Month: November 2018

My To Do Lists

By / November 11, 2018

Design Work
Gather art for Retrospective Sketchbook, then do preliminary layout, then write commentary, then rearrange the layout because I’ve finally figured out how the book actually needs to go, then go find additional art to fill gaps, then write more commentary, then hire a book designer to make the whole thing shiny.
Preliminary layout work for the next Schlock Mercenary book Big Dumb Objects.
Layout and write additional material for Escape from the Friggen Jungle
Create a marketing page to go on the back of Planet Mercenary packages.
Help design five challenge coins
Prepare PDF files for Broken Wind and Delegates & Delegation

Warehouse and Shipping
Prepare store for holiday sales
Inventory every item in the warehouse for taxes
Package up 100-300 Planet Mercenary games for release in retail stores
Order in supplies for holiday shipping
Do the holiday shipping.
Go through dead mail pile and attempt to contact customers one more time
Put scratch and dent books into store
Set up the Backerkit fulfillment for the latest Kickstarter

Administrivia
Once I have counts, place orders for coins
Once I have Kickstarter funds, pay down the credit card used for book printing.
Keep the calendar up to date, scheduling events in 2019 and 2020
Ongoing accounting
Ongoing customer support

Household
Ongoing homeschool preparation and follow-up
Managing some upcoming medical appointments
Help my kid apply to some colleges
Ongoing laundry and housecleaning tasks
Rake all the leaves (buy a composter?)
Harvest walnuts
Research cupboards, how to design, how to order (The next step in our long, slow kitchen remodel.)
Christmas is coming with all the planning that entails.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something that should go on these lists.

Four Days Left on our Kickstarter

By / November 5, 2018

We’re running a Kickstarter and it has only four more days to run.

This means we’ve been pushing on social media for the last three weeks and I’m starting to feel like a broken record. I do my best to be interesting and to vary the information in my streams, but the core fact is that if we don’t get the word out, the Kickstarter won’t meet the goals we need it to meet. As of this morning there are three stretch goals left and we’d like to hit all of them. There are things we’d really like the chance to create, but we don’t get to unless we hit the necessary stretch goals.

So I’m on social media being excited about my projects. And I’m trying to advocate for people to go vote in tomorrow’s mid term elections. And I’m trying to make sure that my social media presence is a net gain for people who read things from me. I always want to give more than I ask. Balancing all of that for every online place that I frequent can get tricky.

Friday at 4pm, the Kickstarter closes and I can step back from all of it for awhile. Until then: We have a Kickstarter. It has Schlock books and a short story collection. If we hit a stretch goal I’ll get to make the Howard Tayler Retrospective Sketch Book. If we hit the last stretch goal, Howard gets to write a novel. Perhaps these are things you’d like to help make happen.

See the Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/howardtayler/schlock-mercenary-books-14-and-15