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As an indie author, you know that you not only have to be writer and creative director, but your very own marketing and sales department. Sometimes you even need to be your own distributor and accountant!

And as amazing as you are, you might struggle with some aspects of the indie publishing process. We’ve already covered how you can’t be your own editor, so that takes some of the pressure off. As do beta readers, and cover designers.

But what about when you’re marketing your book and building your brand?

If you’re overwhelmed with all the things you need to do to market, sell, and publish your book, social media and other platform-building things are the easiest to let drop, because they don’t have any immediate payout.

But here’s the long and short of it: your book is a business. Sales are your ultimate goal, and ignoring your outreach to potential customers is just bad business.

So what is an indie author to do when they’re pulled in a million different directions and can’t commit to maintaining their platform in the way they know they should?

Well, since you’re running a business, try hiring a staff.

While we don’t recommend handing over your social media to someone else entirely (it’s a lot more effective when it’s in your voice), there are plenty of things someone else can do, like:

• Research and plan a blog tour
• Look up potential awards you can submit to
• Plan content for blog posts (and even write a few)
• Make sure your website content works well with SEO
• Scheduling and planning your tweets and facebook posts
• Retweeting and engaging with followers

If you have the financial resources to hire a freelance marketing person, or writer, excellent! Freelancing is becoming more and more common, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a hundred good candidates.

But if you don’t have the resources, consider getting an intern.

After all, you ARE an entrepreneur, and working with you is a great opportunity!

A larger percent of Millennials than any generation before are interested (or even prefer) to be a freelance worker, but many don’t have the experience necessary to do so. Hiring an intern in college (or fresh out of school) gives them work and entrepreneurship experience that will be hard to beat.

A few tips about hiring and working with interns:

• Pay them.

If they’re doing essential work for you, $10-15 an hour is more than fair, and in many places, paying them is the law. You’ll also attract better applicants.

• Plan clear objectives.

Many young workers like autonomy and freedom, but make sure they’re clear on what they have to do, when, and give them numbers for them to measure their own success by.

• Hire the right kind for your needs.

If you want a more hands-on editorial job, bookjobs.com is a good option. If you need a tech-savvy marketing intern, look at your local colleges for students in the marketing and communications departments. Maybe you can even find a business and writing double major! Also remember to look into providing credit if your intern is still a student.

• Create a structure—and stick to it.

Have a beginning and end date for the job, scheduled meeting times, hours, and opportunities and metrics for review. Remember that an intern needs to be learning from you, and evaluating them and giving constructive criticism is key!

• Hire them.

If the intern is good, and you reach the end of their contracted term, hire them on a freelance basis! You’re helping them build their client list and maybe even their first break!

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