author assistants – InstructionSmith

WHY and HOW to Choose a Niche for Your VA Business

Do you struggle with finding clients? Are you currently making the income you desire? Are the services you offer clearly defined? If you answered no to any of these the answer may be you need to choose a niche. The riches are in the niches What exactly is a niche? Simply put, a niche is … Read more

IPPY Book Awards

The Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) Book Awards – Final entry deadline is February 23, 2019 The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award are probably the most well known and prestigious, but other book awards exist specifically for self-published or small press books. Book awards can be tremendously valuable to the marketing efforts of the … Read more

Book Awards

This week we are revisiting a popular topic of a previous blog and we’ve included some additional information about upcoming awards and deadlines.

Book awards can be tremendously valuable to the marketing efforts of the winning books.

When a book wins an award, the result is free publicity for the author and usually additional book sales. The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award are probably the most well-known and prestigious, but other book awards exist specifically for self-published or small press books.

We like to occasionally feature some of the people who have completed the Professional Author and Speaker Training and Certification Programs. This week we’re shining the InstructionSmith spotlight on Candy Zulkosky.

Candy lives at the beach, on an island along the coast of North Carolina which is especially interesting considering she spent the first 30 or so years of her life living in the same small town tucked away in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

She ran away to sea for five years and taught computer classes to cruise ship passengers on the love boat! She lived for months at a time onboard Princess Cruise ships—and got paid to sail around the world. She notes this was arguably the best time of her life.

In the Spotlight: Jennifer Holstad

Over the next few weeks we are going to be featuring some of the people who have completed the Professional Author and Speaker Training and Certification Programs.

This week we’re shining the InstructionSmith spotlight on Jennifer Holstad.

Jennifer has been married for 28-1/2 years, has a 23-year-old son, and a Golden Retriever named Autumn. She is an elementary school spelling bee champion and loves doing jigsaw puzzles, Sudoku, spending time with family and friends, playing board games, watching movies, reading, and watching stock car races.

Jennifer has been in business for 22 years and has been blessed to have such wonderful clients (authors, speakers, and business owners).

Jennifer is a graduate of both the Professional Author Assistant and Speaker Assistant courses, completing PAA in August 2010 and PSA in April 2013. Before taking these courses, she had already been in business for 15+ years and had already done some work with authors and speakers. She also has an AA degree in Computer Information Systems.

We asked her what interested her most about the courses. She shared with us that she knew there was more to be learned about helping authors and speakers. She was also attracted to the flexibility of being able to work through the material and complete the courses at her own pace and in a timeframe that best fit her schedule. What appeals to her still today is having lifetime access to the material and resources as well as support if she ever has any questions.