Why And When To Work With A Book Coach, What To Expect From Them
Jennie Nash transitioned from being a fiction author to a book coach—she’s been there and done it.
With a tremendous amount of knowledge of both aspects of publishing, Jennie has impeccable credentials, making her one of the best book coaches available today.
Jennie joins Published Author Podcast host Josh Steimle to talk about what serious entrepreneur-authors need to know about working with a coach.
Jennie has worked in the publishing industry, written for publications like The New York Times and GQ, and is the author of seven books, but she gave up her writing career a few years ago to become a book coach and today we’re going to hear Jennie’s story and learn about what a book coach is and what one can do for you.
TOP TAKEAWAY: IDENTIFYING WHEN TO WORK WITH A BOOK COACH
Jennie says that a book coach is recommended for an entrepreneur-author who is serious about getting a book written within a deadline, and wants to produce the best possible book possible. A writer may also be feeling stuck or frustrated, and this can be another sign that a coach is needed.
If a writer is thinking: “I don't know where to start, I don't know what to do, or is asking questions about the types of publishers and the book world, then that might be time to seek help,” she explains.
She adds that some writers feel completely overwhelmed, and a book coach can bring the clarity and logic required.
YOUR BOOK IS A PRODUCT, INVEST IN IT
Coaches range in fees from a few hundred dollars, to thousands of dollars for a session - which can last up to three or four months. For that investment, you have a qualified book coach who is going to be wholly dedicated to you, day-in, day-out.
While some might raise an eyebrow at the cost, Jennie stresses that if an entrepreneur wants to write a book that has an impact, or at least a chance of having an impact, they have to be willing to invest.
“It's no different from bringing any other product into the world. You would never start a business selling anything without looking at that business model, your goals, who's the audience, who's your competition. The same is true for writing a book,” she explains. When you're willing to really invest in your own success, ready to say I really want to do this, I don't want to mess around and I want expert guidance, that might be a time to seek coaching help.”
Interestingly, Jennie says that the main thing that seems to be required for nonfiction coaching is a sense of passion and color in the writing, while fiction writers often require a sense of logic to their framework.
“If I'm coaching a nonfiction writer who's got a bloodless thing, I'm actually drawing on all the tools of fiction to help them and vice versa, if I've got a fiction writer who doesn't have the underlying logic, I'm using a lot of the tools from the nonfiction side.”
HIRING A BOOK COACH? DON’T MAKE THIS MISTAKE
Some people hire creative professionals and disagree with them on almost every issue. The same thing occurs with a small number of people who hire book coaches. Says Jennie: “The stupidest waste of money is to come to a coach and then fight them on everything they say. And it's surprising how often that happens. And that's because people haven't done the work of determining what they're really looking for.”
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Welcome to the Published Author Podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host, Josh Steimle. Today, our guest is Jennie Nash, Jennie has worked in the publishing industry, written for publications like the New York Times, and GQ, and is the author of seven books. But she gave up her writing career a few years ago to become a book coach. And today we're going to hear Jennie's story and learn about what a book coach is, and what one can do for you. Jennie, welcome to the show.
Jennie Nash
Thanks for having me.
Josh Steimle
I'm so excited to talk to you. Because book coaching is something I think most people have not heard of, in fact, I didn't even really know what a book coach was. And I started looking into it. And I realized, well, that's kind of what I do. And it's kind of what some other people I know do. But I would love to learn more about your book coaching program and how you train book coaches. But first, before we get to that, tell us a little bit about yourself and your history and your background and how you became a writer. And then how you morphed into this book coaching.
