Become A Certified Book Coach
In 12 months, learn how to successfully coach writers through the development of a book idea, the completion of their draft, and the strategy for approaching the marketplace.
Schedule your sales call in the next five days to be eligible for the bonus
We teach you how to build a career around your love of books
Were you that kid who dreamed of a life in books? The one who hid under the covers with a flashlight reading past bedtime? The one who wanted to be Jo from Little Women?
Maybe books saved you from loneliness, boredom, anxiety, or chaos and your passion for them has never dimmed.
Becoming a book coach allows you to work in that powerful space of possibility. That’s because your job as a book coach is to help harness other people’s creative genius.
You teach people who are eager to learn exactly what you have to offer and are grateful for the guidance.
You coach people through a complex intellectual and creative journey, helping them structure their ideas, complete their projects, and overcome their doubts.
You do work that is deeply transformative to your writers (and to you).
You choose exactly what kinds of books to work on so that every project is a passion project.
Author Accelerator’s Book Coach Certification Program sets the industry standard for excellence
Anyone can hang out their shingle and call themselves a book coach, but there’s a lot more to the work than just being an editor and a cheerleader.
Our certification program gives your clients the confidence that you have the necessary skills, experience, and training to help them do their best work.
We designed our program to be thorough and rigorous. It takes up to nine months to complete the certification requirements in fiction and nonfiction, and twelve months in memoir — and we don’t just hand out certification to anyone who signs up.
We’ve certified more than 260 book coaches — and only 73% of them earned certification the first time they submitted their materials for review. We hold a high standard so that your certification means something.
If you’re the kind of person who loves to learn, who likes a challenge, and who takes pride in doing excellent work, you’ll be right at home in our book coaching community.
The heart of our training is coaching writers
Coaching writers is a different skill than writing itself. That’s why we require our book coach students to coach.
It’s also the reason why you don’t have to have a successful track record as a writer to be a great book coach. This can obviously help, but we have certified coaches who come from a wide variety of backgrounds.
What they share is a love of reading and writing, a desire to teach and inspire, a talent for working with both big ideas and individual lines on the page, curiosity about the creative process, and a knack for encouraging people to get to “the end.”
There are three practicums required to become an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. You will coach three different writers at three key stages in the book development process:
Starting a book from scratch.
Evaluating a complete manuscript (fiction and memoir) or a complete book proposal (nonfiction.)
Preparing the materials and strategy needed to pitch to agents (a critical skill even for self-publishing writers, since it’s all about positioning the book in the marketplace.)
You will find your own practicum writers and invite them into your process — which means you will be doing the fundamental work of running a book coaching business and getting support from our team as you go.
We make sure you are ready to provide editorial feedback, emotional support, and actionable guidance to your writers.
Example lessons include:
Book Coaching Fundamentals
The 7 Core Principles of Giving Editorial Feedback — because what distinguishes a professional from a critique partner is the ability to give effective feedback with evidence and compassion.
6 Ways to Edit More Efficiently — including knowing the Hierarchy of Editorial Concerns and The Big 5 Editorial Skills so you can look for patterns in everything you edit. Pattern recognition is central to editorial efficiency.
The 5 Core Principles of Providing Emotional Support — including helping a writer with doubt and knowing how to hold them accountable to the goals they’ve set for themselves. This kind of support is what differentiates a developmental editor from a book coach.
Editorial Skills
The Blueprint for a Book framework — a process of inquiry for helping a writer get their idea out of their head and onto the page. This 14-step framework can be used at the start of a book project and also to rescue it or revise it.
How to Evaluate a Complete Manuscript (fiction and memoir) — a process for effectively and efficiently reviewing a complete manuscript.
The 8 Elements of a Book Proposal (nonfiction and memoir — a process for helping a writer understand where their book fits in the marketplace and present a business case for their book.
How to Write a Clear and Actionable Editorial Letter — a framework for prioritizing what writers need to focus on first in their revision process.
Marketplace Skills
Navigating the Path to Publishing — the pros and cons of the three main paths to publishing, including discernment around issues of money, creative control, and time.
