About Kristen
Kristen Havens, Writer, Editor and Communications Consultant
Kristen Havens is a freelance copywriter and editor specializing in writing website copy for businesses and non-profits. Her focus is on helping organizations meet their sales, marketing, and fund-raising goals through the use of persuasive writing that is also search-engine friendly.
As an SEO expert and marketer, she has been featured by the Associated Press and the cable television program The Book Authority. Her essays and articles have appeared in numerous online and print publications, including AOL/FamilyEdge, The Houston Chronicle, OnceWritten.com, The Pedestal Magazine, and Kirtsy.com.
As a writer/editor, she has been hired to create marketing materials and digital products for a variety of clients and agencies. Recent projects include web content, executive interviews and case studies for the re-launch of the Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide website; 50+ pages of fundraising copy for The Special Olympics (client: Ogilvy PR); and publicity materials and fund-raising letters for the New York Summer Music Festival.
Kristen’s professional background is in blogging, SEO and word of mouth marketing. She was one of the first independent consultants to specialize in web-based public relations for the publishing industry, helping authors to create and publicize social media properties in promotion of their books. She worked closely with clients to create, brand, design, edit and promote several extremely successful author blogs and user communities, including the Rule #1 Blog by NY Times bestseller Phil Town (Rule #1, Payback Time) and The Insomnia Blog by nationally renowned sleep doctor Michael Breus (Beauty Sleep). Under her direction, both blogs brought their owners a page one Google presence and user communities of up to 15,000 names within the first six months. Kristen also consulted as the resident social media and blogging expert for Authorbytes, Inc., a Boston-based web development company dedicated to creating websites for authors signed with major publishers like Random House, Inc.
Prior to starting her communications consultancy, Kristen worked for five years for Tallfellow Press of Los Angeles as an Associate Editor and Marketing Manager. There, she screened and wrote coverage on over 2,000 children’s books and proposals. She also worked one-on-one with authors to help them promote their books online. An eight-year blogger with extensive connections in the screenwriting and creative writing “scribosphere,” Kristen leveraged her online publishing contacts to become one of the first book publicists in the country to send non-fiction/how-to authors on Virtual Author Tours of niche blogs and websites.
Kristen was a web content developer for Rock the Vote, writing and managing newsletter, website and interactive content on youth, voting and discrimination issues. She worked in film production for three years as a Producer and Editor for the advertising agency Direct Response, Inc. in Tolland, Connecticut. Television commercials she produced and edited for DRI won ITVA, Telly and Aurora Awards.
Kristen also worked as a video editor and post-production intern for Captured Time Productions and the Institute of Public Media Arts, helping to create broadcast documentaries appearing on PBS and MTV.
Kristen graduated Dartmouth College cum laude with a B.A. in Anthropology.
Resume & Links
The Plot Thickens – Kristen’s urban community gardening blog on Tumblr
