Client Conversation: Ian Chisholm

One of the first questions I get when I tell people what I do for a living is, "What does a book coach do?" I was on a hike a few months ago in my favourite forest with a peer who said, "Is that like sort of cheerleading? You know, cheering writers on?"

And I was like, Okay, definitely there's a gap of knowledge out there about book coaching.

And: fair. It is a really new niche.

I shouldn't say “really new”; book coaching has been around for about ten years and is only just now hitting the mainstream, driven in large part by the outstanding work of Jennie Nash and her company, Author Accelerator. But considering how long the publishing industry has been around, book coaching is still considered a new step that’s emerging in the process. It's filling a gap that has opened as the industry gets more competitive.

It used to be the case that publishers would assign an editor to work with a signed author for months, and sometimes even years, to get their book into shape for publication—but publishers just don’t have that kind of time or cash anymore. Margins are just too thin, so they’re typically looking for books that they know they can sell with very little “fixing” needed on the front end. Books need to be very strong to be contenders for traditional publication, and even hybrid publishers are becoming super selective now, as the bar creeps ever higher.

So when my friend asked me if my job was to cheer my writers on as they wrote their books, I realized it would be useful for people to have a way to see inside the black box that is book coaching. I decided to have a conversation with one of my favourite people, former client Ian Chisholm, because he has experienced book coaching firsthand. Not long after that eye-opening hike, Ian and I sat down together to have a conversation that’ll hopefully unveil for people what's in the black box.

A bit of background about this client. Ian is a co-founder and partner of Roy Group, a leadership development firm that works with organizations to develop their next generation of leaders by developing senior leaders as our next generation of mentors. I’ve italicized the firm’s positioning because this simple statement of “what we do” parallels how I guide my writers to summarize their book’s point and purpose in a super-simple sentence. Clarity of positioning is key to success in business and in book selling. Because—and all my clients will sing this with me—books ARE a business unto themselves.

Ian and I know each other fairly well, as we've worked together for a number of years in different ways. Roy Group was one of my longest-standing clients, and out of that grew the client relationship with Ian as I shifted out of freelance writing and into book coaching.

We engaged to get his book on mentorship written sometime around 2021, but in 2023 we overhauled the project and began working with a tighter, more structured process. From there, things came together well. (I won’t say quickly, because books don’t always move quickly—especially when the client is running a company while also trying to get their words on the page.)

But this story has a wonderful ending: Ian’s book, Quiet Champions: A Way Forward for Mentors in Turbulent Times comes out later this year. It’s essentially a collection of meditations and practices for people who are in that space of readiness to serve as a mentor to others. It's a very beautiful book, and I cried more than a few times while working on it because of the significance of his message. I recognize that as his coach I have a bit of a bias, but I think Quiet Champions is a really important book for the world. There’s a lot of Ian’s wisdom that I feel aligns with the teachings in the Tao Te Ching and other works on awareness and consciousness. These are philosophical approaches that help us square how to express our highest potential—our Buddha nature, if you will—while being bound to a human life in a material world, where reality sometimes makes it hard for us to remember who we really are. Ian is a master himself, and comes at these timeless teachings from a fresh angle and with new insights.

I'm super excited because there aren't a lot of good books—well actually, there aren't a lot of books, period—about mentorship out there. I’m feeling pretty good that Ian is in blue ocean here, meaning he’s bringing a unique idea into a space that isn’t already crowded. The leadership category is pretty competitive, but not many people are out there talking about mentorship. And his book reaches FAR beyond just the business category: it crosses straight into sports coaching, parenting and education as well.

Quiet Champions approaches the concept of mentorship from a significantly different angle than every other book we’ve seen out there. It was picked up by Page Two Publishing toward the end of 2024, which is so exciting, because they first rose to prominence with the publication of The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. And from what I’ve seen of Page Two’s exceptional work so far, the prominence is well deserved.

Quiet Champions will be in bookstores this fall (2025).

Here we go, with a peek behind the curtain.

Alex: You’ve just finished your first book.

Ian: Yay!