How to Research Agents and Comp Titles — a method for helping a writer approach the marketplace with confidence to ensure the best chance of success.
How to Develop Pitch Materials and a Pitch Strategy — a deep dive into understanding the fast-changing publishing marketplace.
Entrepreneurial Skills
How to Identify Right-Fit Clients — a process for defining your ideal client and identifying red-flag clients so you filter out the people who aren’t a good fit.
How to Design an Effective Client Intake Process — including defining your ideal client and identifying red flag clients so you filter out the people who aren’t a good fit.
Hosting a Discovery Call — including what to say and do, and what not to say and do as you welcome people into your business
Download a Syllabus
For a more thorough list of the skills and lessons included in Author Acclerator’s Book Coach Certification Program, download the syllabus for the program you are interested in:
Hi I’m Jennie Nash
I’m the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator. We’ve certified more than 260 book coaches, who are working all over the globe to help writers do their best work.
My own book coaching clients have landed top New York agents and six-figure book deals with Big 5 houses such as Penguin, Scribner, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette. They’ve won dozens of national indie book awards, landed on the Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller lists, and become a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick.
I’m also the author of twelve books in three genres, but book coaching is my true love.
Teaching and inspiring writers to raise their voice, do their best work, and make their dreams a reality just lights me up, and now I’m on a mission to set the standard of excellence in this brand-new industry.
I can’t wait to see you in our program.
— Jennie
“Jennie Nash is the superwoman of book coaches. She is bringing dignity and skills to this wild west profession.”
— Jen Louden, bestselling author and book coach
“Jennie Nash is utterly brilliant and scary savvy. Her advice is pure gold! I’ll always be in awe of her – she rocks!”
— Lisa Cron, author of Wired for Story, Story Genius, and Story or Die
Schedule your sales call in the next five days to be eligible for the bonus
Please note that our prices are going up significantly in 2025. December 10, 2024 is the last chance to sign up at the current price.
Please note that our prices are going up significantly in 2025.
If you sign up before December 10th, 2024, you'll get the current price and the clock won’t start ticking on your certification application deadline until January 15th, 2025. That means that you could have several extra months to complete the requirements for certification.
After certifying more than 260 book coaches, we know what you need to succeed
As soon as you enroll, you’ll get access to a Teachable course. You can start working through the lessons at your own pace. Some people with a lot of time, energy, or experience move through the lessons quickly. Others do so in a more measured way.
The course comes with:
A Student Guide with all the key links you’ll need for accessing tools and resources.
More than 100 video lessons (you can choose captions or no captions) and a searchable transcript of each lesson.
A searchable 160-page workbook that aligns with the course lessons and gives you exercise to practice each skill and readings (both required and recommended) to increase your understanding. There are Bonus Lessons offered in the workbook that you can do as you go, or come back to later as needed.
Templates, checklists, cheat sheets, and email swipe copy so you’re never left wondering how to approach a client, what to do with the pages you get from them, or what you will be sending back.
We meet once a month in a live call (which is recorded), where you can ask questions about the lessons you are working on, discuss successes and setbacks, brainstorm how to approach your practicum clients, and meet other book coach students. If you can’t attend live, send your questions in advance and we will answer them either on the call or individually.
You can also connect with other coaches in training on our Mighty Networks platform. It’s like a private Facebook group, but better organized and very supportive and friendly.
Three criteria for certification
In order to be certified, you must:
Complete all the coursework. You can work through the lessons at your own pace.
Complete the three practicums. Each practicum has clear rubrics so you’re never guessing what skills we are evaluating and what materials to turn in.
Submit your work for certification within nine months of your start date (fiction and nonfiction) or twelve months (memoir.)
Our certification team will review your application. One evaluation and one “revise and resubmit” request is included in the cost of the program. If you need additional rounds of evaluation, there is an additional $500 fee.
Join a supportive community of certified coaches
You’ll celebrate and join our community of certified coaches! It’s such an incredibly supportive, engaged, and fun community!
