Free tool: How long would your book take, how big is it, and should you hire a ghostwriter or write it yourself? The Book Planner answers all three.
If you have the story but not the time or the desire to write it, you want a ghostwriter, and current pricing is on the ghostwriting page. When you want to write the book yourself and have the drive to finish it, what you need is someone who has done this enough times to keep you from making the mistakes that kill manuscripts. (See the Book Planner’s five questions)
That’s what book coaching is. I’ve published 113+ books, ghostwritten 54+ projects, and coached writers from first-time novelists to Fortune 50 executives. You can find current book coaching pricing on the book coaching page. Sessions happen over Zoom, and every session is recorded so you can go back and review what we covered.
I love coaching writers who want to do the work themselves. A book you wrote with your own hands teaches you things a ghostwritten one can’t, and someone with that drive shouldn’t hand it off because nobody showed them where the traps are.
What is book coaching?
From the podcast
Matt Biggar coaches online business owners and describes what he’s working with, on Leaders and Their Stories:
Most of the people that I support have more chaos in their life. There’s just a lot going on. It can be very challenging to figure out what’s worth doubling down on.Book coaching does the same triage on a manuscript. The hard part is rarely the writing, it’s deciding what deserves the year.
Book coaching isn’t ghostwriting. I don’t write your book for you. You write it. I make sure what you write works.
Book coaching isn’t editing. An editor works on a finished manuscript. I work with you while you’re writing it. That means problems get caught before they become structural issues that require tearing the book apart in revision.
Coaching with me means hearing specifics. I’ll tell you that your second chapter has a pacing problem, that your protagonist’s motivation is unclear, and that the scene you love most is the one slowing your story down. Then I’ll show you how to fix it. If you’re after cheerleading or a pep talk about believing in yourself, you’ll want somebody else.
What coaching does is give you a professional collaborator who has written and published enough books to see problems you can’t see because you’re too close to the work.
I know what readers expect from different genres. I know what editors and publishers look for. I know where first-time authors consistently struggle and what to do about it.
How do book coaching sessions work?
Every coaching engagement starts with a consultation where I learn what you’re trying to accomplish. Some clients come in with a completed draft that needs structural help. Some come in with an idea and no idea how to start. Some come in thinking they want to write one book and leave writing a completely different one.
A CIO who spent his career at PepsiCo, Tropicana, and Dr Pepper Snapple Group hired me to help him write a business book about his tech career.
We did Zoom after Zoom, and I recorded every detail. Then during one session he told me a story about a near-death experience as a child, falling through ice on a New Jersey lake. I told him that was the book.
He skipped the tech career retrospective, finished the memoir, submitted it to a nonfiction editor, and posted publicly telling people to hire me. That’s what coaching does. It finds the real book hiding inside the book you think you want to write. There’s more in my interview with book coach Mary Wong.
Once we establish direction, sessions focus on whatever the manuscript needs at that stage.
Early sessions tend to cover structure, audience, and overall vision. Middle sessions dig into chapter-level craft: pacing, dialogue, character development, point of view consistency, scene construction. Later sessions focus on revision, tightening, and getting the manuscript ready for publication or submission.
Coaching sessions follow what the manuscript needs at each stage, from first consultation to final revision.
You buy coaching hours in blocks, with no massive upfront commitment. If three sessions solve your problem, you’re done. If you need thirty sessions to get through a novel, we work through it at whatever pace fits your life. See how this worked in practice: an executive coach’s manuscript.
I have no patience for coaching programs that march every writer through the same fixed curriculum whether the book needs it or not. A memoir with a structure problem in chapter two gets nothing out of a week on dialogue.
Who Book Coaching Is For
My coaching clients fall into two categories.
The first is fiction writers who want to write their own novels but need professional guidance on craft.
I coached a first-time science fiction author from raw concept through world-building, character development, and plot refinement to a completed novel. That writer came in with an idea and no structure. We built the structure together, and they wrote the book.
The second is professionals and entrepreneurs who want to write their own nonfiction but need help turning expertise into a narrative that readers will finish. Executive coach Dan McClintock came to me with deep knowledge and no roadmap for turning it into a book. We worked through the coaching process and built that roadmap together, giving him a clear path from idea to manuscript.