Alex: I shouldn't say "just finished" because the manuscript has been done for a while. But you've crossed the finish line with the draft. I know you’re in the last stages of working with your editor at Page Two to bring the whole manuscript into a state of completion. Is the book with you right now, or is it with the publisher?

Ian: It's with me for a few more days, and then it goes back to the editor in New York.

Alex: And after your next round of revisions, it goes into production, right?

Ian: Yes. I think there are a number of steps in there—things that need to be decided—but the manuscript itself will be prepared.

Alex: What's your experience of this fine-tuning and editing with your publisher?

Ian: Yeah, a lot of people ask me this, thinking that it must be tough to have somebody edit something that you've been working on. And it just hasn't been that at all. It's actually wonderful to put it into the hands of somebody who's a professional, who knows what she's doing. And the first time it came back to me, I was super excited to see how that person would take everything I'd written to make it even better. So I actually really love editing.

[ed. note: While I do suggest edits to my clients’ writing, working at the line level isn’t my primary focus as a book coach, especially in the early stages, where I spend my time at the more foundational levels of structure and conceptual sequencing. I always advise my writers to budget for professional editing before they pitch their book. In Ian’s case, we knew he’d have access to a couple rounds of professional editing with his publisher. But publishers vary in terms of how much editing they’ll invest in…so it’s a good idea to assume your book will need a good, hard edit even after working with a book coach.]

Alex: And that openness to feedback shows. That's something I appreciate about working with you. You're very willing to not have all the answers. As a writer, you were coming into the process as a person with the idea, but not necessarily the...you haven't been writing all your life, like, as your profession. So you're wide open to that feedback, which makes you really easy to work with. And it sounds like Page Two is great to work with, too.

Ian: Yeah, they've been wonderful.

Alex: So, when I cast my mind back, we started working together on your book in 2021, but I think you were still wool-gathering at that time, looking for the shape of the thing. We got some drafting done. I say "we"... It wasn’t me, it was you! But you were sort of writing and...it wasn't...you weren't ready. But then in 2023, your idea had coalesced, you had arranged a sabbatical to support your focus, and you were like, "Okay, let's go." And we hit the gas. I want to say you really committed to the process of writing Quiet Champions around the beginning of 2023 and through most of 2024.

Ian: That sounds right.

Alex: It wasn’t a super fast process for you.

Ian: No.

Alex: We’ll come back to talk more about the process, but tell us: What's the goal of Quiet Champions?

Ian: The goal of writing the book itself, number one, feels very selfish. I wanted to take something that I've been thinking about for decades and get it out of my head. There was almost, like, just a need. One way to do that is to put it into the form of a book that can travel as a set of ideas that all go with each other, rather than just being in the ethers. The idea of an actual book seemed like...it's nice to say in 2025 that a book still has relevance. Secondly, I’ve definitely written Quiet Champions to grow the impact of our business. To have a collection of our best thinking about something that's so tied to the mission of our organization. That's how we develop the next generation of leaders, is by developing their leaders as mentors. We need something in that space that kind of captures this concept. Sometimes, Alex, it almost felt like I was writing a textbook for our clients, knowing that we're going to be able to use it and not just distribute it. Those were the two big reasons personally: Just to get it out of my head and make room for some new thinking, but also to grow the impact of our business.

Alex: Yes. I have no doubt that it's going to do that. I've said it before to lots of different people that in the world of content, books have a really long tail. They last. Whereas other forms of content—short-form content like blog posts and to some extent even podcasts—those shorter things don't last as long. But a book, as something that codifies your beliefs, is permanent. You've been collecting these observations over the last 25, 30 years of your life. A book really sort of sets down an approach and gives you something to build around.

Ian: Yeah. To be a business owner who's writing a book about what my business does. Somebody said to me once that a book is like a very expensive business card. Initially, I thought that was so cynical. And: it's also grown on me. That it's a great reason to write a book. If you've got a unique approach, if you have some unique philosophy that's propelling that approach, you would be wise to have it captured so that it can work while you're sleeping. So for all the best reasons, I think it’ll function as a really great business card about what we're all about with people that perhaps we've never met before.

