The author, overworked
Monday, September 1st, 2008 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniIt's being one of those days where all the things I must do, Real Life, have gotten in the way of the other things that I must do, Writing Life, and my mood is none the better for it.
One of the things that I must do is make the SRM accounting and other related office-type work less of a time-sink. Much less of a time-sink. Steve and I are pretty evenly divided in our strengths and weaknesses, and I'm strong -- by training, if not necessarily by inclination -- in Stupid Office Stuff: bookkeeping, filing, and the never-ending etcetera.
Silly as it is, Office Stuff takes time, so I've spent a couple hours this morning trying to figure out how to streamline some of the tasks I've been doing by hand -- which was fine when we were a little company, mailing out maybe 200 chapbooks of a Yule season. The same system is Not So Good when we're mailing upwards of 1100 preordered chapbooks.
The good news here is that I'm within ames-ace (yes, I know, but my grandmother used to use it to mean "reallyREALLY close;" it stuck, and I can't get rid of it. It's a Family Thing.) of figuring out how to streamline the whole order-recording system so that I can get receipts and labels out the other end with a minimum of hassle and pain.
After that's well and truly nailed down, we can move on to figuring out how to make the order fulfillment process less of a nightmare for Steve.
The bad news is that the things I Must do, Writing Life, have not Done Themselves while I've been screwing around with spreadsheet systems.
Those things include:
*Finalize Fledgling: due at Baen September 15
*Finish writing my story for Eidolon: due on October 15
*Go over the CE for Longeye: sometime around November, I'm guessing
*Finalize Saltation: due at Baen December 15
*Write The Book With No Name: due at Baen June 1
Then there's the day-job.
Oh, and I hear that other people have lives, too. Can anyone speak to that? Truth? Falsehood? Pernicious Rumor?
After lunch, I'm back to the Fledgling rewrite. Sigh.
Pretty day out... Too bad about that.
One of the things that I must do is make the SRM accounting and other related office-type work less of a time-sink. Much less of a time-sink. Steve and I are pretty evenly divided in our strengths and weaknesses, and I'm strong -- by training, if not necessarily by inclination -- in Stupid Office Stuff: bookkeeping, filing, and the never-ending etcetera.
Silly as it is, Office Stuff takes time, so I've spent a couple hours this morning trying to figure out how to streamline some of the tasks I've been doing by hand -- which was fine when we were a little company, mailing out maybe 200 chapbooks of a Yule season. The same system is Not So Good when we're mailing upwards of 1100 preordered chapbooks.
The good news here is that I'm within ames-ace (yes, I know, but my grandmother used to use it to mean "reallyREALLY close;" it stuck, and I can't get rid of it. It's a Family Thing.) of figuring out how to streamline the whole order-recording system so that I can get receipts and labels out the other end with a minimum of hassle and pain.
After that's well and truly nailed down, we can move on to figuring out how to make the order fulfillment process less of a nightmare for Steve.
The bad news is that the things I Must do, Writing Life, have not Done Themselves while I've been screwing around with spreadsheet systems.
Those things include:
*Finalize Fledgling: due at Baen September 15
*Finish writing my story for Eidolon: due on October 15
*Go over the CE for Longeye: sometime around November, I'm guessing
*Finalize Saltation: due at Baen December 15
*Write The Book With No Name: due at Baen June 1
Then there's the day-job.
Oh, and I hear that other people have lives, too. Can anyone speak to that? Truth? Falsehood? Pernicious Rumor?
After lunch, I'm back to the Fledgling rewrite. Sigh.
Pretty day out... Too bad about that.
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the know it all speaks
Date: 2008-09-02 09:48 pm (UTC)I do not know what software you are using. But I had a thought. If you are trying to tie your packing slip (invoice) to your mailing label add a line to the top that ties them together.
The post office is used to funny looking stuff before the actual address; Steve can use those to make sure he is getting the right packslip with the right label. Maybe incorporate how many copies are supposed to go in the package?
Of course what you really need is a packslip with a peel off label. But that cost money. I looked those up on the internet – just because I was curious. It looks like it would cost you about $90, just to do the 1100 chapbooks. That assumes you got the whole thing to work with minimum hassle. Here is the link in case you need a visual on what I am talking about.
http://www.mavericklabel.com/products/integrated-labels-individual.php?label=1243878
God I hate giving advice. Make me feel like I am trying to act like a know it all. You probably know more about the whole thing than me. :-)