What Most Book Coaches Get Wrong

There are a lot of book coaches out there — and a lot of ghostwriters, freelance editors, and collaborators like me and my team. 

(For what it’s worth: I collaborate, ghostwrite, edit, and occasionally coach but prefer the term collaborator because it’s flexible and all-encompassing.)

The biggest difference between my team and every other book coach in the world is how we select clients.

Most people who help authors with their books aren’t all that choosy about who they work with. 

Outside of some basic parameters (like what kind of book you’re working on), if your idea interests them and you’re not a total asshole — they’ll work with you.

I used to do this and in a lot of ways, it’s great. 

But where it tends to fail authors is in the end result.

Most book coaches, freelance editors and ghostwriters, et al, are focused on creating the best manuscript or the best proposal.

Most aren’t thinking ahead — of how successful that book will eventually be. 

With literary agents, publishers, readers. 

I learned this the hard way in my own business. I would focus on creating a great manuscript or proposal and achieve that goal. But I would fail to achieve my authors’ goals because their dream result wasn’t possible from the beginning. 

And then authors would be — rightfully — pretty pissed at me. 

That’s a big reason why I limit my work on proposals and manuscripts to people that I know have a good chance of landing a six-figure book deal — i.e., who I know I can help. 

That’s also a huge factor to why my team and I are so successful. For authors who finish their proposals with us, over 80% land a traditional book deal with the Big 5 publishers.

We keep the end in mind, and are choosy about who we work with — which makes us different from our competitors.