Alex: Yes, exactly! A book expands reach, too. Okay, so let’s shift gears and talk specifically about your experience with book coaching. Why did you decide to engage a book coach?

Ian: The easy answer is because it's something I've never done before. I think it makes a lot of sense for first-time authors. I don't know if I'll ever write another one. And now that I'm here, I don't think I would do it without that support in place. Let's say I write six more. Maybe by the sixth one I wouldn't need it? I don't know. Good coaching kind of works itself out of a job. But more than that, I think for me it's one thing to say, "I am going to write a book." It's another thing to make it happen. And I think it's really important to put resources—both time and the investment of money—into something. For me, it was important just to do that, almost like a bookmark to say: The decision has been made. This is something that I am doing. And that's why at certain times every month—sometimes certain times every week—I’d have a deadline with you so that I could get the traction I needed. I’d do a piece of work, and then you were able to take that on and get back to me with your input. I think actually what I bought was some automatic traction to make sure that I’d be able to go from A to B and finish this the way I wanted to.

Alex: It's helpful when there's somebody on the other end of the phone, waiting.

Ian: My coach gave me somebody that I could make promises to. It was always an important moment at the end of one of our discussions to be like, "Okay, let's lock down what's going to happen by when." And that always gave me...not that I made every deadline, Alex, I'm not saying that. But that process of making some promises to you as a partner in this was hugely valuable, particularly in the midst of a pretty heavy schedule, because it's not like we shut Roy Group down for a year and a half so I could write the book. There were always a lot of other things competing for my time and my focus. And the investment in you allowed me and everybody on our team to realize that we have to make room for this, and this is important.

 Alex: This is the first time I've ever heard you say that you might write more than one book! Because during the writing of the book, there was—

Ian: Part of that is just being polite for your interview, Alex.

Alex: [laughs] That's great. I think you should write more. But you've got to take a breather, for sure. When you started out, as you were staring down the pipe, looking at writing a book and working with a coach, what were your reservations?

 Ian: I would say that cost gave me...it made me kind of pause and hesitate for a bit to look at, Okay, is this actually something that you want to invest this much time and money into? There's no question that it's an investment that you're making a choice about. And I wouldn't hesitate the next time. [ed. note: Ian invested in a bespoke plan and isn’t referring here to the fee for 1:1 Biweekly, which is my standard package] But having never done it before, when I did the math and realized over the period of time that we would be working together what that would add up to...yeah. You do really high-quality work and you charge in a very fair way for it. So that was definitely something. It never made me want to not do it. It just made me hesitate a bit.

 Alex: Like, I have to be serious about this. I can't just take it lightly. I have to think this through.

 Ian: Yeah. And still on the investment side: As we went down the path together, because you understood the world of publishing—which is interesting to also have that in the same person who's coaching you, which was a total bonus—early on, you helped me understand that we might go down one of several different paths: the more traditional publishing route, or hybrid publishing, or self-publishing. And there are a number of variations within each of those. You understood them all. And I think even though we originally pursued going with a traditional publisher with the help of an agent, I realized there was the potential of another person in this project: an agent, who would take a certain percentage. That made me hesitate. And then, if not through an agent and standard publishing, then it was hybrid publishing, which is also an investment. So on that list of costs—and there's all kinds of other services that people will offer you in creating something—if you did it all, you would go broke. So you have to select: What combination of services is going to allow me to create the book that I want to make? And then you pick the essential ones, which your coaching was.

 Alex: You put that so well. There are differences between each of those pathways to publishing. And within each of those pathways there are differences, and choices to make. You opted to work with a hybrid publisher. And just as a quick sort of nutshell for anybody who's listening, a hybrid publisher is...these are companies populated by experts who typically have worked for a long time in traditional publishing. You have to do your research, because not every press that calls itself a hybrid is reputable and qualified, but for the ones that are, they know what works, and they have a very excellent system. But you pay. In that way, the author shares the risk with their publisher. Whereas with traditional publishing, they take on all the risk—it’s a much bigger gamble for them. So there are trade-offs for each of those paths to publishing. If you're going to go traditional, you could be knocking on a lot of doors and that takes time. And your book often won’t hit shelves for a good two years after you sign a deal—longer if you’re going through an agent. If you're going to go with a reputable hybrid press, you're going to have expertise right there, but you are going to shoulder some of the financial cost—the lion's share. And if you self-publish, it's 100% on you as the writer. Every piece of writing, editing, designing, printing and driving that book is on you. And there are case use cases for each. But it's bewildering for people who are new to the industry. And so that is definitely one of the things that a book coach will do. We know publishing. It changes daily. I mean, I don't know what other industry is so strange and—

