Book Coaching: What It Is and How It Works

I’ve published 113+ books under my own name. I write fiction, nonfiction, and memoir. I’ve built a library of 45 writing handbooks covering everything from character development to dialogue to world building to pacing. When I coach a writer, I’m drawing on decades of doing the thing they’re trying to learn. I enjoy coaching for a reason ghostwriting can’t give me: every sentence stays the writer’s, and they leave able to do it again without me.

Book coaching isn’t editing. An editor works on a finished manuscript.

A coach works with you while you’re writing it. The difference matters because the problems that kill most books happen long before the manuscript is finished. They happen in the planning, the structure, the early chapters where the foundation gets laid wrong and everything built on top of it wobbles. A coach catches those problems while they can still be fixed without tearing the book apart.

What Happens in a Book Coaching Session?

You bring the problem you’re stuck on, whether structure, voice or a sagging middle, and we work through it on your actual pages. I won’t hand you a worksheet or a generic lecture on story structure while your real chapters sit untouched.

Every writer is different. Every book is different. Coaching sessions do whatever the client needs them to do. For more, see book coaching.

Some clients show up with a complete draft that’s not working and they can’t figure out why. We read through it together and I identify the structural problems, the pacing issues, the places where the narrative loses momentum.

Then we build a revision plan that fixes the foundation instead of just patching surface problems. For more, see Why Cursing at ChatGPT Actually Works.

Plenty of clients show up with an idea and nothing else.

We spend the first sessions figuring out what the book is. Who’s it for. What’s the core message or story. What structure will serve it best. By the time we finish those conversations, the client has a roadmap they can follow instead of staring at a blank page wondering where to start.

Others are mid-draft and stuck. They wrote strong opening chapters and now the middle is collapsing. We diagnose why the momentum stalled and figure out how to get it moving again. Usually the problem is structural, something that went wrong earlier that didn’t become visible until the book hit the midpoint.

Craft instruction is what some clients need. Their ideas are strong but their prose isn’t there yet. We work on sentence-level skills, dialogue, scene construction, point of view, whatever the weakness is. I assign targeted work between sessions and we review it together.

For some clients, accountability matters more than instruction. They know how to write. They have the skills. They can’t make themselves sit down and do it consistently. Regular coaching sessions with deadlines and assignments create the external structure that keeps the project moving.

Then there are clients who need help with publishing decisions.

One of my coaching clients writes his own book, and he doesn’t use ChatGPT. I talk with him about how stories work and how dialogue works, and then I go through his content with him. He’s the writer in this case, and I’m helping him through it. We’re going to go through chapter one till we want to throw up, get it right, and then move forward.

Traditional versus self-publishing, how to find an agent, how to evaluate a publishing contract, how Amazon’s platform works, how to think about marketing before the book exists. I’ve been through every version of this process across 113+ books and can explain the territory without the agenda that agents and publishers bring to those conversations. I have no stake in whichever path you pick, so I’ll tell you when a deal looks worse than doing it yourself.

Most coaching engagements involve some combination of all of this. The mix shifts as the project progresses.

Who Is Book Coaching For?

Writers who want to write the book themselves but need structure, accountability and an experienced eye on the pages. If you’d privately prefer someone else did the writing, say so on the first call, because coaching somebody through a book they don’t want to write wastes their money and my time.

From the podcast

Doris Walsh coaches high achievers and finds the same gap before any plan can be made, on Leaders and Their Stories: People haven’t taken a time out to really go inside themselves and figure out what it’s that they want. Not what their boss says they want, not what their wife or husband says they want. A book written to satisfy someone else’s expectation reads exactly like one, so the first coaching question is whose book this is.

Book coaching works for writers who want to write their own book but need expert guidance to do it well. That covers many people.

First-time authors who have never written a book and don’t know where to begin. The gap between wanting to write a book and knowing how to execute one is enormous. Coaching bridges that gap with structured guidance tailored to the specific project instead of generic advice from writing books that may or may not apply.