Jennie Nash
Yeah, well, I you mentioned at the start that I've been in the world of publishing for more than 30 years. My first job out of college was a Random House, I worked for fiction and a nonfiction editor at the same time. So I was on on a real bookish path from the very start, I always wanted to be a writer, I always knew after college, I would move to New York and do the whole publishing thing, which I in fact, did. And, and I was lucky and successful, I had a career as a writer, and worked at magazines, I did all kinds of things, and, you know, as being published by the big five publishers, the whole the whole nine yards, but I was a, what's considered a midlist writer, which is exactly what it sounds like, it's kind of purgatory. You know, there's a debut author with all the shiny excitement of, you know, a big career in front of you, maybe, and all the hope, perhaps, and maybe a big marketing push. And then there's the best seller or, you know, big seller category. And then there's this giant thing in the middle, which is the mid-list. And, and it's a terrible place to be because you're, you're sort of nowhere and so I was, from the outside, it looked great. Like I had a two-book deal at Penguin, I, they were they offered me a three-book deal. You know, it sort of looked like the dream, but they were offering me the same advanced for each of those three books. And when my agent and I talked about it was like, well, that's basically locking yourself into a job for three years with no advancement, with no hope of doing it better, right? And and if you're in the mid-list, and they're not paying you a lot, they're not putting a lot of muscle behind the books, and I so I made this huge effort to break out of the mid-list. And that's a different story. But while this was all happening, which it being what I would say, the fizzling of my career as a writer, I mean, I could have kept doing it, but it just didn't seem viable to me. While that was all happening, I would have been teaching at the UCLA Writers' Program, which is the largest adult education writers' program in the country. And I was teaching memoir, I was I was teaching all different formats. So intensive, we, you know, four-day long, studio type things 10-week, writing program things. And so I was experiencing the incredible frustration of writers trying to break into the business and just trying to get somebody to have eyes on their page. And in the traditional publishing model, which we no longer have in this country, that you know, you wanted to get a publisher because that was the only way to get books into the hands of readers for one thing, but it was also the only way to get the kind of nurturing and support that most writers need to go from idea to book. And so I was I had experienced that my own self as a writer. And then I was seeing this frustration of people trying to get their work together. I just was singing there's got to be a better way. And one of my colleagues actually asked, so I have a very strategic way of looking at the creative process. And I when I was teaching that became very apparent that I was different from the craft-based method of teaching writing. I had processes and strategies and I was very market-focused. I was teaching as if everybody wanted a traditional publishing deal. I was not the person you would come to when you're just trying to find your voice or find your way, there are people that are very good at that, but that was not what I was doing. This colleague had gotten wind of, of how I teach them what I was doing. And she asked if I would help her write a book from zero all the way to getting getting a deal. She had a fabulous idea. She just didn't know what to do with it. And so I, I agreed, and we did that. And I was forming a system while I was helping her. And she ended up getting a two-book deal at Random House. And her name's Lisa Cron and her first book is called Wired For Story. And she became, you know, a star in the writing world. She had a whole new career as a speaker and a thought leader and somebody who was invited to podcasts and to guest blog, and you know, the whole thing. And as a result of that, I had people lined lined up to work with me. And that's how I became a book coach.
Josh Steimle
So you kind of fell into it a bit?
Jennie Nash
I did, I fell into it, for sure. And, and it was one of those situations where you recognize, I've been trying so hard on the writing side, and kind of knocking my head against the wall. And then this thing did sort of fall into my lap, and you recognize, oh, this is easy. Like, this is like breathing to me. And this other thing is a struggle, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go for the easy thing, plus, the easy things is gonna make me more money. And that was appealing to me. And so it used all my talents, it was exciting, I was good at it. I think I was a good writer, no doubt, but I'm a better book coach. And so I pivoted in that direction. And I did, I did leave, leave writing behind and, and find, I just, I love the creative process, I love studying it, I, like you, read all the books, and about all the things of creativity, entrepreneurship, all the way that people make things and the roadblocks that they have. And then and even what caused them to do that, what caused somebody to make a thing, and then the processes that, that you go through to do that. And so I consider myself a student of the creative process. And that's what I'm immersed in as a as a book coach. And as a person who runs a company that trains book coaches, I'm teaching others how to think like that as well, and how to do that as well.
Josh Steimle
So how did that leap happen from being a book coach, having a line of people helping people to saying, I'm going to train other people to do this, too?
Jennie Nash
Yeah, it's an interesting story. Because I mean, there's two things, there's the traditional typical entrepreneur thing where I was selling time for money. And and there's a limit to that, as we all know, and I was approaching that limit and feeling the constraints of that, that there's only so many hours in a day. And I kept trying to solve the problem by raising my rates, and that didn't solve the problem. And so that was happening. And around that same time, I gave a talk at the UCLA Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, which is part of their MBA program. And there was a young instructor in that program, who was in the audience. And I was talking to the entrepreneurs, this was, I mean, gosh, at this point, this was maybe eight or eight or 10, or so years ago. And it was not a super common thing for everybody to think that they could publish, you know, a book that you didn't need a traditional publishing deal, or you didn't need to be a writer, that's air quotes, to do it. So I was talking to these entrepreneurs about the fact that they actually have more of the skills that a writer needs to succeed in today's marketplace than somebody who comes at it from considering them themselves a writer. You know, the world has changed. And writers really need to know how to even look at a marketplace how to think about an ideal customer or how to how to figure out how to reach that customer. writers have to do that now. So I was giving this talk to them and talking about my systems and processes and how they could adopt those and use them and this guy was in the audience came up after me and said, you know, it's really unusual to have someone with the creative to come from that creative side and have the process side, you could scale what you're doing. I didn't even know what that word meant. I was just, I was like, what does that mean? And he was very relentless in pursuing me. This idea and finally convinced me that, that it was viable that it was a viable business idea. I didn't even know what that meant. But I had some initial reservations for sure. And coming from what I knew from writing and publishing he was coming from from this other side. So long story short, we formed a partnership and, and launched Author Accelerator. And we originally launched it to serve writers. And our idea was that we were going to hire and train people to coach them. And we're going to have a system and a process to do that. And that is, in fact, what we did. And we built that company up to almost a $1 million in revenue, when we realized that it was a faulty model for a lot of different reasons. And we axed it at the end of 2018, and decided to that what we had really built was a book coach training program. So we decided to focus on the training of coaches themselves. And so that's what we pivoted to.
