Revision only works when you get your mind in the right place.

Memoir is a tough genre for so many reasons. That’s why I’m working with a book coach on my upcoming book all about HOW to write a memoir.

Publishing a book is a bucket-list item for many of us, and the good news for aspiring authors is that there’s more than one way to make it happen. Especially in the digital age, there are now more paths to publishing than ever before; traditional publishing is not the only game in town.

One of the things we most often hear from Author Accelerator book coaches is how much our course helped them with their own writing practice. This praise comes from people who have MFAs and advanced degrees in English. It comes from people who have written a lot of books and taken a lot of courses and read all the writing books. It has been one of the biggest surprises of my career, because I didn’t set out to design a program that would do that. I was focused on a framework to help people become book coaches who could help other writers write.

Whatever you are writing — middle-grade realistic fiction, a cozy mystery series, epic sci-fi, a book on business leadership, a self-help book on how to train a puppy — you have to be this specific about your ideal reader. What do they need? Why are they coming to your book?

I was good at coaching writers and I liked the work, but despite those truths, chaos ensued. I was always scrambling, always behind, feeling crushed by this work that I thought would give me a certain measure of freedom since I was the one, after all, in charge of it. And despite the fact that I was getting a lot of clients, I wasn’t making very much money.

If you’re in the beginning stage of your book project or revision, a book coach will probably be a better option for you. Alternatively, if you have a manuscript that you’ve revised on your own or with the help of critique partners and beta readers, a developmental editor may be best

It all begins with an idea.

The key characteristic of this book coaching framework is that it’s a whole solution. I immediately recognized it as such, because I had experienced it as a writer with an agent and an editor at a traditional publishing house invested in my projects.