In both cases, the writer does the writing. I provide the structure, the feedback, and the course corrections that keep the project moving toward a finished book instead of an abandoned file on a hard drive.
That abandoned file is what I hate most in this business. Someone spends a year on half a manuscript, hits a problem a professional could spot in an afternoon, and quits convinced they can’t write.
Harper Lee nearly became one of those writers. In the winter of 1958 she was deep into revisions on the novel that became To Kill a Mockingbird, and she’d had enough. According to Newsweek, Lee threw the manuscript out the window of her New York apartment and called her editor at J.B. Lippincott, Tay Hohoff. Hohoff persuaded her to go outside and gather up the pages.
Lee went back to work. With Hohoff guiding her, she rewrote the book over about two and a half years and retold the story through a child’s eyes. Lippincott published it on July 11, 1960, and it won the Pulitzer Prize.
Lee had the talent all along. She needed somebody who’d seen books survive worse to tell her to go pick up the pages, and I’d bet most of the abandoned manuscripts out there never got that call.
What You Learn That Lasts Beyond One Book
The difference between coaching and ghostwriting is that coaching makes you better at writing. When I coach a fiction writer through point of view problems, they learn to spot and fix those problems in every future project. When I help a nonfiction writer structure their expertise into chapters that build on each other, they understand information architecture for every book they write afterward.
The skills transfer. I teach story arcs, character development, descriptive imagery, pacing, dialogue, and the structural decisions that separate manuscripts that work from manuscripts that don’t. Every session is a working session. We’re not discussing writing theory. We’re looking at your actual pages and making them better while you learn why the changes work.
Do you need book coaching or ghostwriting?
The line between coaching and ghostwriting doesn’t have to be rigid.
If you want to write your own book and you have the time and motivation to do the work, coaching is the right choice. You get professional guidance at $250 an hour, you develop real writing skills, and the finished book is yours in every sense.
If you don’t have the time, if writing isn’t something you want to learn, or if you need a book produced on a professional timeline, ghostwriting is the right choice. My rate is on my ghostwriting services page, and the book is written to your vision with your voice.
Some projects use both. I’ve coached clients through sections they wanted to write themselves and ghostwritten sections that needed a different level of craft or speed. The line between coaching and ghostwriting doesn’t have to be rigid. What matters is that the finished book works.
| Question | Book coaching | Ghostwriting |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes the book? | You do; I make sure what you write works. | I do, to your vision and in your voice. |
| Who is it for? | Writers with the time and motivation to do the work. | People without the time or desire to learn writing. |
| What do you get? | Writing skills that transfer to every future book. | A book produced on a professional timeline. |
| Whose book is it? | Yours in every sense, down to every sentence. | Yours, written to your vision with your voice. |
| How do you pay? | Hours bought in blocks, no massive upfront commitment. | Rate listed on the ghostwriting services page. |
| Can they combine? | Yes, coach the sections you want to write. | Yes, ghostwrite sections that need more craft or speed. |
If you’re ready to start, schedule a free consultation and we’ll figure out which approach fits your project. You can also explore my case studies to see the range of projects I’ve worked on across both coaching and ghostwriting. This is what my book coaching handles for you. For fiction writers looking to develop craft skills independently, my writing courses cover every major aspect of fiction writing with AI-assisted techniques.
My take
Anyone with the drive to write the book themselves should take coaching. You keep every sentence, and you learn how a book gets built, so the second one comes easier. Pick ghostwriting if you don’t have the time or don’t care to learn the craft. Some projects mix the two, and that’s fine. Ask yourself whether you want the skill or the finished book, and pay for that one.
If you’ve got the drive to write it yourself, don’t let anyone talk you into handing it off. A coached book is yours down to every sentence, and the next one comes easier because you learned how the first one was built.
Book Coaching FAQ
- Harper Lee, Wikipedia
- Harper Lee, The Pulitzer Prizes
- Harper Lee, Encyclopedia of Alabama