Ian: It definitely feels like it's in a highly fluctuating situation.

Alex: That's exactly the word I was just about to say: fluctuating. Okay, you may or you may not have an answer to this question, but I'm just curious about what did it feel like when we got underway?

Ian: As you mentioned, we knew each other, so I knew the quality of person that I was going to be working with as a partner. Because we had worked together before, you also really understood the voice that I was going to try to write this book in. I think that was really critical. I think if we hadn't worked together before, that would have been a really important piece. To go through some series of lunches or series of interviews or some part of the process to, like, simulate knowing each other well. I just think human beings need to go through that process together. When we first got underway, I realized that this is partly about the person, this is partly about the process, this is partly about what I'm bringing to the process—the content—but it all kind of equals the actual creativity. Like, creativity needs constraints. I know that if I hadn't had...for instance, part of your process involved writing a really robust outline. It's been a while since we've looked at it, but I think it was like 40 pages or something.

Alex: I think it was 48 in the end. [ope, WOW I just went back in my files and looked, and Ian’s final blueprint was 54 pages long]

The bible for building a commercially viable nonfiction book

Ian: 48 pages of just really making the skeleton of this book really sound. And then I could kind of pour my creativity into any part that I felt like creating because I knew what would come before it and what would come after it. In some ways, your process set me up to almost paint by numbers. I mean, it wasn't in a colouring book; I had to make my own outline first. But then I could really pour myself into any part that I wanted to take on. And that was invaluable from the start. The idea that this is my imagination and my thinking and the things I want to share with the world, but it also is going to become something. And I want that thing that it becomes to be really valuable to people. And that just really...I just counted on you, your process, and in the background, your knowledge of this industry, so that I didn't waste a lot of extra time on things that wouldn't bear fruit at the end.

Alex: That's a good point. That piece about not wasting time because that's... You know, I say publishing is a wild west. There are so many opinions out there. So many programs and offerings and courses and workshops and books. There are so many people who for whom certain things have worked, and so they will encourage other people to do the same thing. There are just so many variables. And there is so much bad advice out there that it's really easy to get led astray.

Ian: Yeah. Part of what I bought was just somebody to remind me of the critical path. And we didn't have it all mapped out in the beginning, but we could definitely...it felt like together, we could look at the options and not waste a lot of time in pursuing them all. We were able to kind of say, Given where we've been, this feels like the next best step. That was invaluable. 

Alex: Yes. Because publishing isn’t just...I think most people actually think it's like: I have an idea, and now I need to find the time to sit down and write my book. And then: Now I've got my book, and now I'm going to go look for a publisher. And it is just not that.

Ian: No. That was a huge surprise to me. And in retrospect, it makes perfect sense. At the time, I was like, "Gosh, it seems like we're counting on the fact that I'm going to be able to write this well." But we did a lot of preparation work in advance of any actual writing. The concept of the book needed to hold water before we started filling it with the content.

Alex: And that's back to the time savings, right? It's really easy for a person to sit down and start writing, and then write themselves into a corner. That blueprint we built broke this giant project into pieces that then you could pick and choose which one you wanted to work on, or which one you were feeling at a certain time. It really made it orderly. And that's only part of the gig. Actually planning and writing the book is only part of the gig. 

Ian: Yeah.

Alex: A book is such a much larger...it's got such a huge runway. There's before work, there's after work, there's so much work outside of just writing the book. And that's a piece that you came to know through working through the whole process. Eyes open when people really see, "Oh, you mean like, I actually have to know exactly how I'm going to move copies of this? It's my job to move the copies?? It's not the publisher who does that?"