Once you become an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach, you’ll join our Membership Circle, which activates your license to use and teach with our proprietary tools and resources. It’s $15 a month fee for the Tier 1 level, which will unlock new areas of Mighty Networks and new ways to connect with other certified coaches.
You’ll also receive the Business of Book Coaching 90-day Start-Up Kit to help you lay a strong foundation for your business.
Whenever you wish, you can opt into a higher level of support for $50/month). In this higher tier, you receive more accountability and resources, including the Business of Book Coaching 90-day Level-Up Kit. You’ll also be invited to monthly live business sessions with hot seat coaching.
Coaches at either the Tier 1 or Tier 2 level can opt into specialized training courses on topics such as coaching the revision, pricing your book coaching packages, or year-end goal setting (additional fees apply).
We teach you how to find your ideal clients
If you already have connections in writing communities, you’re halfway there!
We’ll teach you how to invite potential clients to come work with you and how to conduct conversations that turn these leads into clients.
Marketing a book coaching business is about building relationships with writers and offering to help them. It doesn’t necessarily involve a big marketing budget or a social media strategy. As you grow, you may get into list-building activities, podcast appearances, and advertising, but at the start, it’s much more basic than that.
People sometimes ask if Author Accelerator will give you clients. The answer is sometimes, but please do not count on this as a way to grow your business. We’re teaching you the skills and confidence to find the clients that are right for you.
We maintain a database of certified coaches, and writers might find you this way*. We also occasionally do promotions with various publishers, podcasts, or other organizations which can bring writers to our coaches, but there are no guarantees.
Think of the writers you might get through Author Accerator as a happy surprise, not the foundation of your business. The clients you find on your own will be the bedrock of your success.
*Note that If you do get a client from us, we ask for a referral fee of 15% for work you do with that client for the first six months.
You can become a book coach even if you’re not a published writer
We have coaches in our community who come from a wide variety of backgrounds. They were lawyers and literary agents, librarians and communications professionals, copywriters and ghostwriters, career counselors and psychologists, journalists and nonprofit directors, architects, and doctors. They’re now betting on themselves instead of a boss.
Of course, we also have quite a few book coaches who are published writers, because it’s a fantastic complement to a writing career. (A not-so-secret result of writers going through our program is that their own writing tends to dramatically improve!)
Your investment in Author Accelerator’s Book Coach Certification Program
$3,600 for fiction or nonfiction (nine-month supported program)
$4,800 for memoir (twelve-month supported program)*
Required reading for each course totals approximately $120 if you buy the books new.
Once you’re certified, the Author Accelerator Certified Coach Membership Circle is $15/month for as long as you wish to use our tools in your book coaching business and for as long as you find the community worthwhile. There is also an option of a $50/month level that offers more support and feedback for coaches who would like more robust business-building support.
*Author Accelerator’s Book Coach Certification Program in Memoir is more expensive and longer because it includes additional training in fiction, nonfiction, and other additional modules. We believe a good memoir coach needs to have all these tools in their toolbelt. You can review the syllabi for all courses using the buttons below.
Sign up for a discovery call in the next five days and we’ll send you our How to Make Your First $10,000 as a Book Coach quickstart guide
This guide gives you a powerful way to jumpstart your training as a book coach. You’ll design the packages, establish the pricing, and make a marketing plan to lead to your first $10,000.
Do you want to skip the call and sign up for Author Accelerator’s Book Coach certification course right now?
Choose the Book Coach Certification Program in fiction, nonfiction (nine months), or memoir (twelve months). You’ll receive the bonus if you sign up within the next five days.
Course Terms of Use: Please read before you sign up for Author Accelerator’s Book Coach Certification Program. You will be required to accept these terms upon payment. Click HERE to read now.
Please note that our prices are going up significantly in 2025. December 10, 2024 is the last chance to sign up at the current price.
Please note that our prices are going up significantly in 2025.
If you sign up before December 10th, 2024, you'll get the current price and the clock won’t start ticking on your certification application deadline until January 15th, 2025. That means that you could have several extra months to complete the requirements for certification.
