If you’ve come to this post, you probably have some questions about what a “book coach” is. I know I was curious the first time I heard someone call herself a book coach. So I looked into it, and I found out that, although the term is a relatively new one, book coaches have been around for a long time. When I heard the term, I knew right away that a book coach is exactly what I’d been training to be all of my life, only I hadn’t known it before, because I didn’t know such a job existed, and I didn’t know it was something I could do.
So what is a book coach? A book coach is sort of like a life coach, only instead of helping a person with his/her/their entire life, a book coach’s job is to help a writer achieve the very specific goal of writing a book, from start to finish. A book coach has specific expertise that can be invaluable for establishing goals and defining the processes necessary to successfully plan a book, write a book, and query agents.
How Are Book Coaches Helpful to Writers?
Polls conducted over the past twenty years reveal that more than 80% of people living in the United States want to write a book someday. But of those people who want to write a book, only 3% ever finish writing a book. Why? If I had to guess, I’d say there are a couple of things at play.
First, we are a nation of hard workers, and artistic pursuits like writing are often considered fanciful and frivolous. We may be dreaming of writing a book in a vacuum, with no support or encouragement, embarrassed to share our dream even with our families or our closest friends.
Also, writing a book is hard, and it’s made much harder by the fact that writers usually have to work at day jobs and take care of families and wash their cars on the weekend. It’s hard enough to find the time to write, but it’s even more difficult to find the time to write consistently enough to hone the craft of writing and to write well. And because of the first thing, there’s probably no one in our corner encouraging us to keep at it.
A book coach can help writers beat those staggering odds by coaching them and encouraging them through planning and writing a complete manuscript, zeroing in on their particular craft issues, and pursuing their publishing goals.
What Does a Book Coach Do?
When you work with a book coach, you start wherever you’re at and go from there.
You may come to a book coach knowing you want to write a novel, but with only a vague idea for a story. A book coach can help you fine tune your idea, determine the structure for your book, flesh out the characters and plot, and make a plan for writing forward.
Or you may have a solid idea and a detailed outline and be ready to write your book. In that case, a book coach can help you find the strengths and weaknesses in your story plan before you start writing and coach you through the writing process one chapter at a time.
If you have a completed manuscript, a book coach can evaluate your manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses so you go into revisions armed with the information you need to take your manuscript to the next level. A book coach can also coach you through those revisions so you make the best use of your time.
Once you have a polished manuscript, a book coach can help you research agents and develop a query or pitch plan, including drafting a query letter and a synopsis of your book, so you can start looking for an agent to represent your book.