Working with Writing Coach to Write Your Book

Just waiting for some people to show up. Oh, we got a few people popping in now. Hello. Yes, I'm filling in again for Julie, sadly. I know you all wanted to come and see Julie, but she's still, still taking a break. But anyway, we got some fun things to talk about today. Hey, Angela. Hey, Efren. How you doing? We'll keep waiting for a few more people. Today I'm going to talk about my favorite things, which is book coaching, writing, writing coaching. So should be a lot of fun. I'm sure my passion will come through the screen, so. Oh, hey, Bonnie, got a few more people trickling in, so wait a few minutes. Again, as I was saying before filling in again this, this month for Julie on the Book Launchers Live, today, we are going to talk about working with a writing coach. There's a lot of, I guess, questions about, you know, what, what does a writing coach do? How does it help? Do I need one? Not necessarily. Everyone does need one, but you'll figure out pretty quickly if you're someone who could, could benefit from that. I'm going to go ahead and jump in and then we, you know, if at the end we'll have some questions, obviously, you know, as we always do, you know, we're going to give away some prizes. You know, we got the mugs, we have, you know, books. We have Julie's book, We have journals, you know, Julie's book. What is it? Self publishing and succeed. So anyway, we're going to walk through this idea of what is a writing coach. Could it help you? What are some, maybe some tips to get the most out of working with a writing coach? We'll go through some of that and then we'll give away some fun stuff. So let's go ahead and get on with it, shall we? I think the first place to start is to mention that we are, I think, because it's hard to tell when you're in it. But I think we're in the golden age of the. The writing coach or the book coach. And there are a couple of different reasons for that. In the past, writing coaches, people ask, are they editors? They're kind of editors. In the past, they were editors. In traditional publishing, the editor would handle a lot of things that a writing coach does now, which really involves sort of nurturing the writer, nurturing the idea for the book. But, you know, with the changing traditional publishing landscape, editors really don't have a lot of time to do that anymore. They don't have the money to do that anymore, to spend the time on that, we also concurrently, that had the rise of the self publishing industry, where, you know, you're in charge of every facet of your author career, and that includes, you know, leveling up on your craft. And a lot of folks have found that they benefit greatly from working with a writing coach or a book coach. You'll hear those terms, they're kind of interchangeable. Writing coach, book coach, story coach. But really what they're, you know, like I said, the publishers, they don't really have time. Self publishing, you get to build those resources yourself. And so we've started to see more and more writing coaches, book coaches out there. Typically there's someone like me who has experience as a writer, but also has some abilities to instruct people, to bring people along. So anyway, yeah, a lot of people are seeking out writing coaches to kind of help them navigate the writing of the book and even sometimes parts later in the process of the publishing process. Just kind of depends on what the skill set is. So anyway, when you're working with a book launcher's writing coach, you're basically going to. The writing coach for Book Launchers has two main tasks. One is to help you develop your manuscript, and that's another term you might have heard like a developmental editor. Sometimes traditionally those would come in after the fact. A lot of times they were with fiction, but also with nonfiction. I have a draft, somebody's going to come in and help me develop it. As we've seen writing coaches like the rise of the writing coach, development has kind of started at the beginning of the process, and that's something we greatly believe in. At Book launchers is let's do the development early on. Let's, you know, I'll get into more about what development is, but, you know, what is the book about? Who's it for? Nailing those kind of things. So, you know, the writing coach has two tasks really at book launchers, which is to help you develop your manuscript and then to help you complete a working, you know, first draft, which is not the only draft, but it's the, you know, a good working, solid draft of your manuscript. That's, that's our primary job. At Book Launchers, the writing coaches also, though, they, we have some other jobs and we help you with things like, you know, dealing with creative challenges or time management is a thing. You know, most of our clients and authors and most people in general just, you know, they don't make their living from writing. They're doing other things. If you work with book Launchers, you're using the book to maybe promote your business or to position yourself as a thought leader. So you got other things going on. Plus, people have, you know, kids, families, things like that, and life gets in the way. So a lot of what we do is helping people deal with time management, coming up with a writing plan, and then another part of it is just the emotional challenges. A writing coach will