Josh Steimle
So you were training people to be book coaches, but then they worked for you, they were part of your business, and you were hiring them out, so to speak. But then you had all that management issue, was that the problem? Or what was the model problem?
There were there were a couple of problems, but yeah, huge administration, administrative costs to, to handle all the writers to handle the infrastructure, you know, all of that. But there was also some leaks in the system, where we were training people, and then they were going out to find their own clients, or people were coming to them, or they were searching our database for the people we were training. And so it felt like we were bleeding a little, you know, bleeding opportunity, and it felt anxious-making and the the kind
Josh Steimle
So it felt like you were developing your own competition?
Jennie Nash
Exactly, exactly. And, I mean, there were a lot of things when we really step back and look at it. And, and, you know, similar to the story I told about how I became a coach in the first place, when we step back, and we looked at it, we realized that what we had really built was this very robust training program. And we had incredibly high standards. And we had a whole protocol and process for getting people to do this work and do it well. And I didn't even realize we had a list of 120 people wanting to work for us, you know, wanting to even go through our test, we had a test process that you had to go through to even begin to talk to us about working for us. And I had done that just to kind of keep people away and keep them at bay. And like, if you can pass my test, I'll talk to you it was a hard test. And, and we had, you know, without doing anything, 120 people wanting to do that. And so I thought, well, let's, let's make that a business. And so that's, that's what we're doing now is, is really focusing on training, we have a fiction training program, a nonfiction training program, and then we teach people to run their business. So the business of book coaching training program.
Josh Steimle
That's great. So can you tell us some of the success stories that have come out of that program?
Oh, yeah, it's, um, I mean, it's been a little slow, it takes a long time for people to learn, it takes them about six to nine months to go through the program. And the reason it's so long is because they have to work with clients. So in order to get certified, they have to submit their work with clients, they have to submit their editorial work on the page, and also, video of them actually coaching. And there's three different practicums that they have to do that for. So it, it takes a while to do the work and get through it. But some of the success stories that are coming out of it. I mean, there's so many ways that we can define success and look at them. But for me, some of the most exciting successes are people who have come from other industries and pivoted into this one. So we have a lot of people who have PhDs for example, and especially in the last year, you and I are talking towards the end here of 2020 the world turns up turned upside down and for academia, especially, just a really difficult time a lot, you know, no jobs available anywhere for one thing. And the way they do their work and deliver their work totally turned upside down. And so a lot of frustrated academics have come to us and realize that they can turn their expertise into something that they can control and that they can use on their own. So that to me is just a huge success that we offer an opportunity for people to take their expertise and and being in control of it. Have it a similar a similar success story is we have quite a lot of young mothers who were stuck at home with their kids and needing to work and frustrated with the way their work life was going. And so they took this up in order to have work that they could again control their controls more day to day control they're looking for, I'd say. So we have those those kinds of successes for sure that I really consider a mark of what we're doing and some of our pioneer book coaches are now out there making six figures, their own selves with their, their businesses, and some of those people, it's still a side gig for them, because they're writers. First and foremost, we have a lot of people who are writers. And the thing about being a writer is, which is what I experienced my own self, it's incredibly unstable, the income is incredibly variable, you might have a book come out one year, and then not have a book come out for three more years. Or you might, you know, there's just so many different ways if writing is your primary income, there's so many ups and downs, and adding book coaching to that income stream allows them to stabilize that. So we have, we have writers who are doing really well in their writing career. And by the metrics of what they're earning as a book coach, you wouldn't say it was wildly successful, but for them, it's perfect. It's filling that gap, it's creating that steady stream. So that's a huge success. And I would just say primarily, the success that I that I consider the highest is, I don't know of any other business that's doing what we're doing. And there, there are other businesses that train in a specific method of writing, perhaps it's writing a novel, and there's this, you know, a specific method for doing that. And I have specific methods that I teach in my program, but I also teach people how to use all the tools to help writers and how to deploy those tools and how to really run the business is, is what we're teaching. So our Author Accelerator certified coaches might be out there teaching my methods, but they're also teaching other people's methods. And they're weaving them together. They're doing whatever's best for the writer. So for me, the biggest success is, I feel like we're moving the needle and how writing is taught and in, in how this industry is, you know, we're building an industry and changing that. And I think that's just super exciting. And I'm really proud of it.
