Author Outreach Associate

Welcome to Smart Girl Stories.

We are a member-verified professional network and directory for women. We highlight women-owned businesses, women authors, and women-focused nonprofits.

We are focused on building our women author directory.

We are looking for a part-time Author Outreach Associate.

What you’ll bring

• Experience in libraries, bookstores, or retail stores that sell books. We are way beyond “I like books”.
• Retail experience interacting independent vendors/creators.
• Active social media account about books you love with followers.
• Familiarity with book clubs – perhaps you run one.

Who you’ll market to

• Independent and self-published authors who may not have a publicist or much of a budget.
• Libraries, indie author groups, and forums focused on empowering self-published authors.
• Publishers who are looking for creative new markets for their authors.
• Established illustrators who are looking for new authors.

How you’ll do it

Path 1: Network for the greatest reach

• Find groups of independent and self-published women authors that are interested in helping their members promote their books on a free author platform. Leverage campus networks, local bookstores and libraries, small presses, literary magazines, writing groups, book festivals, and online writing communities.
• Write and send personalized messages to the groups you think fit our platform.
• Organize Google Meet workshop sessions. Demo our online registration system. Answer questions and guide people interested in sharing our platform with their audience.
• Capture feedback we can turn into functionality that supports these groups and authors.

Path 2: Ask friends and your network for help

• Bring friends to your efforts. Help us grow the platform.
• Share your efforts on your socials. We have 10K followers, leverage that. We need results. We know all the hooks. We don’t need social media strategy. We need authors.

Path 3: Educate a group

• Organize Google Meet sessions and invite authors. Walk through the registration process. Demo features available. Be prepared to answer questions.
• Be prepared to expand beyond Authors. Hint – businesses (those book stores), illustrators (they want to promote their services), Sororities (we have a great opportunity here as well).

What success looks like

1. A dozen new authors on the platform each month.
2. Authors reaching out to you before you reach out to them.
3. Publishers contacting you to bring their authors to you.
4. Being the go-to person for businesses who want to list on Smart Girl Stories.

Who you are

• Enrolled undergraduate or graduate student. We don’t care about age.
• English, creative writing, publishing, marketing, library science, communications, or something similar, or working on a campus literary magazine, press, reading series, or bookstore.
• Outgoing – you talk to strangers quickly.
• Genuinely interested in books and the people who write them.
• Organized enough to track dozens of conversations.
• Understands AI for lead generation. Doesn’t write with it.
• Comfortable on Google Meet, running a demo, and answering questions.

What we aren’t looking for

• Pass-through work. Been there done that. Come with a plan and execute.
• Reddit canvassing. We are already there.
• Someone who needs to get out of their own shell. You left that shell a while ago.
• Someone hard selling one author.
• Ideas and strategy. We need authors on the platform. We don’t need to spend a week building out a marketing slick.
• Someone to upload books. You train the author to do the work or they have to pay you to do the upload.

Terms

• Rate: $15 per hour, roughly 10 hours per month. If we grow, you get more work.
• Classification: Independent contractor. You set your own hours and work in your own way. No required shifts, no standing meetings, no minimum daily availability.
• Term: Month to month – this is a trial run. By the end of the month, we need authors on the platform.
• Payment: Monthly, by Venmo
• Location: Fully remote, anywhere in the US

What this role is not

• You will not have administrator access, and you will not post or edit on anyone’s behalf. You help authors do it themselves.
• You will not verify identities or approve listings. Our staff does that.
• You will not moderate content.

How to apply

Send a short note to hannah@smartgirlstories.com telling us:

1. What you are studying and where.
2. An independent or self-published woman author whose book you would want on the platform, and why.
3. A few sentences you would send to that author or group if you were reaching out cold. Hint – if you already spoke to them, that’s a slam dunk.

No cover letter. No fancy resume required. High school or college experience in the industry is very helpful. The third item is what we will read most closely.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Our site is in beta testing now. Feel free to join. We are accepting international applicants but you prospect in your own backyard. Photos of you with the groups on socials is huge!

Smart Girl Media Corporation is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.