Ian: Right.

Alex: So even those pieces are super valuable and can position a writer with more intelligence and more of a competitive edge than somebody who just kind of goes at it without knowing that. It's quite easy to get right to the end of a draft and have no concept of what's required to actually put a book out into the world.

Ian: You had talked about writing yourself into a corner. In retrospect, I would have clearly written myself into outer space. I wouldn't have known what I was writing about, even though I thought I did. But without that outline, I wouldn't have understood: What is it that I'm actually trying to create here? And it has to be whole. It can't just be my ramblings. That might be beneficial to me as a person, but it's not going to be beneficial to anyone else. You have to think about...you really pushed me to think about the reader's experience in every chapter. How do they feel going into this chapter? How do they feel coming out of this chapter, and what does that make possible? That was great. That, more than anything, is what makes me excited about having this something that I can put in somebody's hand.

Alex: And along with that focus on the reader experience—because you're right, we typically write for ourselves, and I think this is part of what makes it easy for people to imagine that they can just write a book, because we all know how to write—

Ian: We all have things to say.

Alex: —we've all got things to say, but we're not all usually thinking about the experience of the person who's going to be receiving that.

Ian: Right.

Alex: A coach makes you look at your words again and ask yourself, "Okay, what's missing here if I'm a person who’s new to this idea?" I'm a bit of a taskmaster with that, but I'm glad to hear that ultimately that was a benefit for you. And I also wanted to note...you said something a while ago about voice, and so I jotted a note. I wanted to circle back. That was an important piece of our partnership, was making sure that Roy Group's voice came through the book. I'm a very editorial coach. I wore an editor's hat for years, and I've worn a writer's hat for years. And I love that editing piece. I have to hold myself back a lot when I'm coaching people because I'm always wanting to be at the line level, correcting. But capturing the voice and those kinds of things, I think that's where working with an editorial coach is good for people. I'm not doing the writing. I never did any of the writing in Quiet Champions, which is interesting because I had written for Roy Group before. But I was able to hold up that mirror—and you're really good with the voice anyway, having been the voice of Roy Group for decades—but I held up the mirror just to see, is this consistent? Again, thinking of that reader experience.

Ian: Yeah.

Alex: And as you went through—as the months unfolded—I could see you were considering the reader’s experience more and more, until it became ingrained. You were building examples into your writing automatically. Whereas in the early months I had my teacher hat on and was always saying, Give an example so the reader can understand you more fully. Over the time that we were working together, we worked on those small things at the editorial level that really make a difference in the reader experience. There was a lot of feedback and iteration and improvement along the way. You're a very strong writer to begin with, and you got more excellent as you went just by that spiral, repetitive pattern of feedback and revision that we followed. What was your overall experience of working with a book coach?

Ian: I've heard about writer's block for years. I don't think I fully understood just how paralyzing it can be when the assignment, by nature, is going to be public and yet what you're writing about is coming from such a personal place. I can understand why people who make their lives creatively hit these patches where they are not able to produce what they need to produce. That was the worst part. And I think this is actually linked to what was best about it, Alex. It wasn't that I didn't know what I was supposed to write. There was no good reason for being totally locked up. But there's a lot of stuff going on underneath what is conscious. And so all of a sudden I found my...at times it was less about “the writing” and more about you as my coach. And what made that hard is that I'm a snob when it comes to coaching. Like, I've been on the receiving end of some really incredible practitioners over the course of my life, and have been studying and practicing this discipline of coaching for a long time myself. So it would be like your job was to renovate the house of a general contractor! The general contractor is going to have some strong opinions about what's good coaching and what's not coaching and when somebody's cutting corners. And you brought so much to bear to those conversations that were not about the book. And they weren't even about the writing. It was about me, and what was getting in my way, and the way that I'm wired. And you brought this whole other body of work of what I needed to do physically, of the work I needed to do emotionally and intellectually, and really kind of reground in who I really am and what that's all about. You did that pretty seamlessly. You were like, "It doesn't sound like we're going to work on the book today. It sounds like there's something else that we need to address." And you just went there. I was not expecting that, but it was probably the best...I mean, if I look backwards now on the investment of book coaching, I'm getting a book out of the deal. But I'm also getting a much more aware me out of the deal. And part of that was the book, but a lot of it was you.