Josh Steimle
So how much experience do the people typically have when they come to you? I mean, are these all pro authors that have published a bunch of books? And they've got a ton of experience? Or are there people with less experience who can become book coaches and do a great job?
Jennie Nash
It's both I mean, and that's a great question that I get a lot. Do I have to have an English degree? Do I have to have an MFA? Do I have to have an agent Do I have to have been published Do I have to be a best seller to be a book coach, and this is where I kind of can get up on my soapbox, because in other realms, like, let's say, sports, we all know what a coaches in sports. And we all know that the best athletes and teams have coaches, we all know that it's a profession to be a coach. And we also know that while there are in fact, some coaches in sports who excelled at the sport, there are others who who didn't. And there are others who didn't get nearly as far as the people they're coaching. And one of my favorite examples of this is Serena Williams, who works with a coach who I don't believe ever played in a professional major tournament, you know, and he's coaching one of the world's top tennis players. So why when it comes to something like sports, do we not say, Well, you can't coach somebody, if you haven't won, you know, the US Open, you can't coach a US Open winner. It's ridiculous, because coaching is a different skill. It requires a different set of tools, it requires a different temperament. There's, there's some people who can be excellent at coaching and not able to pull off, you know, doing the work itself or not interested in doing the work itself or whatever, whatever the reason might be. So I, I'm that's part of what I'm trying to change is to get people to see that just because somebody is a good writer doesn't mean that they're going to be a good coach. And in fact, we have this weird thing in publishing where if somebody is becomes famous, we automatically turn to them to learn how they did it. And, you know, you can go to famous writer workshops and exotic places and work with writers who have done really well and I'm not saying to name names, because that doesn't do anybody any good. But I see a lot of people coming from those types of programs who have done those types of programs and some of the feedback that they've gotten quite damaging some of it is confusing. What good does it do, for example, I mean, here's one that I'm not throwing anyone under the bus here, because I don't even know if he teaches writing. But the the writer, Harlan Coben, who's a bestselling mystery writer, once in a in a speech said that his process is, you know, he'll sit down and he'll write thing was like 50 pages in a day, like it was just some insane thing that a normal person just is never going to be able to do. And I probably got those numbers wrong. But the point, the spirit of it is right is that, you know, you hear him say that in a talk and you sort of as a writer, you're certainly just going to deflate, because it's like, I can't do that I can't even write two pages in that period of time, or whatever the thing is, and, you know, so then so then you sort of carry this thing, like, Oh, I guess I can't be a writer, or maybe I'm not any good. Or maybe I won't be as good as he is or, you know, reach the level he has. But that works for him because it works for him. You know, so what what a coach is going to do is figure out what works for you, and what are you doing that that is perhaps not effective? Or how can we get a process together, that's going to take advantage of what you're bringing to this. And so in I the way I would characterize it is that the Harlan Coben thing that I just mentioned, is like an outside in method of learning something like looking at the structure and reverse engineering, oh, I'll do that. And then I'll be successful too. And book coaching is an inside out method, it's let's draw out your story. Let's draw out your idea. Let's look at your the way you live your life, and build habits that are going to work for you. Let's give you accountability and support and feedback so that you can do your best work. So it's a really different way of looking at it. So that's just a very long way I told you, I was gonna get up on my soapbox, a very long way of saying that if somebody has the the right temperament and heart and desire to be a book coach, you can learn how to do it.
Josh Steimle
You mentioned that some coaches will coach nonfiction, some coaches coach fiction, and I assume that the coaches who do fiction have experience with writing fiction and the nonfiction coaches have experience writing nonfiction. But are there other differences that you've noticed between that coaches and just the way that they see things? Or that they approach things when they're coaching their students?
