We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gwen Jarvis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Gwen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I’ve been a book lover my entire life! From Nancy Drew and The Boxcar Children, to House of Night and Twilight, to J.R. Ward and Jane Austen, I’ve always know books would need to play a large part of my life.

I completed an undergrad in Business, and started my career working in public libraries. I started getting more involved in the online book community during Covid — joining my favourite authors’ reader groups, ARC teams, etc. When my partner had the opportunity to go back to school, we knew he had to take it — but that would mean needing a side hustle.

PA-ing kind of fell into my laps. It wasn’t planned, but a kind author contact actually suggested it… and Gwen Jarvis Author services took off from there!

After working full time with my provincial library system and running my business, I knew something had to give or I would majorly burn out. So, I decided to take the plunge and take my author business full time for a trial year. 1 year for me to decide if it would work, or if I would need to go back to my 9-5. Well, I’m on year 2 of that 1 year LOL.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Hi! I’m Gwen. My business, Gwen Jarvis Author Services, is here to help authors behind the scenes with admin, social media, graphics creation, being a sounding board, and anything else they need to focus on writing!

I pride myself in having built an amazing community of authors I work with. They all support each other and are some of the best people I could have ever hoped to work with!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Word of mouth! Probably 95% of the clients I work with/have worked with come from word of mouth and direct recommendations from my existing author!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

The #1 things I’ve built my business on are honesty and loyalty, and I’m so fortunate to have received it in return. It’s difficult to trust people – especially online, so I’ve shown that I am trustworthy and always do my best.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gwenjarvispa/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gwen.jarvis.pa
• Other: ARC Team Sign Up: https://forms.gle/RWG7HbEc4Dv7e28B6