There’s nothing quite like Taking a serious look at your office, and then your computer . . . . and realizing that half—or more—of ones business is in your head, and that your husband and children would be completely lost if they had to deal with it all.
I looked at what my family would face if something happened to me, and decided I’d better get things in order, with explanations and directions.
Now a lot of you are better at this, but when it comes to stuff I don’t like doing, I’m a horribly lazy, master class procrastinator, and perfectly capable of forgetting all about needing to do things.
Once I started looking . . .Oh dear. It was much worse than I’d realized.

So: Making a check list, going to go through book by book:
(1) Does the cover need to be changed? Midjourney makes good ones, and I’m already paying for it. Should use it, right?
(2) Please check the ISBNs! You know you messed up once, make sure you did actually correct it, and did not do it again! Yes. I really am that bad at the business side.
(3) Check the Bowker site and make sure everything is registered and uploaded. You know you got lazy when you went All Amazon and didn’t actually need an ISBN, but since you’ve bought them, and are putting them on the legal page, you need them registered properly so your heirs don’t get all mixed up. You know you haven’t gotten around to the last three! (Yes, I’m that bad, and yes, I talk to myself.)
(4) And write up the process, so they can do it, if they decide to put out paper, hardback or audio versions. Or start publishing their own stuff, using your business that they’ve inherited. Or start fresh with their own company. Remember what it was like, when you had to research how to get an ISBN and then figure out this Bowker thing? Tell them, clearly.
(5) Does it need a copy edit? Some of the early ones could really use it. I’ve got a list, somewhere . . .
(6) Update the back matter, sheesh, you have five times that many books in print now!
(7) Check the categories, subcategories . . .
(8) Pricing. There’s this inflation thing . . . Don’t leave your books looking cheap. Worth the price, yes, but anyone on a book budget is probably on KU, so don’t sweat it.
(9) Is it time to incorporate? Yes, you idiot!
(10) Hubby is on the business bank account and do you want to add the kids (in my case, both of them are adults.)
(11) Order three external backups. Save, clearly labeled, every book’s Word file, RTF, and PDF. The ISBN, the Amazon link. The cover file. Same for the print versions if there are any. Keep them updated. (Three, because, husband, two kids. YMMV)
(12) Might consider cloud backup, if I can find one that won’t leap in and aggressively grab everything creating a big tangle, which is what I’m trying to undo right now.


So, what else have you other professionals messed up with, and needed to fix before it becomes someone else’s problem?
What do you beginners need to know, before you’ve got so many books out that it has become a horrendous job that you try to ignore . . . as it gets worse?

And, I just have to say . . . Yes, I probably will procrastinate on all of the above. When I die? Pray for my family.
Much though I sometimes dislike other authors taking up and writing their parent’s stuff . . . I don’t actually want my universes, or my characters to die. I’ve got so many ideas, barely started, that someone could build on . . . Or start their own from scratch . . .
(13) Organize the ideas and starts . . .