I do around 40-50 events each year.
Yep… that means I’m doing events almost every single weekend. Eventually, I hope to increase my online sales and passive revenue streams enough to scale back on the amount of events I do, but for now, this is my primary source of income.
On the surface, it seems like a great gig! I only have to “work” one or two days a week, right?
Unfortunately, as any full-time vendor can tell you, that’s not accurate at all. There’s a TON of work that goes on behind the scenes.
In my case, my workload tends to vary a bit depending on the time of year and time of month. I’m busiest with events in the summer and fall, and I’m usually busier at the end of the month than I am at the beginning. But when I’m not at an event, I’m busy doing other projects and tasks that can be divided into the following categories:
- Writing
- Art
- Business
- Marketing & Networking
- Event Prep
What does all of that look like? I’ll break it down by category below!
WRITING
As a full-time author and artist, a considerable amount of time is spent writing… although it’s actually not the majority of my time. Since the bulk of my income comes from setting up my booth at events, the marketing and sales aspect of my business occupies more of my attention than actually writing the books. For now, at least.
I tend to work on other tasks during the day and stay up late writing at night. Sometimes, if I’m really in the writing zone, I won’t go to bed until the sun rises. My natural circadian rhythm makes early-morning events extremely difficult for me. When I spend time writing, I’ll be working on:
Books
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that my primary writing focus is on my book series, the Chronicles of Avilésor: War of the Realms. How I spend my time depends on the stage of the book. I definitely prefer the writing phase over the editing phase!
The fourth novel in the series, Lab Rat, is very close to publication and consuming most of my writing time with the final edits. I also have several projects on the backburner, including Cobblestones, which will be an art/poetry book, and Inked, which will be a short inspirational book to help aspiring authors with tips and advice.
Every time I publish a book, it goes through multiple rounds of editing after the first draft is complete. The first round is a self-edit. Then, it goes out to beta readers to get preliminary feedback from a few select readers before I send it off to the line editor. After that, I recruit an ebook formatter while I handle the formatting for the hardcover and paperback so I can order proof copies for a final check before I give the green light for global distribution. It’s quite a process, but I’m a perfectionist, so quality is extremely important to me.
Blog
My goal is to write and publish at least two blog posts every month, although my heavier workload lately has knocked that down to one post. More often than not, the articles come out toward the end of the month, right before the newsletter goes out. This self-imposed deadline is the only way I can force myself to stay on track and publish consistently.
My posts vary from book updates to art, poetry, and photography, but the majority of the articles I write for my blog are about writing, publishing, and being an indie author and entrepreneur. I don’t use AI, ghost writers, or guest contributors. If you’re reading an article on my website, I wrote it myself.
Local Writing Class
Since 2016, I’ve been part of the Sandcastle writing class at the Lubeznik Center for the Arts. This class meets once a week at least three times a year in sessions that last for six or eight weeks.
It’s a great way to connect with other creative individuals in my community and participate in guided writing prompts that I wouldn’t normally do on my own since most of my writing time at home is focused on my book series. This helps to push me out of my comfort zone and experiment with different types of writing. Sandcastle prompts will be making up the majority of the written content in Cobblestones when I eventually publish it.
ART
Half of my booth is centered around the books, while the other half contains my art prints on magnets, mouse pads, keychains, artboards, stickers, and journals (coming soon). Although the books are my main focus, the art still makes up an important segment of my business, so part of my time each month is dedicated to creating art in one or more capacities:
Hand-Drawn Art
Every month, I create a new art piece to feature in my newsletter. Without the newsletter deadline, I likely wouldn’t be diligent in setting aside designated time to draw.
This monthly goal helps me practice and hone my skills, create new art for my booth and website, and generate content for social media, my newsletter, and Patreon. (My Level 2 and 3 Patreon subscribers have access to patron-exclusive timelapse videos to watch me create each art piece from start to finish.)
Occasionally, the artwork will be digital or a blend of traditional/digital, such as my “I Support” series with hand-painted hearts and digital text. But the majority of my art is created with mechanical pencils, and I mostly work in grayscale.