Jennie Nash
Yeah. What's interesting about the difference between fiction and nonfiction is they're actually far more similar than people would imagine. And the reason for that is that what underlies both things, so I coach you both I coach in all genres, myself, I'm, I still do one-on-one, coaching. And there's a lot of reasons why I still do it. I love it for one thing, it pays well for another. And I like practicing the thing that I'm teaching so that I can really teach people, you know, I'm not just blah, blah, blah, like I'm living it as well. So I coach, fiction, everything from middle-grade to, you know, all different genres, and I coach memoir, and I coach, nonfiction of all kinds, so I coach to all of it. And I approach all of it the same way. And I teach all of it the same way. And the reason for that is that underlying all of it is is some fundamental principles of narrative design. So fundamental principles of how writing works to engage your reader, there's, there's a logic so even in in fiction, there's, there's like a drive train, if you will, or an engine underneath it. That's, that's pulling it all forward. And that you've got to know, you've got to know what that is in, in order to do it. And so as a coach on the approaching writing, and what I'm teaching on both fiction and nonfiction sides is pattern recognition. It's what is this writer doing? What do writers typically do when you see this problem? So the problem might be, so again, this is a craft-based way of looking at things you might say, the middle of this drags, or you might say, there the ending wasn't satisfying. You know, and instead of, instead of just, well, you learn the craft piece. You learn how to fix that, but but as a coach, what you learn is how do you identify that? How do you really quickly identify that so that you're not slogging through . . . Let's say you've got a 300 page manuscript. I can review a 300 page manuscript extremely quick. Because I'm, I'm looking for the things that people typically get wrong. And so those underlying logic analysis things are on both. It doesn't matter what genre you're coaching. So what, what, what is what's wrong with the writing tends to be similar. And then what not What's wrong? I would not say it that way. But what the writers are struggling with also tends to be very similar at the level of coaching that I do. I am largely working with people on their writer's identity on claiming their voic,e claiming their messaging, what's their brand doing? What do they want to be in the world is quite like the work you're doing. How am I going to become a thought leader? What's the speech that I'm going to give when this book comes out? How is that going to all align and fit together? So you're, you're really, you're really working with the writer as how they're going to live in the world, and how this book is going to be a manifestation of what how they're going to live in the world. And it's actually precisely the same on the fiction side, and you wouldn't think that or you wouldn't know that or, you know, so when I in a perfect world, what is which it is not, every single coach that I trained would be trained in both fiction and nonfiction. So the reason for that is fiction writers who are not doing as well as they want to do, usually what they're getting wrong is they're missing the logic, they're missing, the connection that drives from one scene to next to the other, that underlying linkage, that's gonna pull the reader through. And, and they, they just need to learn how to do that logic piece. And on the nonfiction side, what people tend to get wrong. I work with a lot of professionals, so they're CEOs, they're lawyers, they're PR professionals, communications, folks, speakers, leaders, that kind of thing. And, and they're such and in the world of business, in the world of writing, they tend to squeeze the emotion out of everything. So these people know how to write very logical analytical thing, you know, arguments that can prove progress really beautifully. But they're just bloodless. You know, they're just like, boring to read. And they're messy. Yeah, there's, and they don't pull the writer. They're not the kind of book that you go, like, ah, you've got to read this to your friend. They're, they're the kind of book that you sort of consume and then forget, or you look at it on yourself, and you think, wait, what was that book? You know? Like, there's just no, their there, even if the ideas are really great. And so what those writers need to learn how to do is find their voice. What does that mean? Strangely enough, I find the more accomplished a person is in their field of expertise, the more the more they struggle with what I would call authority, with actually claiming that authority on the page, they there's this strange? What sits with expertise is often this doubt about how to speak and how to claim that authority. And can I really say that thing and well, this other person said that they already are, you know, that type of thing. So they're really working with, with voice with emotion. And those are the things you typically associate with fiction so that the tools are really good book coach is going to have all those tools. So if I'm coaching, a nonfiction writer who's got a bloodless thing, I'm actually drawing on all the tools of fiction to help them and, and vice versa, if I've got a fiction writer who doesn't have the underlying logic, I'm, I'm using a lot of the tools from the nonfiction side. So that's a long way of saying that there's a lot of overlap in my training courses between fiction and nonfiction. It's I approach it in a very similar way. And there is a lot of overlap, but at a certain point, you kind of you kind of need both if you're gonna, I don't know that's, that's why I'm saying in a perfect world, everyone would do both, but
Josh Steimle
I love that. So I think most writers would say that a book coach is something that would be nice to have. I mean, we'd all like to have a book coach, but how does an author know when they need a book coach?