Alex: Well, thank you. And, I have...I've seen this. I see how...I call it excavating. You know? When a person wants to share their gift, their knowledge, their thought leadership, their story in some cases, with the world, it's very personal. You said when the assignment is going to be public. I liked those words. I think it surprises people on some level when they take a step back and realize, Oh right. I’m stepping onto the world stage with a very public declaration of my thoughts and ideas. That excavation of conviction is what I'm pressing for: Why? Why is this on the page? How does this connect with your point? It's circling back through these steps of the blueprint. You know, I think when people first sit down and get to work on the blueprint, the first question is "Why are you writing this book?" And it's like, well, because the world needs—

Ian: DUH.

Alex: [laughs] Yeah! But then as you go, you realize it's like, "Whoa, this is so inextricably tied to what I believe to be true. That's why I'm writing a book about it." And it can be a surprise, just why you’re writing a book, and it can be intimidating to think about how permanently it’s going to live on in the zeitgeist. And I think that can be the cause of those blocks where you just get to a place where you're like, "Okay, if I'm going to write this, it has to be the thing that I really believe and I really stand behind." How do you see your own writing has changed through the process of working with a book coach?

Ian: Yeah. Very early on in the process, Alex, you pointed out something that ended up being really core to this challenge, and that is that I am used to communicating my ideas by speaking, using phrases more than sentences. And so when we converted that to writing, there were some gaps and there were some things that didn't work. Intonation and...you know, you can do things when you're speaking that you can't do when you're writing. And so you have to fill in those gaps. So that was invaluable just to know. I had never considered myself a writer, let alone a competent writer. And of course there were some awesome adults along the way that told me that my writing was terrible, and all of that stuff comes up when you decide to write a book as well. But we broke through that. Another gift from this decision to write the book is that I now do write more often, and I notice it in all the things I do: emails I write and notes I leave for my wife. By writing so much over the last year and a half...if you want to be a writer, then you should start writing. If you want to do anything, then start doing it. So that's been a really nice capability that comes out of this process as well that I can use in a number of other ways.

Alex: Well, that's good to good to hear. I'm glad. That's the first time I've asked you that question of how your writing has changed. It's good to hear your feedback. And what you say about when you try to take something from the spoken onto the page...unless we are writers or unless we do a lot of writing for our work, we tend to be oral communicators. And you totally hit the nail on the head: what works in the ethers, when you have body language and eye contact and pauses and all those things that can give life to your speech, doesn't translate on the page. Or else it sounds short or like something's missing. That's something that comes up with writers for sure, as well as—back to that reader experience, that user experience—what knowledge am I able to convey with my body when I'm telling a story or making a point that isn't coming onto the page? So you have to actually be able to find that to fill that gap.

Ian: Right.

Alex: And that's a different skill set. It forces a writer to slow down and it feels weird. It feels new, but it makes the writing really great. It is hard work. There were days when you were sweating.

Ian: It feels like we've touched on how you made it a really great experience for me...alongside the reality that I would not say I enjoyed the process. Which I'm kind of sad about. I wish I would have enjoyed it more. Like any experience, when you're in it, you don't enjoy it. Now, near the end of the process I look back and go, Yeah, I'm so glad I did that. But it wasn't because I enjoyed it at the time. I know I told you at times it was like it felt like pulling out my own teeth.

Alex: Yes. 

Ian: I guess if you're going to do that, it's just nice to have somebody to show your teeth to.

Alex: [laughs]

Ian: That that's a terrible metaphor but.

Alex: I think...everything's attributed to Ernest Hemingway, but I do think it was Ernest Hemingway who said, “I do not enjoy writing, but I enjoy having written.” [fact check: looks like this was said by Dorothy Parker]

Ian: Yeah, that's exactly how I feel.