Experienced writers who are stuck on one project. Sometimes a book resists you. The structure won’t come together, the voice isn’t right, the middle sags no matter what you try. An outside perspective from someone who has solved these problems across dozens of books can break the logjam in a single session.

Professionals writing their first book to establish authority in their field. These clients have deep expertise but no experience translating expertise into book form. Coaching helps them understand how a book works differently from an article, a presentation, or a blog post, and how to structure their knowledge for a reader who’s encountering it for the first time.

Fiction writers developing craft. Character, dialogue, pacing, point of view, world building, plot structure, all of these are learnable skills. Coaching provides personalized instruction focused on the specific areas where each writer needs development instead of the one-size-fits-all approach of writing classes.

Writers who tried and stopped. Abandoned manuscripts are common. Most of the time the writer stopped because they hit a problem they couldn’t solve alone.

Coaching can diagnose what went wrong and determine whether the project is worth reviving and how to approach it differently. A manuscript abandoned over one structural problem the writer took as proof they couldn’t write.

Harper Lee is the famous case. Her early draft went to Tay Hohoff, an editor at J.B. Lippincott, who saw promise in it and thought it needed work. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, Lee spent about two and a half years revising after Hohoff suggested telling the story through Scout as a child. HarperCollins says Hohoff had her try drafts in both first person and third person.

In the winter of 1958, frustrated with the book, Lee threw the pages out the window of her New York apartment into the snow.

Then she called Hohoff, who sent her outside to pick them up. Lippincott published To Kill a Mockingbird on July 11, 1960. It stayed on the bestseller list for 88 weeks and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961.

I think about that phone call whenever a writer tells me a manuscript is dead. Lee had someone who believed in the book and sent her back outside for it, and I’d love to know how many good books ended up in the trash because nobody made that call.

How Does Book Coaching Differ From Ghostwriting?

In ghostwriting, I write the book. The client provides expertise, stories, and ideas through interviews. I build the structure, write the manuscript, and deliver a finished book in the client’s voice. The client’s time commitment is primarily in the interview and review phases.

In coaching, the client writes the book. I provide guidance, feedback, instruction, and accountability. The client’s time commitment is much larger because they’re doing the writing. The tradeoff is that the client develops their own skills, produces work in their own voice without translation, and gains capabilities they can apply to future projects. If what you mostly want is your name on a finished book, I’ll steer you toward ghostwriting, because coaching only pays off for people who want to get better at writing.

Neither approach is better than the other. They serve different needs. Some people want a finished book with minimal time investment. Ghostwriting serves them. Some people want to write the book themselves and become better writers in the process. Coaching serves them. Some people start with coaching and realize they’d rather have the book ghostwritten. Some start with ghostwriting and decide they want to write the next one themselves with coaching support. Both paths lead to a published book.

What should you expect from book coaching?

Coaching engagements range from a single session to over a hundred hours depending on the project and the client’s needs. Some writers need one conversation to get unstuck. Some need sustained support across an entire manuscript from concept to completion.

Sessions are scheduled based on the client’s pace and availability. There’s no fixed program or predetermined number of sessions. We work together as long as the work requires it and stop when the client has what they need.

Between sessions, the client writes. Coaching only works if the client is doing the work between meetings, and I’ll say so when the pages stop coming, because paying me to talk about a book you aren’t writing wastes your money. My book coaching exists for exactly this. I provide direction, assignments, and feedback. The client provides the effort, the voice, and the commitment to finish.

I measure every coaching engagement by one result, a finished manuscript in your own voice that you’re proud of and that’s ready for whatever publishing path you choose. A coach who keeps you comfortable and busy for a year without getting you there has failed you. If you have a book you want to write and need expert guidance to make it happen, start with a conversation. You can also explore the AI-Enhanced Writer’s Library for self-directed craft development between sessions.

Book Coaching FAQ