My decision to self-publish Father Daughter Day as a non-illustrated book, in paperback only (because poetry doesn’t work all that well with e-books) has caused me to think about my publishing schedule and all the tasks related to that. Here’s what I’ve come up with—subject, as always, to finding time to accomplish everything and sudden inspiration that causes me to change or reshuffle.

• complete the writing of Headshots, my novel-in-progress. I think I have a couple of weeks left in the writing, after which I will let it sit and simmer a couple of weeks before going on with editing and publication steps.
• publish my short story “It Happened At The Burger Joint”. This will require creation of a cover. I have an idea and have located a graphic I’d like to use, but have yet to contact the one I need to for permission to use it. This will be an e-book only, so the cover and formatting should go quickly, just a day or two.
• create and publish the print book for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. This requires that I wait on a certain photo that a certain person has promised to take and let me use for the back cover. This should only take a few days to do, though waiting on proof copies will occupy some time, which I will fill with:
• create and publish the print book for The Gutter Chronicles. My novella has actually picked up some sales recently. I know a few people who want it who don’t own e-readers. I’ve decided on the back cover image, so I just need to format the book for print and put the cover together. I think a week or so.
• by that time I’ll be done editing Headshots and be ready to do the publication tasks: e-book formatting, e-book cover, print book formatting, print-book cover, upload to three places. At this time I don’t think I’m going to do a launch team. It didn’t work out so well with my last novel, so I’ll just publish and hope for the best.
• write and publish another short story in the Danny Tompkins series, dealing with teenage grief at the loss of a parent. I’ve had the next story rolling around in my mind for some time, at least the start of it and subject matter. After Headshots is done I’ll be ready for something short. Since this involves new writing I’m not really sure how long it will take. That will give me four Danny Tompkins stories, which might be enough to put together in a short collection as an e-book.
• Publish Father Daughter Day. The toughest part of this will be the cover, for which I’ll be doing my own “artwork”. I have a comic-like font in mind for the words, a font I’ve already been drawing out for practice. I have a scene in mind I’d like to use for the front cover, though finding a photo for it might be difficult, and drawing it will be impossible. So, I’m a little up in the air about it; also about what to use for a back cover. That may be easy, though, as I could use a synopsis of the book on a uniform or textured color. I think the internal formatting will be fairly easy. The hardest part will be figuring out appropriate page breaks. Poetry books tend to have lots of white space, and you want to end the poems at a place that makes sense.

After that, I’ll have a whole host of projects to chose between. Most likely a sequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant? Possibly a Civil War edition of Documenting America (for which research has already started)? Start getting serious about another volume of The Gutter Chronicles? Perhaps another Sharon Williams short story, probably titled “Sierra Kilo Bravo”? Or perhaps work on another Thomas Carlyle project? Time will tell.