Book Covers
Most authors outsource the artwork for their books to freelance artists. I do not. I create all of the graphics myself. Depending on the stage of the next book’s publication, part of my time is spent designing, drafting, and finalizing this art in Photoshop.
Maps & Floorplans
In addition to creating the art for my book covers, I also draw all of the maps that are published in the books as well. The linework is drawn by hand, then digitized for the text overlay. This year, I completed a new map, the floorplan of Project Alpha, to be published in my upcoming novel. The other three maps — Avilésor, Phantom Heights, and Saros Manor — were all published in the third novel, Blood of the Enemy.
Character Sketches
Sometimes, my featured monthly artwork is a sketch of one of the characters from my series.
Most of these sketches end up becoming part of my booth display when I print them on pages torn out of the books. I sell them as full-page book prints as well as part of my build-your-own bookmark station.
Some of these sketches, like the collage featured here, are available on an artboard.
Digital Designs
My most well-known digital designs are the Kit emojis that I create for the Chronicles of Avilésor Discord server.
The collection includes basic emojis (love, starstruck, angry, confused, wow, laughing, peek-a-boo, sad, kiss, unamused, high five, exasperated, and wink, sleepy), specialty emojis (bookworm, birthday, boba, pizza, popcorn, and sunshine), and seasonal (springtime, summer, boo, spooky, Santa, and winter).
I also create other graphic designs for merchandise, especially buttons, keychains, and apparel. For each book release, I design five new buttons themed for that book. I also created symbols for the Elemental Guilds in the series, plus general book-themed designs for bibliophiles.
BUSINESS
There are so many moving pieces to running a business. It’s something that you can’t truly convey to people who have never been entrepreneurs or business owners. (I’d know because I grossly underestimated all of the work involved before I became an entrepreneur myself.)
When I’m not writing or creating art, I’m usually focused on business tasks such as:
Event Schedule
More time goes into planning my event schedule than you might think. On some days, I’ll spend hours searching online to hunt for new events to fill gaps in my calendar, and then once I find contenders, I still need time to do more research. Sometimes, an event looks good at first, but a deeper dive into social media discussions, photos, news articles, venues, and demographics tells me that it’s not a good match.
Once I find events, I then have to spend time filling out the vendor application. Some of the longer sections where I need to list my products, bio, social media pages, etc. can be copied and pasted, but it’s still rather tedious to scroll through, read all of the instructions, terms, and conditions, fill in each text box, and verify that all of the information is correct. Although most forms are online, I still run into a few that need to be printed and mailed.
Keeping track of events, application deadlines, and payments requires a lot of planning. I’ll admit that I wasn’t very good at it when I first started! Over the last couple of years, I’ve honed my spreadsheet to stay organized with this task and know which event applications need to go out on a month-by-month basis.
What makes it complicated is the extreme variability. For some events, I have to apply almost a year in advance because they fill their vendor slots so quickly. But for others, they don’t even open their application until a few months before the event takes place. And for others, I’m able to apply and pay for the following year when I’m there at the event. Those cases are preferable so I don’t have to stress about remembering the application later.
I have to balance the cost of vendor fees so the invoices are spaced out in groups each month. This year alone, I’ve invested over $4,000 in booth fees. I can’t afford to pay all of those invoices at once. Bigger events have higher vendor fees, which means I have to budget for them. The winter is my slow period, so it’s important for me to lock down as many events as I can for the following year before I’m scraping by on my savings. If I don’t, then I’m stuck in a loop with vendor coordinators wanting their money upfront before event season starts and I have steady revenue coming in to pay those invoices. When that happens, I’m underwater for a while and completely lose my momentum to invest in my business. That often means I can’t restock products and I miss application deadlines because I don’t have the funds to pay for a spot until it’s too late and the event is booked.
Sales Reports
Keeping records helps me gauge the value of the events I do and keep track of which products are performing well. That means pulling regular reports and updating my records so I can easily go back to any event and see my numbers. How many books did I sell? What was my gross revenue? How much did the booth cost? Did my net revenue meet the minimum threshold (or at least come close enough) for me to consider doing that event again in the future?
