I don’t like being in the spotlight. I never did. If you look at old class photos of me, I’m always on the side. Ready to run away, so to speak. Whenever I had to give a speech, I would have a stomach ache for days from the tension. Fortunately, this has changed over time. I am no longer afraid to stand in front of a group and at parties you are guaranteed to find me on the dance floor. But in my work I still enjoy being mainly behind the scenes. I have gathered a nice group of people around me and they are predominently the face of Bookinfluencers.com. You will only see me if there really is no other option.
In this blog I want to give you a look behind the scenes at a day in the life, and show you a little more of my role as the CEO of Bookinfluencers.com.

7:30 a.m.

The alarm goes off. I’m not a very early riser and I snooze a few more times before heading to the bathroom. I only really wake up in the shower. There are always chores to do, I unload the dishwasher, put on some laundry, give the animals a hug and make a sandwich that I take with me to my office at home. I work from home and share an office with my husband. Today he works on location so I have the office to myself.

9:00 a.m.

I start the working day by checking my tasks: I check my new emails, study the Bookinfluencers.com dashboard, look at my tasks in Trello (where would I be without this tool?) and make a plan for the day.

9:30 a.m.

It’s high time I sent out a client newsletter. We do this once a month, but last month we missed it due to a massive workload. I open Mailchimp and create an email based on the blogs the team has written over the past few weeks. My draft goes to our editor Jenny, who puts the finishing touches and prepares the email for sending.

11:00 a.m.

Team meeting! Every week we put our heads together for an hour and discuss our campaigns in a video call. We are located all over the world, so we see each other on screen. The campaign managers present issues about their campaigns to other team members or seek coordination on outstanding tasks. This way we will not be faced with any surprises, and we ensure that every campaign receives the attention it deserves. There is also room for a chat, of course. One of the team members has just completed university and is of course congratulated by the others.

11:55 a.m.

I have a number of small tasks on my list following the team meeting. I do that first so that others can continue with their work.

12:15 p.m.

My dog ​​Bijke wants attention. I take her for a walk and eat my lunch.

12:45 p.m.

I’m going to work on a TikTok campaign for one of our largest clients, VIZ Media. They produce manga comics. Eight creators have made a video about this manga and with two of those videos I set up a SparkAds campaign in the TikTok ad manager. Simply put, it means that I will give these videos a big boost so that they have a much greater reach. For the creator in question, it means a huge number of views for her videos, which means her channel grows. For our customer, this means that many more people in the target group of their choice will come into contact with the book. We can even ensure that the TikTok videos contain a link so that the viewer can immediately click through to the webshop.

1:45 p.m

I pay the creators involved in the VIZ Media campaign. They have created beautiful, distinctive content and receive financial appreciation for it.

2:15 p.m

Last weekend we helped a Dutch publisher with an event in Amsterdam. They released romantic classics in a new look and celebrated this with a booktok event. We arranged ten booktokers and created content about these beautiful books. Today I’m taking stock and collecting all the links in a spreadsheet. I record the metrics (views, likes, comments, saves) and email the customer about the results.

3:00 p.m

Meeting with Naomi. Naomi is the owner of The Tandem Collective in the UK. But for a few months we also have a company together: ChallyPop. Naomi is in Canada at the moment, so obviously we meet on camera. We discuss the progress of the three Challenges we carry out for Simon & Schuster. In addition, we review applications for the coming months. Fortunately, the publishing world is eager to work with us!

3:30 p.m.

I carry out a number of tasks following the meeting with Naomi. I set up a number of spreadsheets in which we can track the results of the Challenges, I contact a creator who has made a video about our Challenges and I set up a Challenge for a new customer.

4:45 p.m

There is a problem with the display of the Bookinfluencers.com website. I am sending a message to our developer requesting that we investigate this as quickly as possible and resolve the problem.

5:00 p.m.

Video meeting with El from Tandem, who is in the UK. We have a joint project with Workman publishers in the US. We coordinate who creates what content about the book in question. Afterwards I brief our campaign manager Maren, who will provide an item in our newsletter and a TikTok video.

5:45 p.m

I cook lasagna for my family and then get the lawn mower out of the shed. It has rained a lot but today it is finally dry enough to mow the grass.

8:00 p.m

Meeting with a potential American client. Due to the time difference, I regularly have meetings with clients in the evening. This potential client is a marketing manager at a major American publishing house, but I also regularly meet with (indie) authors who are responsible for the marketing of their book. I explain our services and discuss the options for the book she wants to work with. After the conversation I send her a brochure.

8:45 p.m

The working day is over. The TV is already on for the preview of a match of the Dutch national team in the group stage of the European Football Championship. It’s time to leave the world of books for a moment and cheer for Oranje.