If You’re Beta Reading, You Could Also Be Book Coaching

Last week, Author Accelerator's CEO Jennie Nash and I did a webinar about the difference between beta reading and book coaching. While book coaches and beta readers help authors succeed at two different points in the creative process, an organized and passionate beta reader could also become a successful book coach. Jennie is hosting a free Business of Book Coaching Summit, and she's here to tell you more about it.

“The Spun Yarn has brought a systematic, strategic approach to beta reading, which offers writers much-needed support at a critical part in the development of a book. It’s part of a new era in the world of publishing, where smart writers put together a team of people to help them write the best books they can. In a very crowded marketplace, it takes this kind of intention to break through with agents, editors, and readers. For the same reasons, many writers are also turning to book coaches to help them structure, finish, and revise their books and then navigate the path to publishing.

A beta reader brings a critical perspective to the author once a draft is complete. A book coach serves as an editorial guide and a project manager while the author is getting that draft in shape. Coaches often work with writers for long periods of time – 6 months, 9 months, a year, and even longer – and this intense 1:1 relationship is part of the deep satisfaction of the work. Coaches are intimately involved in the writer’s process while they are bringing their dream to life. (To learn more about the difference between beta reading and book coaching, listen to this webinar I did with The Spun Yarn’s Sarah Beaudette.)

If you’re drawn to beta reading, you might consider adding book coaching to your income stream as well. It will allow you to spend even more time enveloped in the world of books and writing. It’s work you can do from home, ramping up or down depending on how much time you have to devote to it and how much money you wish to make. There are five key skills you need to be an effective coach, and odds are very good that you already have some of them. If there are some you don’t, they can be taught. That’s exactly what we are doing in Author Accelerator’s Book Coach Training and Certification program. The skills are as follows:

1. Mechanical editing skills. An effective book coach understands the basic mechanics of good writing. We can identify errors such as head hopping, info dumping, and point-of- view violations, and we can explain to writers why these errors weaken the work and how they can be fixed. This teaching aspect of book coaching runs throughout each of the 5 key skills, which brings up an important point: You don’t have to be a published author to be a good book coach. Writing well is a different skill than teaching or coaching, and you can learn to be an effective book coach regardless of your record of success as a writer.

2. Narrative design. While paying attention to the details of mechanical editing, an effective book coach also has an eye on the big-picture elements of a book. We talk to our writers about the point they are trying to make, the message they hope to convey, and the impact they want to have on their ideal reader, no matter whether that impact is to entertain or to educate, or something in between. We look at the structure and shape of a story or argument, paying attention to plot holes, logical problems, and the way the work moves and flows. We look for a strong resolution and emotional payoff, since that is usually what the reader is coming for.

3. Marketplace awareness. I coach my coaches never to guarantee their writers any sort of success in the marketplace, because it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the publishing arena. Instead, a good coach will help their writers understand the way books are bought and sold, research the competition, and help determine the best publishing path for their book.

4. Project management. A book coach helps their writers complete a complex intellectual undertaking. It’s a big project, where goals need to be set and deadlines need to be met, but a coach also helps writers through the emotional aspect of producing a book. We understand the creative process, and the way doubts can plague writers, and we are there as a cheerleader and a support when the going gets tough.

5. Compassion. In my 10 years working as a book coach, I have been continually amazed at how many writers have suffered some sort of hurt around their creative work. Someone told them they had nothing to say or that they couldn’t write or that they were wasting their time. I am a tough critic to be sure, but I always give my advice with compassion for how hard it is to be a writer, and I insist that the coaches I train do this as well.

Does book coaching sound like the kind of work you might enjoy? If you would like to learn more about what book coaching is all about, please join me on January 20, for a week of free online programming at Author Accelerator’s Business of Book Coaching Summit. I have 15 experts talking about mindset, money, marketing, and business strategy for book coaches. If you feel called to this work, our Book Coach Training and Certification program and Business of Book Coaching master class are available, as is a special Business Mastermind, starting in March 2020, in which I will be working directly with a small number of coaches. Start with the Summit – it’s going to be great!”

Jennie Nash

Jennie Nash is the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, a company on a mission to help writers write books worth reading by training book coaches to guide them through the creative process. Learn more about being coached or becoming a coach at www.authoraccelerator.com – and be sure to join the free online Business of Book Coaching Summit

Announcing the 2018 Spun Yarn Readers' Choice Award Winner!

We can hardly believe that we've curated more than 60 manuscript reports here at The Spun Yarn! To celebrate, we'd like to award a standout manuscript with the first annual Spun Yarn Readers' Choice Award.

If you're familiar with what we do here at The Spun Yarn, you may know that each manuscript receives eight qualitative scores as part of our comprehensive report. While these scores are certainly subjective, some titles stand out for their nearly perfect ratings and rave reviews from our tough-grading but fair minded readers.

