Author Raven Digitalis hired me to be their publicity assistant in November 2024. Opportunity knocked and I answered, anxious to step in for the potential fun and experience. While authors frequently need editors and proofreaders, they also would use an extra hand. Here’s what I learned by becoming another writer’s assistant.

Writers Hiring Assistants

I was lucky. Raven suggested the publicity job amidst promoting the release for his collection Black Magick. We were discussing good fiction when he mentioned he needed wrist surgery, and I needed a side-gig—so why not step in to help?

However, if you’re job-seeking, connect with authors via their personal websites. Keep an eye where authors might post advertisements, including Indeed.com, LinkedIn, and even authors’ Facebook or YouTube. You might also post on your own social media about how you are available and what your skill set is.

Writers hire assistants for anything they don’t have the time to do themselves. Usually, authors pay directly from their personal pockets, too, not via the publisher, which usually means established authors with potential new releases.

But also, many writers don’t realize they could hire an assistant until they’ve met you. Suggest the skill when meeting authors and add the skill set to your bio.

The Job Description

“Assistant” can mean that you plan their schedule, attend meetings on their behalf, or research markets or publishing opportunities.

For me, it meant looking for book reviewers—and creating an approved list of reliable contacts.

Each had to be checked to ensure they were accepting books for review, particularly those open to the genre. I studied these reviewers and noted how active and current they were.

Once Raven approved this list, I was tasked with contacting these reviewers individually.

The “assistant” job description might vary, but always includes tasks that authors can’t necessarily do themselves due to time constraints. Agree on the job description beforehand: what’s the job, budget, and timeline.

An author’s assistant job means you’re working as an extension of that author.

Recommendations Back & Forth

I checked in with Raven regularly, keeping us on the same page. One email says, “Please remove these reviewer entries, since I’ve already sent them copies.”

I changed the list entries, but also numbered the list to say VERSION V at this point. A silly step, perhaps, but a good way to make sure either of us wasn’t working from version three!

Ask for your author’s feedback and check with them for approval if you have any impromptu ideas. In this case, the feedback process also included their publisher, so I often copied them into the correspondence threads.

Using Another Email Address and Use It Wisely

I created another email address for promoting Black Magick, to avoid stuffing up my own inbox and losing important correspondence amongst nonrelated emails. For instance, seeing who responded to my queries was easier from a fresh page.

A dedicated email allowed me to easily create and send Raven and the publisher progress reports. I could also better keep track of my work for them.

I sent similar emails over several days, but I individualized each to the subject’s name and publication. By not cutting and pasting the same wording, I avoided spam filters.

An Introduction (As Author’s Assistant)

We collaborated on a simple introductory email to these potential reviewers, answering three questions: (1) Who was I? (2) Who was Raven? (3) Why were we getting in touch? We skipped the explanation about his wrist surgery, but let people know I was his project assistant for Black Magick.

Focus on introducing the author and project and keep your own introduction to one to two sentences. This is always about assisting the author, never promoting yourself.

The job also meant answering questions, and forwarding review copies of Black Magick to responders. As the assistant, I answered questions about the book—even if they came in weeks after the job ended.

The Next Steps

Surprisingly, being an assistant is excellent for building your own network. I discovered hundreds of new publishers, authors, and agents thanks to assisting another author.

You could be the perfect assistant for a once-off job, but might also become the author’s go-to assistant when they need help with something. Next, we’re promoting the Empath’s Oracle Deck in 2025.

It’s particularly interesting work that amazingly boosted my own confidence. If I could help Raven promote Black Magick, I realized these techniques also applied to my own writing!

About the Author: Alex J. Coyne is a journalist, author, and proofreader. He has written for a variety of publications and websites, with a radar calibrated for gothic, gonzo, and the weird. Sometimes, he co-writes with others.