Product Templates & Orders
I order my art prints on a variety of products. Every single item has different dimensions, and I have to size each image to the proper template for every product. In some cases, that means doing some work in Photoshop to shift my signature, create a full bleed, mirror an edge, or crop part of the image.
(To the right, you can see an example of a proof for “The Raven” on a magnet with a full bleed so the smoke wraps around the edge but the main image is fully visible on the front.)
Once the image is sized, reordering is easier. But every time I add a new product, like the new pocket journals I currently have in production, that means hours of work getting all of the files ready.
Placing the actual order can also be time consuming. I rely on several different businesses to produce my products for me since I don’t have the equipment to do it myself, and they all have different ordering methods. Some of them save my images in my account so I can quickly and easily select the ones I need to order. Others require a custom zip folder with all of the specific graphics I need. And for others, I have to upload the art every time because those files aren’t saved in their system.
Inventory
To keep my products stocked, I have to pay close attention to my inventory. Luckily, my website inventory syncs with the point-of-sale (POS) system I use at events. That ensures a customer can’t order an out-of-stock item online if I’ve sold the last of my inventory at an event.
However, I’m usually on a fairly tight budget, so I can’t order everything all at once. (It’s also better to wait and place bulk orders whenever possible to receive a bigger discount on products, so I can’t order just one or two prints that are out of stock for a particular product.)
I currently have more than 30 art prints that are available in most of my product collections… and that’s not including any of my digital designs. I have to monitor my inventory and prioritize which products to replenish. I also need to do periodic recounts to make sure my numbers are correct. There can be discrepancies if I pulled a product for a mystery box and forgot to update the count, or if an item variant was rung up incorrectly at an event, or if someone exchanged a product after we completed a sale.
Website Updates
Every time I add a new art print and/or product, I have to photograph the item, edit the image, create a new variation under the main product listing, make a sku based on the product and the number I assign to my art prints, and input all of the necessary product details. When I have large batches of new products come in, managing the back end of my ecommerce website can definitely turn into a tedious task!
Taxes
I don’t consider doing taxes to be a fun task. It’s even less fun as an entrepreneur. Although I usually put this off until the end of the year during my slow season, I have to regularly file the sales tax I’ve collected in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Lucky me, Indiana decided that this year, I have to do it monthly instead of annually, so that task has become part of my monthly checklist.
MARKETING & NETWORKING
One thing most aspiring authors don’t realize is that publishing actually isn’t the hardest part of being a successful author. It’s marketing. It’s selling your books, your brand, and yourself. At any given time, I’m working on:
Booth Aesthetic
Don’t underestimate the amount of work, time, and investment to curate a booth display! If your branding is off and your booth isn’t interesting, people aren’t going to stop and see what you have to offer.
I’m constantly tweaking my booth, which means shopping for products, designing signage, and even building my own displays. I spent weeks searching for the right postcard floor display and ended up driving three hours to pick it up. For my book prints, I couldn’t find a display that suited my needs, so I created my own with pieces of wood, plastic sleeves, tape, zip ties, and a drill.
Social Media
If you follow me on social media, you’ll probably notice that I go through spurts of activity. Unfortunately, I’ve never been great about planning and scheduling my posts ahead of time as some authors do.
I do try my best to stay relatively active on social media, but when I’m busy with other projects, this is usually one of the first things that gets pushed to the backburner. In addition to my official author pages on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, I also have pages for the book series. Luckily, my assistant also has access to the book profile, and she’s been taking over a lot of those posts recently so I can focus on other tasks.
Patreon
I enjoy building my Patreon community and engaging with some of my most supportive fans there! However, content-based subscription services definitely come with pros and cons. It’s not unusual for my Patreon posts to go through phases just like my social media pages (although they usually balance out when you look at the number of posts in a month rather than week by week).
Some weeks, I have time to produce fun behind-the-scenes content on Patreon and post rather frequently. From answering fan-submitted questions to writing bonus worldbuilding posts that explore details of Avilésor you won’t find in the books, it’s a great outlet that helps bring fans into the creative process with me. The subscription pledges also help to support my business so I can cover vendor fees, publishing costs, etc.