Jennie Nash
Yeah, it's a really good question. Um, so there are a lot of situations in which you would not need one. So those situations would be you. Perhaps you've already written a book you perhaps you write a lot in your in your life already. Perhaps you wrote in college, you know, you're really comfortable with you have an idea. You know how to structure it, you know how to make it work, and you're getting the results that you want, though, that means either you're blended in agent in a book deal. If that's what you want, you've self published or work with a hybrid publisher to get it into the hands of readers, if that's what you want. You know, there's so many paths to publishing now. So if you've found success in any, you know, however you define it, you don't need anybody, you're good. If you are struggling in any way, where you're not sure you're frustrated, maybe you're spending a lot of time, I think people waste a lot of time and money when they're learning how to write, or they're learning about writing a book, because if they're doing it piecemeal, you know, I'm going to go to this conference for three days, I'm going to take this online workshop for, you know, a couple hours, I'm going to learn about this or that, like, they're, they're putting, looking at all the tactics of writing a book and trying to piece together a cohesive whole. And so if there's a level of frustration, or overwhelm about that, like, I don't know, where to start, I don't know what to do. What's the difference? Like, what's a hybrid publisher? What self-publishing? How does the money flow? Like, you know, it's, it's actually a incredibly fast-changing business, as you know, and not that a book coach is gonna have all the answers, but probably, they're gonna have more answers than somebody who's never been in this industry is going to have, so if they're frustrated or overwhelmed, that might be a time to seek help. And then finally, the thing that I would say is that, I believe if if you want to write a book that has an impact, that has a chance of having an impact, you've got to be willing to invest, it's no different from bringing any other product into the world. You know, you would never start a business, making some widget or, you know, selling anything, without looking at that business model, without looking at your goals without looking at who's my audience who's my competition. Like, it'd be insane, you would never do that. So the same, the same is true for writing a book that when you're willing to really invest in your own success, when you're when you're ready to say, I really want to do this, and I really want to do this, right. And I don't want to mess around and I want expert guidance, that might be a time to to seek coaching help. So I would say frustration, overwhelm and, you know, deep desire to commit are the three levers that are crossroads, I guess, you would say that if you're at those, you, you probably would want to seek help.
Josh Steimle
And what I like that you're saying here is that it's not just the writing process, there are so many other things around the process of getting a book out there, and a book coach can help you with these other steps as well.
Jennie Nash
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's just like anything else, where I mean, I'm, I'm a big fan in investing in my own self, and from from time to time, I, I like to go out and spend at the level that I am charging. So you know, what I'm asking people to pay to invest in me, I like to pay similar amount to for another professional to help me in my growth. So I seek out business coaches, and have done that every year, for the past couple years, just depending on what I'm trying to learn or, you know, it's the whole growth-mindset thing. And, and I know, for sure, this is what I know for sure that when I put a lot of money down, I'm going to work way harder than if I didn't put that money down. And I think in some, in some ways, putting the money down is the thing that makes you actually do the work and stop procrastinating and stop putting it off and stop saying, well, someday, just the just the knowledge that I'm going to be meeting with this person, like I'm literally right now about two weeks out from meeting with a person I'm paying quite a lot of money to work with. And I've just been scrambling to take the time and make this space to to maximize that time that I'm going to be spending. So it's that sort of mindset that I think you would approach a book coach, you know, with.
Josh Steimle
So speaking of paying out money, I'm sure some people are listening to this and saying, hey, I want to book coach, but how much does this cost? And how do you engage? I mean, can you hire a book coach for one time to come in and give you some advice? Is it a 12 month thing? Am I shelling out $5,000 a month or $500 a month? Can you educate us a little bit about that landscape and the different options?
Jennie Nash
Yeah. So the answer to all that is yes to anything, you know, you can you can find any sort of package, any sort of price point that that you feel you want, so I think if somebody is thinking, I have a small budget to spend, and where should I best spend it, I would say spend it at the start of your project, get, get some book coaching help in the very beginning. And that's going to help you lay a strong foundation and help you really know that you're on the right path. You could, for example, work with someone for let's just say a month with a deadline every week, and maybe that month is going to cost you anywhere from I'm just trying to think of actual packages, I know, some of our book coaches are offering, I think that month could cost you anywhere from $500 to $18,000. So you know, it would depend on the range, right? What's gonna happen in that month. So I'm the 18,000. So I have a package that's a four week $18,000 package. And it is, it is like clear your calendar, get ready to do some serious hard work, you're probably going to cry. Like, it's that kind of intensity, and we meet like the first week, week of that four month period, we meet every day. So you know, I'm in it with you, I'm pushing you, I'm on you, you know, it's like there is no backing off from that, you know, intense thing. And the, the price point is, you know, equals what that the value of having somebody devoted to you like that. You don't have to wait for feedback, you're gonna get feedback from me every single day, you know that. That's why it costs so much. But you can. So yeah, there's a huge range. And it depends on what are you looking for? Are you looking for a strategy conversation about how to look at the different publishing paths and how to think about how long this project is going to take and sketch that all out? That's one thing, are you looking for intensive line-by-line feedback on your work every week or every other week? That's another thing, there's a pretty typical package that our coaches will present, which is a finishe-your-draft kind of package. So that's going to be roughly call it six months, you're probably going to have deadlines two times a month, you're probably going to be turning in 20 to 30 pages on those deadlines. And you're going to be paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 to $6,000. For that feedback. And and that price range is going to going to depend on the experience of the coach, the success that the coach has already experienced out in the world, and the level of feedback that that they're going to be giving you. So you kind of have to know what you want, you know, and what what you're looking for. And the you know, so it's being honest with yourself about about that, you know, what, what do I really need? What am I willing to accept in terms in terms of feedback?
