The Life of a Marketing Director

Ah, the life of a marketing director is never easy.

Today, I asked Sandra Bowman, Marketing Director of +Intrigue Publishing to tell you about the day in the life of...

First, thank you for allowing me to vent...oh I mean, share the joys of working with all of the authors at Intrigue Publishing.

They are much better than the other group I work with at my other full time job.

Even though at times I get emails that say..."did you get my email" or "you need to look at this''...which I probably already did. So I smile, nod and respond (sometimes)

Even with all of that, I think I work with the best group of people I work with.


Being marketing director is literally a full-time, 24 hour a day job for me. I wake up thinking about the things I need to get done during the day, I go to sleep stressing about the things that didn't get done, and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because of things that I need to do.

I schedule book signings, (well try to anyway with the closing of Borders), set up interviews, make sure ARC copies of books are mailed to reviewers, keep all the author's on deadline, make sure that they get that friendly 'reminder/to-do' email from me at least once a week and that is on top of making sure to show up at different events to get photos, videos and making sure the authors know I'm there for support.

Take the +Gaithersburg Book Festival a couple of weeks ago. Do you know how hard it is to wrangle a working author, a television personality and the father of a famous football quarterback into the same picture, all while making sure the picture is in focus. That took three people, a little running and a little begging on my part, but I got the picture. +Leon Harris and +Robert Griffin II, were very gracious as I pulled +Austin Camacho away from his booth to get that picture. They were also gracious when I told them I needed to take it again because it wasn't in focus.

Intrigue Authors

Then there was the +Bowie Senior Center event where I had a meeting at my other job, drove for 45 minutes to get there, hoped that the authors were set up; was informed that someone never responded but that they could still read from their novel and take video and pictures before rushing out of the door an hour later for a doctors appointment, heading back to the other job until five that evening and then needing to send out some galley books for review. (which the doctors informed me that I am working to hard) Ya think?

Boy am I glad that I have an assistant now.

I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love being able to help people and I love being able to see other authors reach their potential. It doesn't hurt that I work with the best group of authors. +DB Corey, +Penny Clover Peterson and +Christine Verstraete are all Intrigue authors and I hope they feel the same way about me.

Now, my list of to-do things just got a little longer as I need to get a meeting with the people at this local station in hopes of getting more interviews, oh and there is the little matter of +Thrillerfest and a book release party for DB Corey to finalize.

But first, maybe I need to lay down, after all it is 2am in the morning and my other work day will begin at 5am.