Metadata is hell.

Just wrapped a five-hour shift uploading books to the various online stores, and lemme tell you—I am feeling it. It’s been a while since I’ve done a big indie publishing run, and tomorrow’s release is shaping up to be the biggest one yet.

Part of the complication? I decided to release the books as individual titles on Amazon to meet their monopolistic Kindle Unlimited exclusivity requirements. This meant I then had to bundle those same books into a three-volume collection to sell everywhere else—because I’m still finishing the third volume, that bundle had to go up as a pre-order.

Cue: a second round of artwork, metadata, and general hoop-jumping to satisfy the content mills at Apple, Kobo, and all the usual suspects.

Long story short: five hours gone. It’s actually less time than I usually spend standing at my desk writing each day, but somehow I’m shattered. A change is as good as a kick in the head, as they say.

Later this afternoon, I’ll sit down and write a process essay for everyone on Patreon. Pulling these books together and writing for a mostly new audience has been a genuinely fascinating journey. I'm looking forward to sharing the steps, missteps, and lessons learned.

And sometime in the next day or two, I’ll send out a big newsletter update from here as well to let everyone know what’s going on.

Right now, though? I think I’ve earned myself a beer.