Josh Steimle
And in addition to doing book coaching, you still help people to find book coaches, if they come to you looking, is that? Right?
Jennie Nash
Yes, author accelerator has a free match program. So we will match writers with our book coaches at no cost. And we do that we have a person, her name's Diana, this is not an algorithm. This is a person and she knows our book coaches, she knows their skills and talents, their temperament. You know, their price point, what if they're open or not. And so we have a form that you fill out, and we'll make that match at no charge to the writer. And then the writer can can approach an agent who's been vetted for them and decide if that that's a good fit for them. And then the coach will give us a referral fee, you know, back to us for that. So we do offer that I I have not, I've kind of put a stake in the ground that I don't want. I don't want Author Accelerator to be a marketplace. I don't want it to be a place where you can just come and scroll through a bunch of profiles and pick, pick a book coach. And the reason for that is I'm just adamantly opposed to the race to the bottom pricing model that so many people that work in in the creative fields in the arts and the service industries seem to accept I'm so not about that. I think what our coaches are offering is enormously valuable. It's not just a transactional thing. It's a transformative thing. And so I don't I don't want people coming and, you know, comparing or you know, saying, oh, who's the cheapest or making their decision based on? It's funny. I'm actually in the middle of reading. Have you read Malcolm Gladwell Talking To Strangers?
Josh Steimle
I haven't yet. I'm looking forward to reading it. I love Malcolm Gladwell, though.
Jennie Nash
Yeah, I am the same way I I'm a little slow to this one as well. But I just started reading it. And it's, it's fascinating, because it's about that idea of that we're actually really bad at judging people that, that we think we're really good at it. And he's, you know, Malcolm Gladwell, he's got some really amazing case studies from the CIA from the judges, administering bail. You know, unlike in that situation, a computer did a way better job of determining a person's likelihood to commit a crime than the judge who was right in front of that person did so it's this idea that we're actually quite bad at and judging people. And I, I didn't know that that's part of the reason why I've been so resistant to do that with my business. But reading Malcolm Gladwell, I mean, that's why because I don't think we're actually really good at deciding who's going to be good for us when we're faced with this marketplace of people. So I digress.
Josh Steimle
But this is interesting. So hiring the cheapest coach out there might be a mistake that an author would make hiring a book coach, are there other common mistakes that authors make when they're working with a coach?
Jennie Nash
Yeah, I mean, the stupidest waste of money is to come to a coach and then fight them on everything they say. And it's surprising how often that happens. And that's because people haven't done the work of determining what they're really looking for. Because if they knew what they were really looking for, in that case, it would be I'm looking for validation. I'm looking for somebody to give me the green light that I should go ahead and publish this. I'm, I'm looking for somebody to tell me, I'm not going to embarrass myself, right? So they're, they're looking for something different than then actually getting feedback. So if you're, if you're not open to getting feedback, don't go by it like a stupid waste of time.
Josh Steimle
So it requires some humility to work with a book coach.
Jennie Nash
Totally. And also, if you want someone to write it for you, that's a different thing. That's a ghostwriter. That's, and that's a super valid, you know, option for a lot of people. And if they just really don't want to be bothered, if they would rather have someone actually do the heavy lifting on the words, if they you know, if that's just not their their thing, then then they need a ghostwriter. So it's really the mistakes that people make would be all in the bucket of not knowing what they're really looking for. You know, if somebody doesn't understand the different kinds of editing a book coach is in the realm of a developmental editor, there are not a copy editor, which is somebody who goes in and does line-by-line, copy cleanup, or a proofreader who finds the commas and like, you know, make sure that the style is correct. Writers need all of those things, but you don't need a proofreader before you use a developmental editor. You know, so, if you if you don't know what you're looking for, and you approach that book coach, it's you know, I think it's always going to be a waste of money. So it it's really knowing, knowing what you need and and that goes to knowing what your goal is for the book. There's a million reasons to write a book, you know, you can write a book because you want to capture your family legacy for your family. That's a great idea, do it. I worked with a guy a couple years ago, ran a large financial services firm in the Midwest, and he was coming towards the end of his career and wanted to capture what he knew for the recruits coming into his company. And so I helped him write a book, he had no intention of, you know, having that book be in a Barnes and Noble in another state. He knew exactly what he wanted. He knew exactly, you know, how to get what he wanted. And we did that. So, you know, that's another way of publishing a book. You may be I'm working right now with a speaker who has a really robust speaking career that was came to a grinding halt in 2020 and she wants to have a book to sell in the back of the room because duh, you're leaving money on the table. People are asking her all the time, can I buy your book, she doesn't have it. So, you know, she knows exactly what her goal is. And again, her goal is not necessarily agent, traditional publisher, there's so many different ways that that a book can be useful in the world to to somebody, you know, I'm also working with the CEO of a company, he's got a big book deal at a big publisher and, you know, wants a big book or you know, that's unabashedly what her goal is, is to be on the shelf next to, you don't want to say too much about it. But next to X, Y, and Z book. And, you know, so you really have to know what your goal is. And, and I would say that, excuse me, if your goal is vague and fuzzy, or super ego driven, like, I want to be on the New York Times bestseller list and have Oprah picked me for her book club.