However, when my schedule gets particularly hectic, there’s sometimes a brief lull on Patreon while I’m pushing through a major publishing phase, trying to meet a deadline, or preparing for a big event. It doesn’t usually last long! But, depending on the week, part of my time is usually dedicated to at least one or two Patreon posts.
Newsletter
On the first Monday of each month, my newsletter goes out to all of my subscribers. This deadline helps keep me accountable to create a new piece of art and one or two blog posts in time for the next newsletter.
My newsletters are usually fairly long (because I’m so busy and have so much to share)! They contain updates about the next book, relevant business news such as new products and collaborations, photos of the events I’ve done since the previous newsletter, my upcoming schedule, and a lot more.
Putting this newsletter together takes me several hours, and because I’m a notorious procrastinator, the week before the newsletter goes out is almost always hectic for me to make sure I have new art and blog posts done in time.
Collaborations
Speaking of collaborations… I periodically partner with other artisans and small businesses to create custom products. The biggest one I’ve done was the Old Soul Artisan collab for the Ghost Realm candle inspired by my book series.
While collaborations aren’t a huge part of my weekly to-do list since they happen so sporadically, they can occupy a decent chunk of my schedule when I’m having a lot of conversations and brainstorming sessions. I’m currently in the middle of a pending collaboration with a local business right now… but I’ve been keeping the details under wraps since we’re still hammering out the details!
Bookstore Outreach
At the beginning of my career, I spent a lot more time reaching out to bookstores than I currently do. Back then, I didn’t have my own website to sell my books, and most of my events were small signings at bookstores, libraries, and local shops.
Working with bookstores can be tricky because each one has its own preferences and guidelines. Some purchase directly from authors, while others order from the author’s distributor instead. Some sell books on consignment, and the commissions vary per store. Some prefer to buy at a wholesale rate. Some shops (not necessarily bookstores specifically) charge their vendors a monthly fee to have a spot for their product display.
Because of all this variability, I don’t prioritize bookstore outreach nearly as much as I used to. From a logistical standpoint, it’s a lot easier (and more profitable for me) to sell my books directly to consumers at my booth and on my website. I also simply don’t have the time to research new bookstores, pitch my books, and follow up with them down the road to check their inventory status.
All that being said, I do love supporting local bookstores when I can, especially indie ones in my area. In today’s online-heavy marketplace, it’s rewarding for authors to actually have physical copies of their books on shelves, not to mention it’s another way for us to reach new readers and cross-market with local businesses. I’m just much more selective about the bookstores that I contact.
I usually pay them an in-person visit to make a face-to-face connection rather than a cold email like I used to do, so sometimes, scheduling a trip to a regional bookstore happens on a weekday in between my weekend events. Ideally, I prefer to leave autographed copies at the store rather than have the bookstore order from my distributor. Signed copies are more special for both the bookstore and their readers!
Monthly Author Cheer Squad
An author friend of mine founded a Patreon group for writers to network, talk shop, hold each other accountable to our individual writing/publishing goals, and share experiences with each other. Once a month, I log on to spend a couple hours or more chatting with these writers. Some of us are published, and some aren’t (yet). We also share resources and chat in Slack in between the scheduled meet-ups.
These types of networking connections can end up being invaluable. However, it’s not about transactional relationships. If you’re networking with other authors for the sole purpose of getting something from them without contributing any value back, then you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.
Having a support system, place to vent, and trusted professionals in your corner is an immeasurable asset, and I truly appreciate being part of this group.
EVENT PREP
It’s a lot of work to drive to the venue, set up my full display, be there all day talking to people and making sales (sometimes multiple days for longer events), tear it all down, pack it all up meticulously enough to fit everything inside my little Ford Focus, and drive home. But in actuality, having a booth extends beyond the actual event. Even when I’m not physically attending the event, I’m still working on:
Handmade Products
Many vendor booths have products that are either 100% made by hand or completely outsourced. I’m a bit of an outlier by having a mix.
There are definitely pros and cons to my business setup. Ordering products from other companies saves me a lot of time so I can focus on writing and publishing my next book (and doing the rest of the tasks on my monstrous to-do list). However, my profit margins are smaller on those products since I’m paying for someone else to produce them with their high-end equipment and ship them to me.
