The first thing I’d like to say is “God Bless Virtual Assistants!” When I wrote my first book I didn’t know much about you guys, so I struggled to get everything done by myself. Now, I’m no lightweight when it comes to computer techy tasks — I do that kind of work to pay the bills. But an author really needs to focus on the written word and not fussing with fonts, PDFs and other essential, but time-consuming things.
That’s where you come in. As a newly enlightened author, I’d like to suggest a few skills and abilities that busy authors need your help with as they transfer their stories into bookstores. Are you ready? Here goes:
Intermediate to Expert Microsoft Word Skills
You’ll need to do more than be able to type and add a page break when it comes to helping an author. Since so many of us are taking advantage of the ebook revolution, you may be asked to format our manuscripts into ebook format. To do that you’ll need some knowledge of hyperlinking the Table of Contents, page numbering, creating section breaks and adding hyperlinks to our websites, book store links, etc. So, if you’re not already at this level, now is an excellent time to start leveling up your skills.
WordPress Skills
WordPress is becoming a standard way to build author websites today, primarily because it’s pretty easy to setup and add content. An author looking for an assistant will be looking for someone who knows how to setup a WordPress site from scratch, change themes, add plug-ins, media and content. You probably don’t need coding knowledge since that’s super techy work, but a good understanding of what can and can’t be done with a WordPress site is necessary.
HTML Knowledge
You should be able to read and write basic HTML code in this role. When converting manuscripts to ebook format, it will help you to in your troubleshooting of the book. Each company requires a slightly different conversion and sometimes the TOC doesn’t want to perform as designed. Being able to search the HTML code and find where the break is has saved me from pulling my hair out on a few occassions.
Transcription
If you can offer transcription services to an author, you’ll probably see yourself inundated with business. Being able to just talk into my little dictaphone and know that someone is going to type it up with proper punctuation and grammar is a dream come true. It allows authors to work on the story and not on spelling and other trivial matters. It also makes it easier for us to go through a rough edit of our work before we ship it off to the professional editors and proofreaders.
I hope you find my suggestions helpful to growth of your business. And once again, Thank You, Thank You for all of your efforts and support. Virtual assistants are my new heroes right up there with X-Men!
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Daryl T. Sturgis is the author of The Witch Series
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