We'd like to announce that Rachel Burge has been awarded the 2018 Spun Yarn Readers' Choice Award for her spooky YA debut The Twisted Tree!

Rachel came to The Spun Yarn when her manuscript was in good shape but not quite ready for publication. Of her experience with The Spun Yarn, Rachel says "I approached The Spun Yarn for feedback on my novel at a point where I was happy with the story, but felt it needed help to shine. The [Spun Yarn Manuscript report] greatly exceeded my expectations. Professionally put together with helpful charts and diagrams, it allowed me to see where the weak areas were in the manuscript at a glance. Having feedback from three different readers at key stages of the book gave me the confidence to make informed decisions about the plot. When two out of the three beta readers said a scene wasn’t working, I removed it from the story, and it greatly improved the book. I have no doubt that feedback from The Spun Yarn helped me to secure an agent and go on to get a publishing deal."

After her manuscript report, another round of editing and the arduous process of querying agents, Rachel secured representation with Skylark Literary Agency, who sold The Twisted Tree to U.K. publisher Hot Key Books. The Twisted Tree comes out in January of 2019, but it's up for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk right now! Congratulations Rachel, we can’t wait to buy and reread The Twisted Tree!

About The Twisted Tree:

Martha can tell things about a person just by touching their clothes, as if their emotions and memories have been absorbed into the material. It started the day she fell from the tree at her grandma's cabin and became blind in one eye.

Determined to understand her strange ability, Martha sets off to visit her grandmother, Mormor - only to discover Mormor is dead, a peculiar boy is in her cabin and a terrifying creature is on the loose.

Then the spinning wheel starts creaking, books move around and terror creeps in . . .

Set in the remote snows of contemporary Norway, The Twisted Tree is a ghost story that twists and turns - and never takes you quite where you'd expect.

Part ghost story, part Nordic thriller - this is a twisty, tense and spooky YA debut, perfect for fans of Coraline and Michelle Paver's Dark Matter.

Find Rachel on her website or on twitter, and watch for updates about The Twisted Tree!

To see how a Spun Yarn manuscript report compares to other manuscript critique services and to take advantage of our 20% Fall Forward discount, check us out at https://thespunyarn.com.

Rachel Burge, author of The Twisted Tree

Books We Love: Keeping You a Secret

In this post, we continue our series of personal essays about books with LGBTQ+ themes and/or characters that change readers' lives. Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters helped author Tiffany Clampet deal with the hatred she encountered when she decided to come out, and has likely helped thousands of other readers as well.

About our guest author: Tiffany Clampet is a writer, dreamer, lesbian, mom, activist, and so much more. She currently resides in New Mexico but was born in Louisiana. She works as a VeterinaryTechnician while she continues on her journey of breaking into the writing world.  

Coming out. Some fling the door open at a young age, while others take a bit longer. We all go at our own pace, and my pace happened to mean not coming out until I was 29. 

I had always identified as bisexual but as I started to dig deeply, I found that in fact I was a lesbian. I began to seek out books that would inspire me, that would tell me I wasn't alone. Keeping You A Secretby Julie Anne Peters was the book that helped me most. 

17-year-old Holland is smart, popular, and ambitious, with a loving family and adoring boyfriend. Everything is perfect until a transfer student named Cece comes into Holland’s life and her feelings for this new girl confuses everything. Holland finds herself in a new crowd while most of her friends turn their backs, abusing her with homophobic slurs and vandalizing Cece's locker and car. 

Peters paints so beautifully what can happen when you finally become yourself. As someone from a deep southern family with different views of sexuality, gender, and race, coming out is intimidating. I knew I had to be prepared for what might happen when I finally said the words “I am gay.”

Most of my family took it well. Some didn’t. Some told me I was an abomination bound for hell. Once I became engaged, it became much worse. Some people didn’t respond when I shared the news, others told me they wouldn't attend.

All of these experiences reminded me of Keeping You a Secret. The book stayed with me over the years. It kept coming back and inspired me to become more vocal about my community. For decades, the LGBTQ community was hidden, whispered about only in the shadowy recesses of society. Like many things people have grown to fear, myths and misconceptions abounds. My goal is to show that just because I love someone who happens to have the same genitalia, I’m not less than human. 

Keeping You a Secretalso reminded me that sometimes you have to do just that: keep a secret. Even in 2018, at times you decide to keep your love hushed. Not because you are ashamed, but for your own safety, even from those closest to you. Some people will forever refer to their partner as their "friend,” refusing to hold hands or show any public sign of love. This is their choice. There’s no specific way to be the right kind of gay. Of course, there are also those who are disowned, and those who are supported by people they never would have expected to stand by them.

Keeping You a Secret really prepared me for the reactions I might face when I came out. It inspired me to be me, whether that meant loud and radical or quiet and proud. 

When you step out of that closet, let that liberating moment take hold. Use it as your shield as you take on the world.