Ivy: Recent study shows that in addition to be an entrepreneur, being an author can add to your credibility. But don’t worry. You don’t have to tackle that book all by yourself. You can actually hire a virtual author assistant to help you with that. Sharon Williams owns her own virtual assistant company but she’s also the founder of the International Association of Virtual Author Assistance.
And Sharon’s here to share with us more about that association. Sharon welcome toSBTV.com
Sharon: Thanks for having me.
Ivy: Absolutely, so the International Association of Virtual Author Assistance. What is it? When did you start it?
Sharon: Well, IAVAA is actually the one-stop shop for literary and administrative support services for authors and writers. We form the organization because there such a demand for assistant in helping people prepare their books, create the manuscripts and help them get to the marketing and promotion process.
Ivy: So what differentiates a certified professional virtual author’s assistance from maybe another virtual type of virtual assistant?
Sharon: A certified professional virtual author’s assistant actually completely extensive training and pass several courses so that we know the ins and outs of book production, book marketing, manuscript creation and all the task that are associated with it.
Whereas a virtual assistant, without a training with not know all the processes and be able to help that author get to the result which is of course promoting a book and making great sales.
Ivy: You have three key areas that you’re especially passionate about and specialize them. What are those?
Sharon: There are manuscript productions, book promotion and then of course the marketing which is my own personal passion. I love marketing which is my own personal passion. I love marketing and I love helping the clients and the authors and the writers get their passion out which is writing and letting the world know about it.
Ivy: Conducting a virtual book tour. I didn’t know you can do such a thing. Tell me more about that.
Sharon: To everybody’s familiar with the traditional brick in order to where you go from site to site, city to city logging your books everywhere. Signing your books on a book tour, a virtual book tour is actually conducting it all online. So you’re not carrying your books but you’re actually visiting blogs and communicating with blog owners and their readers. You’re actually participating interviews online, a podcast. You’re creating and distributing them to various sites where they are specifically interested in your genre.
And would love to learn about your book, you can participate in video interviews, virtual book signings and such so many ways. You can get the message out about your book virtually and that’s why it’s called the virtual book tour.
Ivy: In which in your virtual author’s assistant can help you help set it all that up.
Sharon: Absolutely, we can coordinate with the blog host for your scheduled stop. We can setup your interviews on your behalf. Do your research for you. Interview out the individuals for you to produce your book. I mean it’s just so many things that a certify the VA can do on your behalf that you as an author don’t have the time the knowledge to experience or the desire to do.
We can handle the backend operation needed to run a successful virtual book tour.
Ivy: So what makes the International Association of Virtual Authors Assistance different than maybe another organization?
Sharon: The key is that we partner with other organizations that are familiar with virtual book tours and have the leadership or listenership to get the message out about your book. A lot of other organizations somehow that have extensive network that we utilized. And we can identify based on your genre the individuals and the groups that you need to be connected with the tour it out with about your book.
Ivy: So in addition to being a virtual assistant in all respects, you’re also a really pinning that marketing really hard when you’re helping these authors.
Sharon: Absolutely, because I personally love marketing and our team love marketing. And we help, love helping you create the exposure that you want so that so you’re successful with the sales.
Ivy: So what point should an author come to you and what do they need to have?
Sharon: They should come to us once they’ve written the in the manuscript. Because at that point in time, the certainty that need to be completed to make sure that it is setup correctly. That it will register with lighting stores so that you could reach your ISP numbers etcetera. So once you’ve completed the manuscript and you may even to someone to edit it.
We can provide those services too. In addition to that we need you to be willing to listen to us so that we can tell you the steps of processes that need to be completed to make sure that this whole tour and the selling of your book is successful.
Ivy: So why do authors need a virtual author assistant help?
Sharon: In reality they don’t. If they want to take the time to schedule all of their own activities and quite frankly pre-scheduling is a six-week process because you have to conduct the research to identify the blogs that you’ve already going to connect with. Then of course contact those blog owners to see if they will agree to let you stop at their blog and expose your book.
And addition to that you have to do all the scheduling, you have to the confirmations if you’re going to have book reviews to conduct a draft. You’ve got to contact the reviewers and the list just goes on of all the things that need to be done in advance of your tour.
Then of course the tour has to be conducted and that has to be coordinated. And then there’s the after effect of sending out the books to those individuals that have won those books because you’ve participated in the contest. Or making sure that all of your review and that so can you promote your book.
If you need a website to do that one so that you can online presence and that needs to be done. So there are so many steps in the process to make sure that it is a successful tour that you need us to run those things for you. Instead of yourself and all you need to do quite frankly is be passionate about your book when it’s time to be interviewed.
Ivy: I’m overwhelmed and I’m relieved that we can delegate to an International Association of Virtual Author Assistant for all that kind of help for all those tasks. And if you’re anxious to find out more you can go to IAVAA.com and can look for more segments right here on SBTV.com with Sharon as she helps us to explore the whole world of virtual assisting.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services