Having an assistant can greatly decrease both your daily workload and stress, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a huge cost. Hiring an assistant can cost less than one hundred dollars a month! There are many great ways that an assistant can help. In just two hours a month, an assistant can help with things like social media, website management, book marketing, blogging and more. One of my favorite undertakings for my clients is creating stunning visuals for them to use! Taking tasks like these off an author’s plate allows them more time for writing, engaging with their readers and spending time with their family and friends.
Social Media Assistance
Social media management can be difficult to do, even if an author only uses two or three social media platforms. Posting or engaging daily on even one social media platform takes up lots of precious time, so having someone to do it for you can help greatly. If an author can utilize their time to write instead of posting on Facebook or engaging on Twitter, they can get much more writing done in a day. Having an assistant frees up hours because they can ensure that daily posts and engagement happen on an author’s accounts. It routinely takes me two or three hours a week to find remarkable content that fits well with each of my clients’ branding. Though it does take time, having a consistent presence on each platform is crucial for the authors I work with. It helps create a consistent presence for their readers to look to, and in a way makes it easier for their readers to find them, more importantly than that, the consistent presence allows readers to get to know the authors better. For more tips on creating and cultivating relationships with readers, check out this post.
Light Website Management
Is there something you’ve been meaning to add to your website for months but just haven’t gotten around to it? You’re certainly not alone. This is a possible task someone else could take on for you. Doing things like creating new pages, adding badges, and updating things are great examples of tasks an author assistant can help an author get done. As an assistant, I’ve done things like this quite often because a client either does not have the time or knowledge to do it themselves. Website tasks usually only take me a few minutes to get done but it’s a task that helps my clients out in large ways.
Book Marketing
If you’d like to see more promotional posts for your current books, but don’t have the time to market because you’re busy writing the next one it might be time to think about hiring an assistant! Book marketing is something that can be especially time-consuming, from posting on social media, finding marketing and promotional sites and posting it groups, it seems like the marketing work is never-ending. That’s probably because it isn’t, with the exception of New York Times Best-selling authors, without marketing your books likely won’t sell. I take on the task of book marketing quite often. From creating visuals for marketing to cataloging a list of potential promotional sites to use, I’m almost constantly working on book marketing tasks. While it does take time to take on book marketing for my clients, it’s also incredibly rewarding on the days that we hit number one on Amazon. I love knowing that I’m able to help my clients pursue their passion, and achieve their dreams.
If you’re a new author who needs book marketing help, read this post or better yet pick up a copy of BadRedheadMedia’s 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge available in both Kindle and print!
Blogging
Blog management isn’t necessarily a very time-consuming thing but it can be a repetitive process. Making sure you’re content is uploaded, optimized and ready to go it something that needs to happen, every single time a blog post goes out. As an assistant, I love reaching out to guest bloggers on my client’s behalf, uploading their content and scheduling the blog posts to go out. It doesn’t take more than 10 minutes to do, but over a month that’s almost an hour of extra writing time my client gets. Think about all the writing and editing you could accomplish in an hour! For instance, I do blog management for author Amy Rivers. I love knowing that the time I spend working on her blog allows her to network with other authors, write, and spend time with her family. On top of these things, Amy gets the peace of mind to know that she has a new blog post each week and doesn’t have to do anything besides find guest bloggers for her site.
An additional blog task I frequently take care of for authors is SEO and optimization. I go through the posts and ensure that all links open in a new tab, make sure that there are links spread throughout and high-quality images. Whether an author doesn’t have the necessary tools to take care of SEO optimization, or whether they choose not to, this is a task that is both time-consuming and incredibly beneficial. If you need guidance on doing your own SEO, I can’t recommend this book enough!
Visual Creation
One of the things I most enjoy doing is using quotes to create visuals for my clients. It allows me to be creative, and do something that can help my clients. This is another great example of things an assistant can do for an author using less than an hour each month. An author could use these visuals in book marketing, their social media posts or many other places, but it may not be something that they have the time, or even skills to create. I often spend time creating visuals to promote books or events for my clients. It can sometimes take time to get each detail perfectly, or find a font both myself and my client like but it’s worth it to know that they aren’t forced to take the time or worry to do it on their own.
Any of these tasks is something an author could take on, on their own but each time I take care of these tasks for my clients I’m saving them time and helping decrease their workload along with decreasing the stress in their lives. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is when I see photos of my clients with their families, I love knowing that they can enjoy their favorite places, with some of their favorite people without having to worry for a minute about business matters.
Emiie Avid Reader 