With independent publishing more popular than ever, and with authors increasingly marketing their books online, we can’t deny that writers these days have a variety of roles to fulfil. They have to be publisher and publicist, scribe and technical support. They have to engage with readers and look after the business side of their work.

This leaves authors with an awful lot of stuff to manage. No more can we writers just sit in a room and write a nice story. We have to do other stuff too. And lots of it. Not that this is a bad thing. In fact, it’s quite nice, and it’s satisfying when your hard work starts to pay off. But there is no doubting the fact that all these roles and tasks can be something of a technical challenge.

With this in mind, here are a few tips for managing the various roles of an author. Do feel free to add your own in the comments box.

Become a fan of timetabling. It might not be all that fun, drawing up a strict schedule of things to do, but often it’s the only way to make sure you get everything done without forgetting something crucial.
Similarly, learn to love to do lists. One upside of this is that writers tend to love stationery, and creating big lists and charts is a great excuse to use it.
Know your limits. You can do a lot, but chances are you can’t do everything, either because of a lack of time or because your brain simply won’t compute e-book formatting/social media marketing/uploading documents to be published.  Learn where your weaknesses are and develop strategies to deal with them.
Related to the above point – know when you need help. Don’t put it off. There’s no shame in getting people to help you if you need it.
Plan well in advance. You might not know exactly where you will be in a year’s time, but it pays to have at least a rough plan of what you’ll be doing with your writing then. That way, you can work out what resources you’re likely to need and when. Much better than having a last minute panic the week before publication.