As a former WinePress author and Publicity and Marketing Assistant (2009-2012), Amber is no stranger to the Christian, self-publishing industry.
Due to her ability to intimately understand the publishing process from an author’s standpoint, and her sincere desire to serve our authors with love, integrity and professionalism, Amber brings invaluable wisdom, passion, and work experience to Redemption Press. Since joining our team in February 2014, Amber has served as our main Project Manager and has been at the helm of over 400 projects. After sign up, she takes Redemption Press authors through every step of the publishing process– from editing, to formatting, to proofreading, to publication and distribution.
When asked to describe a typical day in her position as our Project Manager, she said: “Every day has its unique situations that inevitably arise, but for the most part, my work days from here in my home office in Ohio look very similar. I start very early in the morning with taking an inventory on the status of current projects by opening what I affectionately call my “Redemption Press Bible,” i.e. a color-coded Excel document that contains a plethora of information on every single author with whom I have ever worked. I started that document over a year ago and haven’t worked a day without it! I also immediately open Trello, a popular online tracking system which allows us to make internal notes on a book’s progress that everyone within the office can see; it is super helpful and keeps us all on the same page, especially with me thousands of miles away from the main office.
Once I’ve given myself a brief overview of projects currently in process, I begin transferring off our company server the files our designers have returned since the prior business day. Once I’ve checked over them, I get those sent off to authors for their approval via email and save copies of those files on a different part of the server.
Much of the rest of the day is my favorite part of my job: communicating with our authors. From sending and receiving dozens of emails, to making and returning phone calls, as our authors’ main point of contact within the company, I spend several hours a day happily tending to a wide myriad of tangible needs. More importantly, I also desire to serve my authors in a tangible sense, too. I make it a point to remember prayer requests my authors have shared with me and not only pray for them but check up on different individuals as they come to mind.
On the days that a new author enters the Redemption Press family, I spend time reading over the notes given to me when an author officially signs up. I then contact that author to introduce myself as their Project Manager and start the first steps of the exciting journey with them.
When I’m not busy with our authors, I am communicating with our wonderful vendors and delegating tasks to them and receiving work back from them, as well. By being the authors’ go-to person for anything and doing the behind the scenes work for them, I am the one responsible for making sure their project continues to move forward in a timely and efficient manner. With multiple projects in process at the same time, many in different parts of the publishing journey, I daily get to experience with our authors each step of process and remember what it was like several years ago when I went through the process myself as an author.
In my “spare” time during work hours, since I work from home, I also am blessed that I can throw a load of laundry in, clean my kitchen or make dinner while on an author call. Lord-willing, my husband and I will be able to adopt soon, and then I will be able to say I have also mastered the fine art of caring for an infant while doing Project Management, too.”
