Hey Reader,

Welcome back to our Ask a Business Manager series.

We're taking your questions and responding to them through the lens of our work as a full-service business management agency.

This question was posted in the Millionaire Author Mastermind Facebook group, and used by us with permission from the original poster.

The question:

Our response:

Cristina here. I love this question, because it's not just about social media and it's not just logistical—it requires us to look at the mental, emotional, and logistical pieces that are clouding things for this author.

All three of these are present in most business situations…even when you think it’s just a logistical problem 🤪

Let me tell you the truth: Pretty much none of the authors we know love social media, so you're not alone and—if you need the permission—you're off the hook!

Writing books is very, very different than feeding the finicky monster that is the IG/TT algorithm—not to mention that most authors are introverts and struggle with the blurred boundaries between personal and public.

And now I want to respond to the part about you being the one to manage both your PA and graphics person and come up with all of the strategy.

That's a lot of hats to wear. Sure, you probably can do it all, but we don't think top-level authors should do it all.

In all of our conversations with authors, we hear one thing: They have historically been the person who has to ideate, plan, execute, and evaluate, but the right team should be able to take a lot of that off your plate.

Here's how we would solve this particular problem if you were our client here at Pique:

• We act as project owners. Upon kick off, we immediately take on the role of project managing your social media. You no longer carry the mental load of thinking of compelling ideas, managing the photos, videos, captions, and hooks, or thinking through a high-level strategy or calendar. We own all of that.
• We escalate to you as needed, ahead of time and in batches. We will need things from you sometimes. We can do our best to learn your style and inject your personality but ultimately, it's your voice that made people fall in love with your books. We might ask you to occasionally record b-roll of yourself (which we can usually re-use creatively over and over!) or give us an inside look at your writing process or character development. But the majority of the process is moved forward by us—with advance notice and in a roundup, so it's not something that you feel is popping up randomly and suddenly.
• We assess what you do love doing. When all of the pressure is lifted: What do you enjoy doing? Do you want to engage in the comment section? Do you want to just stick to popping into your reader group when you feel like it? If things were truly covered, what would you have fun doing? (It’s okay if the answer is nothing, for the record!)
• We evaluate. Is what we're doing working? The ultimate goal is to grow your readership and sell more books, but we are also looking at social media as a way to build credibility, generate partnership opportunities (like PR, book boxes, bookstores, and influencers), cultivate superfans, sell non-book products, and build a memorable brand. Over time, we will investigate if we're being successful with those objectives.

If you're not ready or able to hire us as your full-service business management agency, we totally get it and we'd love to share more about how to hire the right person for this role. Hit reply and we'll send over a few tips!

Finally, I want to go back to what I mentioned at the beginning, about it being about the mental, emotional, and logistical pieces.

I hope that you can see possibilities for decreasing your mental load if you have a different team model in place.

I hope some of the emotional shame dissipates by just knowing you're not only not alone; you’re in the majority!

And I hope you'll see that there are some easy, practical logistical solutions that can make your life and business easier 💖

Hit reply if you needed this reminder today! We’d love to hear what’s resonating with you.

Best,

Cristina + Sara

P.S. That piece about this particular author having to manage herself, her PA, and her graphics person? That struggle is real… and we’ve talked about it before.​

​
​