The Publishing Machine...

...is your secretary, admin assistant, and accountant, so that you have more time to write. Among other things, it writes your letters, suggests publishers, calculates your tax, and reminds you about competitions. Click on the image to download.

If you downloaded before 17:00 20 October 2007, please delete your copy and download the debugged version. Apologies for any incovenience.

Read the manual

What it does

• Keeps a record of all your writing – what you’ve written, what categories (novels, poems, etc), where they’re stored on your computer, how much you’ve written per day/week/month, etc.
• Reminds you of upcoming competitions and automatically repeats recurring competitions
• Matches publishers to your writing by category, writes your submission letters for you, and creates lists of what needs to be published, what you’ve sent to whom, and what’s been accepted or turned down
• Sorts out the money - records your payments, reminds you of overdue payments, records your expenses, and calculates your tax
• Tracks your progress in writing, submitting your work, acceptances, and earnings

Instructions

• The zipped file is 2.7MB
• It runs on Microsoft Access 2002 and uses Microsoft Word to create letters
• Unzip it directly onto your C-drive - it'll appear in a folder called "OperationPublish"
• Download the manual for a step-by-step guide to its features
• To get data on publishers, use The Writer's Handbook or The Writer's and Artist's Yearbook (see useful links). For copyright, I haven't included this data, and anyway it's better if you make your own selection of relevant publishers.

Fixing "Undefined function" or "Run-time error 3085"

When you open the Machine, it may give you an "undefined function" or "run-time error 3085" and ask you if you want to debug it. This is because the Machine uses Visual Basic, which is a separate program. Visual Basic has a list of “reference libraries” it can use, but only uses the ones that are ticked.

You’re going to open the back-end of the database, get into Visual Basic, and tell it which reference libraries it needs.

1. Shut down Acess and (if it’s opened) Visual Basic

2. Hold down SHIFT and re-open the database: you’ll see the back-end open

3. Click Modules then Design

This will open Visual Basic, where you will tell it which reference libraries it needs.

4. On the Visual Basic toolbar, go to Tools / References.

5. Compare your list of ticked reference libraries with my list below. If any are missing, scroll down through the alphabetical list, find them, and tick them.

6. Click “OK” and shut down Visual Basic.

7. Close Microsoft Access.

8. Restart The Publishing Machine.

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Manual: Setting up ~~~ Your writing ~~~ Publishers & competitions ~~~ Money ~~~ Progress tracker