Josh Steimle
And I want it all for $500.
Jennie Nash
Yeah, well, first of all, you can't control those outcomes, you know, so it's like, knowing what you want, and then knowing what you can control. So a lot of what I do is telling people like kind of breaking their bubble, like, you know, if anybody comes to me and says, well, wow, you're expensive, and what's ROI for working with you, I'm, I'm gonna have a serious conversation with that person about what an ROI of a book is. Because there's not a lot of people that make a lot of money on a book, it's usually leads to something else, or sets the groundwork for something else. On the fiction side, it's even worse, the the number of people that can actually make a living writing fiction is very, very, very low. So you have to know why am I doing this? What am I willing to invest in it? You know, monetarily, time wise, my heart, all those things. So, you know, it's really getting your head around what what you want. So it's know what you want, know what your goals are. That's the best way to approach the start of any book.
Josh Steimle
Perfect. So not knowing that much about book coaching myself, are there any questions about book coaching that I should have asked, but I haven't?
Jennie Nash
One question that frequently people ask is, well, there's different permutations of it. But one would be, how do I know they're not going to steal my idea? Another another side of that question would be, how do I know they're not going to just take it over and write it for me. So some version of, of the idea that working with someone is going to make you lose your thing? So we get a lot of that nervousness around that? And, and the answer to all those questions is the same, which is that, first of all, nobody owns an idea. And what they own is the execution of that idea. So just because you want to write about climate change, and the role of I don't know, trucking, the trucking industry on climate change, 12 other people could write about that, and you can't stop them. And it also won't matter because what you're going to write is necessarily going to be unique, because everybody brings a different things to it. And, and if the time is right, for books on trucking and climate change, the marketplace will reward all of it because people who want to read one such book probably want to read all the books, you know, it's just like, I'm looking at you and your bookshelf, like you buy all the books, we people who love books, buy all the books, so maybe they're gonna buy five of those books on climate change and tracking. So, you know, it's it's realizing that ideas are cheap, and it's all in the execution. And then it's it's also realizing so people can't steal your idea, it doesn't work like that. And, and then the idea is somebody's going to take it over and make it their own. I think the way to make sure that doesn't happen is to find the kind of coach or editor who, whose thought philosophy states, what they do and states, how they work and states what their practices are like, and then also in whatever discovery process you have with them to ask those questions. You know, how, how heavily Do you edit, when you talk about line editing? What does that look like? How many comments Could I expect, for example, on a page or 300? You know, what does your editorial letter look like? You know, just asking questions about it. how they work and what their process is like and what they can expect. And if you hear something that doesn't seem like what you want, then you know, go the other way. So that that's those are the kinds of questions I think, you know, people often have, but they haven't articulated.
Josh Steimle
Well, Jenny, thank you so much for spending time with us here today to educate us more about book coaching and what a book coach is and what a book coach can do. If people want to reach out to you what's the best place for them to find you.
They can find me at Jennienash.com, which is je n i E, and that's all my social media is the same. And they're interested in book coaching. I have a book called Read Books All Day And Get Paid For It, which is available . . .
Josh Steimle
Sounds like a dream come true.
Jennie Nash
on Amazon, and if they're interested in learning more specifics about being a book coach, bookcoaches.com backslash ABC has a series of six videos where I walk people through what book coaching is, who tends to be good at it, how you can make money they're 30 minutes each. So you'll you'll get very tired of seeing me talk about it, but they're they're there. They're free. So that's bookcoaches.com backslash ABC.
Josh Steimle
Perfect. Thank you so much for being with us here today on the Published Author podcast.
Jennie Nash
Thanks for having me.
Josh Steimle
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