STEP ONE - SET UP THE FOLDER AND NAME IT

1. Where you create your story folder is as important as naming it. Many are using cellphones for this process. As skilled as you may be with a cellphone keypad, it's not nearly useful, easy or efficient as using a laptop or a desktop or even an iPad. The reason for this becomes apparent when you need to do research for your story and you need multiple screens open at the same time. Creating artwork requires a large screen to compose your work on if you don't plan on making a short story into a non-profitable career move. To start with, a laptop will be the most useful.
2. Before you start writing, create a folder where your manuscript is going to live. Once you have the writing bug, you may find yourself with more than one writing project on the go at once. When that happens, at first you may be tempted to jam every file to do with writing in one folder. Don't do that. Start off by setting up a master folder. Call that one PUBLISHING and within that folder, make another folder. That folder will be the name of your book. When you start another writing project, make up another title and label the new file with the second book's name. 
3. Now, every piece of research and communication about your book goes into the book folder for that book as well as your manuscript. Once you start acquiring references, artwork, articles and pictures make subcategory file folders within your book folder. The book itself will now be in a folder labelled manuscript. Nothing at all goes into that folder but the manuscript. So your folder title may look like this: MANUSCRIPT - STORY NAME - DATE YOU LAST UPDATED IT. 
4. Updating the folder name with a date matters even though the file on your computer logs the last time you opened it. That date is not good enough or reliable enough because you may have several versions of the same manuscript for various reasons only you can know about. If you don't date them and notate them, you will forget which is the latest version of the working file. If you do, you can end up with important parts of the same story in multiple places and forget where they are. Or you'll delete a version and not realize it was the right one until after you've emptied the trash. 
5. If you've never written a book before, unless you pay careful attention to the sources of your research, you will lose them. So get in the habit of bookmarking websites that contain critical information and organize them into a library of Bookmark categories. You'll be amazed at how fast that library grows as your interests and focus expands.
6. Chances are the story itself has been floating around in your head for a while. Now you want to write it, type it or dictate it. Give it a name. Try to give it a name that will sell the book without any effort from you. If you can’t think of a name that will drive sales (assuming you want to sell the book), Don’t bother writing it unless you are confined to bed and can’t do something more constructive.
7. The title of the book tells the reader something important about what your story is about. It helps them decide whether they want to read it or not. However, hardly anyone starts off knowing the final title of their book at the outset because despite your great idea, you really have no clue what is going to pop out of your imagination until you're well into the story. So your original title and maybe subsequent iterations of the title are what is known as the “Working Title”. Your book may not have its final title until a literary agent or a publisher offers one that fits the bill. Finding the right title can be a difficult process and surprisingly time consuming - or not at all. Some times you hit it first try. 
8. Once you've decided on a title, you have to check to make sure someone else isn't already using it. If so, it maybe copywrited or registered. If so, you need to keep looking until you come up with a title that only has. Don't bother with the copywrite until you are well into the book or finished the book and know you can follow through to publish it. But do it before you commit to the cover. If you can, create your own cover. That will save you a lot of money. Look to see what works on books you like that you would buy. write a list of why you like each one. That will help you in desiging your own.
9. Make a subfolder destination file folder where your copywriter information is going to go when you apply and receive your copywrite documentation.
10. Duplicate everything I've said here in hardcopy and put all hard copies in a file folder set up exactly as your computer files are set up in a safe place. A metal file cabinet is best. So you'll be running two sets of files for your book or if you have multiple books in progress, then one master hard file for each book.