You are writing a book while running a business. Somewhere between client calls, emails and everything else the week throws at you, the book starts getting squeezed into the gaps. Or, even worse, left on the shelf.
It’s not that you can’t write it. It’s that writing is only one part of publishing a book, and when you add everything else into the mix, it’s a lot to manage alongside a business that’s already demanding your time.
This is where a non-fiction author assistant comes in. It’s not a widely known role, but for business owners writing their first book, it can be the difference between a book that keeps moving and one that gets put to one side while everything else takes priority.
The Problem Is Not the Writing
The thing most non-fiction authors underestimate isn’t the writing itself. If you’re writing a book connected to your expertise, you know your subject and you have something useful to say.
The pattern is that authors expect the hard part to be the manuscript. Then they finish it and discover that publishing brings a whole new set of decisions.
A book isn’t just a manuscript. It’s a cover, a formatted interior, an ISBN, a publishing platform, a launch plan, a review strategy and a marketing approach. Each of those involves decisions and action. If you have never done it before, you first have to work out what you don’t know.
For a business owner with limited time, that growing list of unknowns is often what stops the book from moving forward.
So What Does a Non-Fiction Author Assistant Actually Do?
The simplest way to describe it is this: I keep the publishing process organised so the author can focus on writing and running their business.
Many parts of the publishing process I can take care of myself, from managing author websites and newsletters to setting up review campaigns and preparing publishing platforms. Where specialist expertise is needed, such as editing or cover design, I’ll coordinate those parts of the project too, so everything keeps moving and you don’t have to manage lots of different people yourself.
Depending on where you are in your publishing journey, I can help with things such as:
- Coordinating your publishing timeline
- Coordinating your ARC and review process, including reader outreach, tracking and follow-up
- Helping prepare your book for publication on platforms such as KDP or IngramSpark
- Helping organise metadata, keywords and other publishing information
- Liaising with editors, designers and formatters
- Keeping track of the many tasks involved so nothing gets overlooked
If more than one of those sounds familiar, keep reading.
What It Is Not
It’s worth being clear about what a non-fiction author assistant isn’t, because there’s sometimes confusion.
I am not a ghostwriter. The author writes their book.
I am not an editor. I coordinate editorial support, but the editing itself is done by a specialist.
I am not a publicist or a book marketing agency.
What I do is manage the process that gets the book from finished manuscript to published, and make sure everything comes together on time, to a good standard, and without the author having to project manage it themselves.
Who It Is For
This kind of support is particularly useful for business owners writing a book connected to their expertise. A book that will open doors, establish authority or support a programme or course.
These are people who have every reason to write the book. They have the knowledge, the audience and the motivation.
What they often don’t have is time, and they certainly don’t have spare time to become experts in self-publishing on top of everything else.
Five Signs This Kind of Support Would Help
If you’re not sure whether this applies to you, some of these may sound familiar.
- Your manuscript has been “nearly finished” for months. Not because the writing is hard, but because the next step isn’t clear and it keeps sliding down the list.
- You’ve opened a browser tab to research ISBNs, print options, or Amazon categories and closed it again. The research keeps getting started and never finished.
- You’re not sure what order things happen in. Does the cover come before or after the final proofread? When do you need the ISBN? How far ahead does a launch need planning? If the sequence is unclear, it can be difficult to know where to start.
- You have quotes from an editor and a designer sitting in your inbox and you’re not sure how they fit together. Managing several specialists is a project in itself and somebody still needs to keep track of what is happening and when.
- You have a date in mind and no plan to reach it. It might be a publication month, a conference or a course launch. Working backwards from that date and planning what needs to happen is an important part of the process.
If some of these sound familiar, having someone coordinate the publishing side can make the whole process much easier to manage.
What Working Together Looks Like
No two books are exactly the same, so we begin by looking at where you are in the publishing process and what still needs to happen.
Once we have that picture, we agree how I can best support you. From there, I keep an eye on everything that needs coordinating, making sure the publishing side keeps moving while you focus on writing and running your business.
As decisions need to be made, I bring them to you at the right time. That way, you’re not trying to juggle every moving part yourself or discovering important jobs at the last minute.
The author focuses on writing. I take care of the publishing side and keep everything organised.
Where to Start
If you are working on a non-fiction book and would like some support along the way, I would love to hear about your project. You can email me at emma@virtualm.co.uk.
If you’d rather get a sense of the process first, download The Non-Fiction Author’s Self-Publishing Checklist. It walks through all eight stages, from finished manuscript to post-launch, so you can see exactly what’s involved.