Authoring, Automated

Automation Workflows Give Authors More Time, More Space for Creativity

For many indie authors, running a publishing business can feel like an endless list of microtasks that quietly eat away at creative time. There’s the writing, editing, and publishing, but there’s also the marketing, social media posts, newsletters, and email management.

That’s where automation steps in. In its simplest form, automation means setting up rules, templates, or workflows that manage repeatable tasks without constant hands-on effort. You don’t need technical skills to benefit from automation, and it doesn’t have to start with artificial intelligence. Many of the tools authors already use—like email platforms, content schedulers, and even Google Drive—have built-in automation features that can save hours each month.

Last year, when our team at Indie Author Magazine would produce an issue, we would spend five days on post-production work alone—formatting articles, uploading them to the site, queuing emails, and double-checking links. Exploring automation helped us cut that multiday process down to two or three hours. We didn’t reinvent the wheel; we simply let the tools do their jobs better.

In this article, we’ll explore the types of automation useful for authors, the tools to consider, and most importantly, how to identify the tasks in your workflow that are worth automating.

Start with the Problem, Not the Tool

Before you dive into new software, take a step back. Automation isn’t meant to be tech for tech’s sake—to be successful, it requires carefully choosing tools and platforms that can help solve specific problems. Otherwise, you risk setting up a fancy system you don’t actually need.

The first step is to identify what isn’t working in your current workflow. Do you forget to post consistently on social media? Do you dread formatting your newsletter every week? Are you constantly searching for the same files or copying and pasting the same email responses? These are pain points, and they are the best candidates for automation.

Pro Tip: Rather than starting with, “What can I automate?” start with, “What do I keep doing over and over?” or “What’s eating up my time that doesn’t really need my brain involved?” This reframes automation as a solution, not a novelty.

A few examples of common author pain points that automation can address are:

  • Manually scheduling the same promotional posts for each platform,
  • Sending a welcome email to every new subscriber,
  • Backing up files to cloud storage, or
  • Tracking editorial timelines and reminding collaborators of deadlines.

When you identify these bottlenecks, you’ll find opportunities to streamline. Then—and only then—is it time to look at what tool might help you automate that task.

What Can You Automate?

In theory, anything can be automated. If a task is repeatable, happens on a schedule, or follows a predictable set of steps, there’s probably a way to streamline it.

But the better question is: What should be automated?

For authors, automation works best when it supports their business and creative goals without removing the personal touch their readers value. Look for high-effort, low-creativity tasks—the things you have to do but don’t necessarily need to do manually. If a task doesn’t require your creative brain, it might be a candidate for automation.

Here are a few examples that make sense for most indie authors:

  • Email newsletters: Many email platforms can pull content from your blog’s RSS feed and turn it into a formatted email. Write once; publish twice.
  • Social media scheduling: Tools like Buffer, Later, or Metricool let you pre-schedule posts across platforms, often with reusable templates and analytics.
  • File backups: Set up automation to save your Scrivener or Word drafts to Dropbox or Google Drive every time you hit save—or on a regular schedule you set.
  • Task creation: When you finish one step in your publishing process, such as uploading your manuscript, automation can trigger the next task on your list, such as notifying your ARC team.
  • Reader onboarding: Automatically tag new subscribers based on how they joined your list, and send a welcome sequence tailored to their interests.

Automation without AI: Rules, Templates, and Triggers

People often think automation has to involve artificial intelligence or machine learning. But some of the most effective automations don’t require AI at all.

At its core, automation is about creating rules that follow a specific structure: When this happens, do that. These rules are built around triggers—the starting event—and actions—what you want to happen next. If you’ve ever set up a vacation responder or used a calendar invite template, congratulations—you’re already automating without AI.

Authors already use non-AI automations every day to complete a variety of tasks:

  • Rules in Gmail auto-label, archive, or forward emails from editors or beta readers.
  • Calendar automations send reminders before deadlines or automatically block out writing time each week.
  • Templates in tools like Notion or Trello create a full checklist every time you start a new book project.
  • Airtable forms collect blurbs or testimonials and immediately organize them into a sortable database.

These types of automations don’t try to guess what you want; they just follow instructions you set, which makes them more predictable and often more reliable than their AI counterparts.

Zapier and Make.com: The Bridges of Automation

Zapier: Simple, Linear, and Author-Friendly

Zapier uses a structure called a “Zap,” which follows the same basic trigger-and-action logic. It’s designed to be easy to use, even if you’ve never built a workflow before.

Authors can use Zapier to automate a number of different tasks. When someone fills out your contact form, for example, Zapier can trigger automations to add the new information to a Google Sheet, send you a Slack or email notification, and trigger a welcome email from your newsletter platform. When you publish a new blog post, you can trigger a chain of Zaps to share the post automatically to Facebook or X, add the post to your newsletter draft via MailerLite or ConvertKit, and create a task in Notion to promote it.