Rave Reviews For Author Accelerator’s Book Coach Certification Program
FAQs
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An editor typically works with a writer when a manuscript is finished. They take those finished pages and work to make them better. Writers usually love to be edited because there is such great relief in finally having somebody pay close attention to their words and ideas. I was fortunate enough to have six books traditionally published (three memoirs and three novels), and I adored the editing process; it felt like the process through which my books finally became what they were meant to be. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, but my editor could. It was an enormous relief to have someone else in it with me, who cared as much as I did about the work.
A book coach is paying that kind of attention to the writing and to the writer—to their hopes and dreams, their doubts and fears—and we are doing so throughout the entire creative process rather than at one point near the end. It’s enormously powerful.
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Most freelance editors are not thinking strategically about their work. They have woven fundamental mistakes into their business (such as serving anyone who knocks on their door and underpricing their services because of unexamined industry practices.) Our program can help you level up your business so that it's more profitable, more efficient, and more enjoyable.
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I have taught the art and business of being a book a coach to people with all those credentials and they all found it valuable.
That's because our program is teaching the art of how to be a book coach, which includes skills related to how to be more editorially efficient, how to attract and manage ideal clients, how to consider the packages and services that will be the most helpful to your clients, how to set boundaries with the work you provide (in other words, how not to overdeliver!), how to protect your emotions, how to understand the marketplace, and much more.
Many people with experience in academic settings and/or traditional publishing have told us that they never learned many of these lessons. Without this knowledge, their businesses felt chaotic. With it, they were able to build a sustainable book coaching business.
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No, we do not guarantee certification. We only certify students who meet the qualifications for certification, which includes doing the required work, doing it according to our standards, and doing it in the allotted period of time.
We offer resources and support to help you plan your coursework and complete the portfolio necessary for certification.
Everyone who completes our training will gain valuable skills in how to work with writers at three critical stages of the book development process and how to think strategically about your book coaching business.
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No. We teach you how to do it and support you while you do it, but finding writers who are a good fit for this work is your responsibility. It's a core part of the training.
If you are already connected to communities of writers, you will probably have no trouble finding people who want high-level feedback free of charge!
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Your success depends entirely on your own actions. We cannot guarantee that you make a certain amount of money or achieve a certain level of success.
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The 9-month fully supported courses in fiction and nonfiction are $3,600 each.
The 12-month fully supported course in memoir is $4,800.
Please note that our prices are going up significantly in 2025. December 10, 2024 is the last chance to sign up at the current price.
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You can read about our refund policy in our course Terms of Use.
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You can read about our application process in our course Terms of Use.
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This is an important question and hard to answer, as neurodivergence means something different to each person and impacts each person's learning experience in different ways.
The training includes approximately 80 to 100 video lessons that range from 5 minutes to an hour. Most videos are in the 15- to 30-minute range.
In terms of accessibility, we offer the choice of captions or no captions on all our course videos, as well as a transcript for every lesson, so you can select which format works best for your learning style.
There is also a workbook that is more than 150 pages. Each video lesson is matched with an entry in the workbook that gives action steps, examples, and additional resources.
You can go through all the lessons in the course at one time and then go back and complete the practicums, or you can complete the lessons related to each practicum and do each practicum in order -- whichever you prefer.
We have certified people who identify as neurodivergent and many of them find book coaching to be ideally suited to their work needs since they can choose when, where, and how they work.
That being said, we don't guarantee that everyone who enters our program will be certified and we don't guarantee any particular level of success in starting a business. Each book coach is responsible for their own success.
If you still have questions, I suggest you look at the FAQ videos just below this set of FAQs. Those videos include a virtual tour of our learning spaces so you can check that out.
You can also reach out to us at contact@authoraccelerator.com and we'll try to help you decide if our program is a good fit for you.
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We offer fellowships for students poised to make an impact on marginalized writers. In 2024, we had three fellows. We usually announce details in November.
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Sure! Reach out to us at contact@authoraccelerator.com
VIDEO FAQs
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Great! You can watch a series of videos HERE.