What Is A Book Coach?
Publishing changes fast.
So fast that Publishers Weekly sends out daily bulletins reporting on the degree to which fiction sales slipped this week, who’s been promoted to editor-in-chief at which house, who’s been poached, who died, which agent has sold foreign rights for which titles, who’s killing it on BookTok, who’s won a bidding war for a three-part series about dystopian mayors who forbid citizens to wear clothes, and which bookstores have decided to sell houseplants.
Book coaching has sprung up over the past decade or so in response to the industry’s fast-changing nature. It’s a relatively new role in publishing. The services a book coach provides fill a gap that we’ve seen yawning bigger and bigger with each passing year.
A book coach nurtures a book project at three levels: the project management level, the editorial level and the emotional level. It’s different than an editor, who involves themselves only at the editorial level. These three different levels are integral to a book becoming a real thing in the world.
Book coaches do the things that publishers used to do. Traditional publishing houses historically have taken care of all the steps to publishing a book, and it was the editor who would walk with the writer all the way through the months and years it took to produce a book. Some editors stayed with their authors throughout their entire careers, like Maxwell Perkins, who brought great writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway to fame. Their professional relationships were intense, intimate, and longlasting. Many evolved into deep friendships.
But that was then and this is now. Most publishers don’t have the resources to give their writers an editor who can provide that kind of high-touch treatment. Instead, publishers increasingly look for turnkey manuscripts—books that already are polished, carve a great narrative arc, and don’t need a lot of additional work.
Agents know this too. As the first-stop gatekeepers for publishing houses, they too are increasingly inclined to only accept really strong manuscripts.
It's up to writers to get their manuscripts into top shape.
Book coaches have evolved to support writers through this new part of the publishing process. A book coach gives your manuscript the care and attention that it needs to be a strong contender for traditional publishing. It’s a one-stop shop—a whole solution to the assorted challenges of writing a book.
A good book coach can work with you from zero all the way to the finish line, guiding each penstroke with a sound framework. My framework, for example, includes:
deep-level work around your reasons for writing the book, and the point you’re trying to make
a strategic approach to positioning your book in the marketplace
marketplace intelligence and insights into the publishing industry
deadlines and assignments to support you in getting the work done
a feedback process that workshops your writing as you go, so your craft gets better and better
emotional support through the rough interior terrain of writing a book about something that matters to you
A book coach brings an end-to-end solution to a massive project—and a trusted companion for a long journey. I love all of it, especially that “intimate journey” piece. It really is that kind of experience. I plan to interview one of my clients for an upcoming blog about just how deep this work goes.
In time, I could see my practice evolving to the extent that I work with just a few writers each year, walking with them in a deeply intimate, fully integrated way. On tap whenever they need, like a therapist, a good friend, a sibling. Kind of like a book butler, I guess? I like that term.
A book coach is so much more than an editor. We provide frameworks, editorial expertise and deep industry knowledge to writers throughout the process of writing and publishing their books. And that emotional piece, too.
Because writing is, at bottom, a powerful process for personal sensemaking—whether you’re in it for memoir, fiction or a book about how to lead better. Writing takes you through some hard, revelatory, surprising, and deeply personal territory—and I feel privileged to accompany people on the way.