How I do get me one of those fancypants virtual assistants I keep hearing so much about?

December 5th, 2006

I admit it. The Quality of Life Queen (moi) feels as though she’s spiraling out of control these days, between trying to earn a living with her commercial clients, trying to forge ahead with new (read: on spec) writing projects, and trying to promo her upcoming book. I mean, look how it’s got me referring to myself in the third person, which is endlessly creepy, not to mention annoying.

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about freelance writers using virtual assistants to help ease their administrative workload. A few of the authors I interviewed when writing my book encouraged me to hire a researcher and/or transcriptionist. But I couldn’t afford to, so I filed that fantasy under Maybe Someday. Only now, too crazed to get to half the promo tasks I should be getting to, I see how having another pair of eyes and hands (or at least the ability to function on zero sleep) would be enormously helpful.

I do have one fabulous writer pal from Hedgebrook, Traci, who you will meet on this site in the coming days (for reasons you will soon be privy to), helping me a bit, which I so, so appreciate. She helped me with the last proof of my book pages, and she’s helping me line up some cool new posts for this here little blog. But Traci cannot help me forever. Traci has her own fabulous jetsetting life to live and her own writing to attend to. So I’m beginning to ponder the feasibility of hiring an ongoing virtual assistant (VA).

Since I know nothing about these mythical VAs (evidently there are certification programs for them, I suspect even secret handshakes), I asked the wise authors of The Renegade Writer and the newly released Query Letters that Rock for their take on the matter. Here’s the endlessly informative answer they gave me on their blog, as part of their regular Q&A feature. Thanks again, Linda and Diana. I can hardly wait to get my first virtual cupajoe.

Entry Filed under: This freelance life,Toolbox