Alex: I get it. There are times when I don't enjoy writing. There are times, every now and then, when I hit flow. Flow is awesome.

Ian: Flow is awesome.

Alex: There were times when you hit flow when you were writing and you would send something and you were like, "That just walked off the pen." But it is grunt work a lot of the time. So does working with a coach help with that, rather than doing it on your own?

Ian: I don't think this has been said during this interview, but my number one conviction about this is that I would not have finished if I did not have somebody to do this with. And somebody who knew the difference between coaching, advising, editing and ghostwriting. You knew those gears each so well, and you knew when we needed to shift a little bit into editing just to move things along. But then back into coaching me and never going into ghostwriting. There were times where I just desperately wanted you to finish this thing. Like, "I'll put your name on the cover, Alex. Like, please." And you were like, "It's really not what you've engaged me for. You engaged me to help you write your book." And just the fact that you were so explicit about the differences up front and so true to your word, and helping me be true to what I was actually needing your help with. That was awesome.

Alex: Yeah. You were just talking about knowing when it's time to use which gear. And that's something...this has been such a great partnership and such a great experience for both of us, because I've learned so much from you and so much from taking Roy Group programs and actually implementing the practices that you teach. I've learned to talk a lot less since working with you. I'm still figuring out when to switch from instruct to advise—I think that's lifelong learning for a lot of people. But now just being cognizant of it. When should I really coach and just ask questions? When is it time to...and I did, several times with you, I’d put on my editor's hat and just say, "No, it just has to be this way." Being able to shift those gears—I've been able to grow in doing that from working with Roy Group. And actually, working on Quiet Champions was amazing because it's basically a course, right? It's a master class in how to be a mentor. So I feel like I absorbed and will have to continue practicing a lot of those things. But it was just like this really great...what's the word, is it like...a synergy, right, or a synergistic project? So I learned a whole big bunch and you learned a whole big bunch and we're better off for it.

Ian: Yes.

Alex: One short question at the end. A lot of writers know what writing coaches are, but they're not familiar with book coaches and they're not familiar with the idea of investing in their writing to help it get to the level where their book idea is commercially viable. Like I said earlier, book coaching as a one-stop methodology of planning and writing a great book, and positioning it properly for the literary marketplace…it’s a new step in the publishing world. And I think there's a bit of sticker shock when people look at what kind of investment it’s going to take. A lot of writers aren't familiar with investing in that sort of 1:1 individualized support for their writing. What would you say to them about the value of this service?

Ian: It’s that discernment of: what you're paying for is not only the person, but also the process. And because you as the coach are immersed in this space 50 hours a week, you're bringing a process that helps me to save time and money. In retrospect, that was so valuable. In a way to say: All in. This is the price and this is the process. And if we move backwards in this process, there may be some extra charges. But if we work together the way we say we want to work together...and it's a way that you know works, because you've taken so many people through this process of being their book coach. That's actually what people are buying, rather than the time spent. It's the age-old story of the plumber who can fix something in five minutes, but gives a bill that's an hour. And the client is like, "What the heck? You can't charge me an hour. It only took five minutes." And it's like, "Actually, you're paying for the lifetime of practice that allows me to fix that in five minutes." In this line of work, that is what you're buying.

Alex: It's that specialization. It's that expertise.

Ian: Yeah, you've focused on one thing. You could coach people on a number of things. And you've chosen to help would-be authors write a fricking book. That's a very nice focus. And you're very, very good at it.

Alex: And I love it, I can't tell you. I mean, I have told you! At least 11 times! It's this amazing bringing together of all the different things I've done in the word world for years that I couldn't see...I didn't know when I started teaching where I would end up, but it's like, of course!

Ian: In retrospect, it makes perfect sense.

Alex: Any last items of advice you might have for writers on getting the most value from working with a book coach?

Ian: You're bringing not only yourself as an extraordinary person, but you're also bringing a process. And the advice I would give to someone engaging that is to trust the process and commit to it.

Alex: Nice. I love that word "commit". Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. It's always just so good to chat with you.

Ian: Wonderful. Thank you, Alex.