the Life of an Indie Author

Today was one of those days that just didn't have enough hours - do you know those?

When I quit my day job and became an Indie Author full time back in February this year, I thought I'd finally have time to go for leisurely lunches with my friends, enjoy walks around the city, and maybe even do some volunteering.

Nope - didn't happen. As an indie author I do more than one job now.

The morning started out with doing last minute edits for my latest release, Gabriel's Mate, Book #3 in the Scanguards Vampires series. When I was finally finished with it by 11am, I started uploading the manuscript - together with the cover I changed last night - to several e-book sites including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

You'd think I'd take a break after that accomplishment, but no such luck. I spent the remainder of the day formatting the manuscript for the paperback version. Of course, when I converted it to the print-ready pdf that's needed, Adobe wouldn't cooperate and inserted blank pages where I didn't need them. It took me hours to get it right (and I still don't know what I did).

I also drew winners of the free copies of Gabriel's Mate I had promised to readers, then sent emails to those readers to notify them of their win.

After spending some time on Facebook, Twitter and my own blog to announce my latest release, I continued with starting the upload for the paperback. But I'm not done yet: I still need to create the cover and finalize my book cover blurb.

To change pace a little, I started proofing an Erotica short story for my critique partner, who will soon release it on Kindle, but only got about 1/3 of the way before my eyes became too tired. No point in continuing if I won't be able to spot any more typos because I'm too tired.

Yes, being an Indie Author can be exhausting, but it's also rewarding. I got a wonderful email from one of my readers today. She wrote: "...and thank you for sharing your wonderful work with us!!  I haven't read one of your works yet that I haven't loved! :)"

Suddenly, I don't feel so tired anymore.

Tina Folsom
Author of the Scanguards Vampires series and the Out of Olympus series