Zapier’s free plan offers two-step automations. Paid tiers, which start at $19.99 per month for the Pro plan, unlock multi-step workflows, filters, delays, and more complex logic.

Make.com: Visual, Powerful, and Great for Complex Systems

Make, formerly Integromat, uses a visual editor that looks like a flowchart, which can be helpful if you’re managing more intricate workflows. Unlike Zapier, Make can handle branches, loops, and multiple conditions—ideal for authors running multiplatform marketing or managing multiple pen names.

An automation on Make may look like this: You publish a new blog post, and Make formats the post for your newsletter, schedules social posts for different platforms, adds it to a “published content” archive in Airtable, and creates a follow-up task to repurpose the content later.

Pricing for Make is determined by the number of operations the user’s automations complete. As of August 27, each operation costs users “credits” based on the complexity of the task. Free accounts receive up to one thousand credits per month, and paid tiers, which start at $9 per month, offer ten thousand credits per month, along with other features.

Which Platform Should You Use?

Zapier works best for authors who want something simple that’s quick to set up and has support for common tools. Make works best for those who need more control, manage a lot of moving pieces, or enjoy visual planning.

Both offer free plans and have growing libraries of templates to get started.

Case Study: Automating Magazine Publication

Last year, as Indie Author Magazine grew, the complexity of publishing each issue grew with it. The process involved manually formatting articles, uploading them to the website, organizing images, preparing newsletters, and coordinating promotional content. Each step required multiple handoffs, and completing it all took five full days of work per issue.

To solve this, we examined each task to identify which parts followed a consistent pattern and could be streamlined. Once we recognized the recurring steps, we implemented automation across the workflow.

Now, everything begins in Airtable. When an article’s status is changed to "Ready to Publish," a chain of automations begins. The article is pulled from Google Docs, and its content is used to generate formatted versions for our website and mobile app, complete with categories and author bylines. At the same time, automation tools generate a full month’s worth of social media content from the article, including copy, links, calls-to-action, and images.

We do not use AI-generated imagery, but we have automated the process of sourcing stock photography from Pexels to accompany social posts when necessary. These images are pulled based on relevant keywords from the article and paired with the appropriate platform formats. Our newsletter platform receives the content as well, and the issue’s highlights are compiled and queued for scheduled email delivery.

Zapier plays a key role in coordinating systems, syncing updates across platforms, notifying team members, and maintaining task visibility at every stage of production.

By automating this workflow, we reduced the publication process from five days to just two or three hours. The creative work—writing, editing, and design—still requires human attention, but the logistical burden has been reduced. This allows the team to focus on quality while the systems handle the repetition.

Keep the Human Touch

Although automation can save time and reduce busywork, not every task should be handed off to a system. Tasks that involve personal expression, decision-making, or direct reader interaction are better left untouched by automation. Writing your newsletter, for example, may benefit from a scheduled send time or automated formatting, but the content itself should still come from you. Readers want to hear your voice, not a generic template.

The same applies to social media. Automating your posts is a smart way to stay consistent, but it’s important to monitor comments, reply to messages, and stay present in the conversation. Scheduling a month of content does not replace the value of real-time engagement.

As a general rule, consider automating tasks that are administrative, repetitive, or time-sensitive—but keep a manual touch on anything that builds trust, expresses your personality, or invites interaction. Automation is a support tool, not a replacement for authentic connection.

Getting Started

  1. Pick one task you repeat often. This could be sending a welcome email, backing up files, or sharing your blog post on social media.
  2. Map out the steps. Write down what you do manually, in order. This helps you see where automation can take over.
  3. Check your existing tools. Automation features may already be built into the programs. Email services, project managers, and even Google Workspace offer triggers and workflows that don’t require extra software.
  4. Try a no-code platform. Explore beginner-friendly tools like Zapier or Make. Both offer free plans and templates to help you get started.
  5. Test before scaling. Run a few trials to make sure your automation works as expected. Once it does, you can expand the system or build others.

Pro Tip: Popular starting points for authors include connecting blog posts to your newsletter, automatically saving writing drafts to cloud storage, scheduling recurring social media posts, or creating to-do lists for new book projects.

For more guidance and advice on creating automations in your author workflow, visit AuthorAutomations.com and subscribe to the weekly newsletter. Note: Author Automations is a sister site to Indie Author Magazine.

The Empowered Author

Automation isn’t about replacing your creativity—it’s about protecting it. By offloading routine, repetitive tasks, you create more space for the work that truly matters: writing books, connecting with readers, and building a sustainable author business.

You don’t need to become a tech expert to benefit. With the right mindset and a few simple tools, you can start small and build systems that work for you, not the other way around. In the end, automation is about doing less of what drains your time—so you can do more of what you love.

Chelle Honiker

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