Independent Journalism
In my work as an independent journalist, I focus primarily on positive collaborative relationships for marketing strategies. Through coordination with my publishing organizations, I cross-post to reach the widest possible audiences in promotion of materials. This has facilitated new opportunities and relationships, both locally and nationally.
Coordinated personal and publication platform post: full article. This collaborative post originally included the artist’s platform as well. The design and formatting were a translation from the website publication into an easily readable and visually enticing access point to engage as many viewers as possible.
This reached across a diverse selection of readers, cross pollinating those who were already familiar with López’s art with those familiar with the San Pedro Gazette, as well as to my own personal following.
Coordinated personal and publication platform post: article snapshot and media highlight. In the creation of this post, we had the unique opportunity to use the artist’s own music as promotional material. Photo and video content were captured by both myself and newspaper editor Sebastián González de León y León from a variety of DAMES’s performances.
This post received the highest to date engagement numbers on the San Pedro Gazette Instagram page. Its popularity ultimately facilitated cross publication in Creative Loafing.
The Lynx Bookstore
During my tenure at The Lynx beginning in in February of 2024, I developed and oversaw all social media platforms, establishing brand voice and aesthetics still used today. I served as the initial primary web designer for TheLynxBooks.com, coordinating eCommerce and branding information cohesively. Below is a small sampling of my marketing campaigns and products, especially social media outreach.
| Instagram Growth (Annual, 2024-2025) | Facebook Growth (Annual, 2024-2025) | Email Subscribers (As of May 2025) |
| Approximately 300 to 10k followers | Approximately 100 to 2k followers | 10k contacts 70% open rate 0.35% weekly unsubscribe rate |
My social media skill sets include creating flexible and appealing graphics for use across platforms, informative video marketing, and extended campaigns centering entertaining themes and staff personality. I am a highly experienced and versatile writer. My work is community-minded, working to center inclusion and genuine outreach in all aspects.
Event graphic template. These graphics are used for event listings online, as well as for social media announcement posts to Instagram and Facebook. They are designed with flexibility in mind, with space for secondary headshots if needed for author moderators, with room to adjust to a variety of book titles.
Events were typically posted to the store site 6 weeks ahead of the scheduled event time, with announcements published to social media accounts one month prior to the scheduled event date.
Branded mission statement and community response. After the 2024 presidential election, The Lynx team took an explicit political stance in alignment with the store mission. We invited community collection and reflection in the space while emphasizing continual uplifting of marginalized voices in our space.
This reiterated shop and brand values to our followers and our local community, which received broad engagement.
Video content for pre-order marketing campaign. The Lynx partnered with Central Florida author Kristen Arnett for an exclusive signed, personalized pre-order campaign on her title, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One.
I coordinated a series of “Dad Joke” videos from various staff members in celebration and support, which brought in 80 pre-orders from around the country (most with personalization requests).
Holiday marketing campaign, “12 Days of The Lynxmas”. Throughout the month of December, I hosted a “12 Days of The Lynxmas” holiday countdown campaign for the days prior to Christmas.
I used this to highlight gifts, cafe items, and the personalized nature of our independent bookstore staff – and worked in our mission of banned & challenged books as well. I also used this to communicate holiday closures. PICTURED: Day Four.
BELOW: Weekly email newsletter. Each week, I formatted and wrote a Brevo newsletter including a variety of sections aligning with different aspects of the brand and sales. I highlighted a selection of weekly new releases and upcoming events while also including a rotating brand voice section. This example demonstrates an intentional emphasis on Black History Month and Black authors in February 2024. Graphics and photo content created and captured by me.
BELOW: Publicity Kit. I created this kit to distribute at conferences, differentiating The Lynx’s bookstore branding and opportunities from hundreds of others at highly attended events. This was used especially to establish new relationships with publishers seeking locations for author event coordination.
BELOW: Flyer for Gainesville Reads festival. I created this flyer and the logo present at the top to advertise Gainesville Reads, a month long free literacy event festival I developed and executed. The festival centered one selected book title, The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell, and involved collaborations from 12 community partners from around the region. I distributed these in physical print form, on the bookstore’s website, in email campaigns, and on all of our social media platforms.