On the other hand, my margins are much higher for the products that I make myself, but that increase in revenue comes with a steep time trade-off. This is why I try to strike a balance. My primary focus ultimately needs to be on my book series, but the sales from my booth are what pay my bills, so I have to consider my time, base costs, and profit margins.
I make several of the products at home, including necklaces, brooches, resin book page holders, and bookmarks/book prints featuring my artwork printed directly on pages out of my books.
Below, you can see some of my handmade resin book page holders. The left image is a batch that’s early in the sanding phase, while the right image shows a finished batch that has been completely sanded and polished. People really like these little reading tools, so they’ve been a good addition to the booth, but I will admit that they are time-consuming to make.
Inventory Checklist & Restock
The day before an event is my prep day. This is when I pull everything from the last event out of the totes, restock any prints/products that were sold, and manually record my inventory — both the number of items that I’m bringing to the event as well as the total number of items I have left in my backstock.
Having this detailed, multi-page spreadsheet allows me to keep manual tabs on items I sell at events instead of relying solely on my POS reports. When I’m restocking and placing orders, it’s a lot easier for me to quickly skim my complete spreadsheet and see all of the numbers for all of my products and prints right there on the page rather than running reports on individual products. But, of course, this manual inventory checklist before every event does add a bit of time to my prep day.
Wax-Sealed Envelopes
If you’ve purchased a book from me in the last few years, you probably received a wax-sealed envelope with it.
This is a fun bonus I started doing a while ago. It’s an unexpected surprise for consumers to pick out their favorite color and then find out that they aren’t allowed to open the envelope until after they’ve finished the book. It helps to build excitement for the book and leave a memorable impression.
However… as you’ve probably guessed… putting these envelopes together is yet another time commitment. I don’t want to spoil what’s inside of them, but some of the material is printed at home, and I even tear the edges of one of the print-outs by hand. Not to mention the actual process of doing the wax seals takes a while since I have to wait for the beads of wax to melt.
I don’t plan to stop doing the envelopes any time soon, but as my business scales up and my fan base grows, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up with these envelopes in the future. For now, it’s just a regular part of my weekly event prep!
LIFE
I’m not always very good at a work-life balance. You’d think that being an entrepreneur and managing my own schedule should mean plenty of time for fun and relaxation… but that’s not the case. Most days, I’m actually very busy prepping for the next event or working on marketing my current books while writing or editing the next one in the series.
But I do try to find some time to enjoy the little things! I might take my Pentax DSLR camera and go out for a photoshoot or meet up with friends or family for dinner. I haven’t taken my kayak out in a while, but I enjoy a relaxing afternoon on the water if my schedule is open and the weather is nice. Some afternoons, I’ll work in my garden.
And then, of course, there are the less fun chores in life like grocery store trips, personal bills, appointments, etc. that need to be squeezed into my schedule.
So, there you have it! A quick snapshot of all the various weekly activities that I do in between event days. (Is it any wonder it takes me a couple of years to publish books while juggling everything else?)
I'm an award-winning fantasy author, artist, and photographer from La Porte, Indiana. My poetry, short fiction, and memoir works have been featured in various anthologies and journals since 2005, and several of my poems are available in the Indiana Poetry Archives. The first three novels in my Chronicles of Avilésor: War of the Realms series have received awards from Literary Titan.
After some time working as a freelance writer, I was shocked by how many website articles are actually written by paid "ghost writers" but published under the byline of a different author. It was a jolt seeing my articles presented as if they were written by a high-profile CEO or an industry expert with decades of experience. I'll be honest; it felt slimy and dishonest. I had none of the credentials readers assumed the author of the article actually had. Ghost writing is a perfectly legal, astonishingly common practice, and now, AI has entered the playing field to further muddy the waters. It's hard to trust who (or what) actually wrote the content you'll read online these days.
That's not the case here at On The Cobblestone Road. I do not and never will pay a ghost writer, then slap my name on their work as if I'd written it. This website is 100% authentic. No outsourcing. No ghost writing. No AI-generated content. It's just me... as it should be.
If you would like to support my work, check out the Support The Creator page for more information. Thank you for finding my website! 🖤