My Experience As an Author Assistant
In January of 2015 I started one of the best jobs I ever had. I was an author assistant to Ursula LeCoeur (real names: Mary and Helen Scully), author of the Love in New Orleans series. The books are standalone novels in a series with female protagonist living in the 1880's in New Orleans filled with mystery, suspense, friendship, and of course romance, When I first began to work for Mary Scully (Mary lived near the college I was attending at that time and Helen currently resides in Louisiana), I had read a few historical romance books and known some facts about the Victorian era (the era in which the books take place), but was amazed at what I was able to learn about the history from not only her books, but research that was done to help make sure the books were as historically accurate as possible. I loved being immersed and taken back to the time and place of 1880's New Orleans and reading and learning about the life of the people that lived then and there, as well as falling in love with the romance between the the main character and the man she loved as well as the characters as individuals, relationships (not just the romantic ones), and the mystery/suspense surrounding the novels.
Besides what I learned about history, I also feel I learned a lot about the publishing industry, the novel writing process, marketing, and much more. My job as an author assistant was to help assist Mrs. Scully (Mary Scully, though I did get to meet Helen at least one time) with her social media accounts, finding book blogs that would like to review ARC or just the already published and released books in the Love in New Orleans series, helping with finding marketing tools and ideas to help spread word of the books and author, helping to edit & finalize blog post for her website, and do occasional editing on chapters for her next book. Each week I looked forward to when I was finished my classes and could go to Ms. Scully's home to help her with her work. While it was only 2 hours, I loved every second of it and it never felt like work that I was racing to get home to or a chore that I had to do to get a paycheck. I loved being able to help promote the Love in New Orleans series, find book blogs, editing, and more.
One of the biggest things I feel I got from the job however, is that this job taught me so much that I not only gained amazing experience, connections, and education from it in general, but I also was able to gain those things that will help me to hopefully get a job in publishing someday. I want to work in either editing or PR/Marketing department of a publishing house some day, so the fact that the skills I learned first hand from working as an author assistant are things I could be doing a few years down the road makes me very excited and grateful.
I want to thanks Mary and Helen Scully for all the help they gave me in doing this job. I loved it so much and feel it helped me so much. I will forever cherish and be grateful for the time that I was able to spend helping to promote the Love in New Orleans series and I wish it and you both, nothing but the best.
If you would like to purchase any of the books in the series, they are available on Amazon for purchase here
If you are interested in learning more about Ursula LeCoeur or the Love in New Orleans series please check out their website here