help you deal with the imposter syndrome. That little voice in your head that says, who do you think you are to write this book? Or the little procrastination voice? Deal with those sorts of things. Some of it's very tangible and practical, and some of it's. In some ways, I'm kind of a therapist. I kind of have to figure out what buttons I can push to get people to do the things that they want to do. But sometimes we're just our own worst enemies, and we get in our way. So writing coach can help with that as well. And the best piece of advice I have for anybody who's working with a writing coach involves having an open mind. Just if you really want to get the most out of that relationship, just listen to what they say. I'm gonna turn my notes here, but be receptive to their advice. Do your best to put it into practice. You don't hire a plumber and then tell the plumber how to do their job. You basically just tell them what you want the end result to be, and then the plumber gets you to that end result. Riding coach. Kind of the same way. Maybe not as skilled as a plumber, but same sort of thing. It's like, you know, try the suggestions that a writing coach has first. If you try something that your writing coach suggests and it doesn't work for you, that's great. Tell them you can rule that out. You know, writing coaches know that there's no one way to write a book, and that's really good news. I have a quote that I always. When I start working with somebody, every book's different. And I always say, the quote is, I don't know where we're going, but I know how to get there. And that's a quote from an old. From a hunting guide from several years ago. But it's really true. When I read it, I was like, that's so perfect. Because how you get to where you're getting, there's a million different ways, which, like I said, is really good news for you as a writer and as a writing coach, because we can come up with different ways to get you there. There are, however, a Few necessary steps that you do have to do. If you skip these, it's going to be a miserable process. You may not finish your book, or if you finish your book, you may not be able to market your book very well because of some mistakes you made early on. Again, this is the development process. And at Book Launchers, again, this is kind of where everything starts, both the book itself and the marketing. And this is what we call again, the development of your. Of your manuscript. Just kind of take a look here. I mean, if you go through these steps, one thing you're going to do is going to make the writing less frustrating, might even make it enjoyable. But again, it's also going to help you figure out when you get to marketing book, who you're talking to, how to find those people. So the first step you and your writing coach going to work on is sort of identifying who your audience is. And I always like to couch that in terms of, like, who's your model reader? I think it helps to think about one person versus a group of people. And a lot of people, you know, like, what's the model reader? Who. What's my ideal reader? You know, it's. It's exactly who should read your book. You got to define those terms. But once you have a clear picture of who that model reader is, it's easier to write a book that speaks directly to them. And your writing coach will sort of help you identify who is your model reader. And of course, you know, your audience is made up of a bunch of your model readers readers, which is why once you nail who you're writing for and speaking to makes it easier to market. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. Say you're, you're writing a book, and it's tar. It's, you know, it's a nonfiction book, and it's, it's a business book. It's targeted at helping women in the workforce who are getting sort of their, their initial experience with, with the challenges of management of leading teams of leading people. So a poor example in this case might be a working woman age 25 to 50. Now, why is that a bad example of who your model reader is? Well, it's too vague. It's too broad. So a writing coach might work with you to sort of narrow that a little bit, you know, so your model reader is a woman entering an executive management position for the first time. So we're getting a little closer. You know, we're not talking to somebody who's been in management for a Long time. We're less concerned about demographics in terms of age, more about psychographics. What's going through your model reader's mind as they're approaching this? Because that helps you find that person who's having that question. And then when they see your book marketed to them, it clicks. So that's why it's really important to kind of nail this stuff down before you even start writing. And it's going to make it easier for you to write in a way that that person sees themselves on the page and connects with you as the author goes, yes, this is the book. This is the book for me. You know, and that's. That's it. You basically, you've. You've. You've created a specific reader that you're talking to. They have a specific problem, you have a specific solution. And all of this is a process that your writing coach works with you to really nail, narrow down, and sharpen. And then, you know, like I said, once you have one of that person nailed, then you have a market that you can talk to. Before we go any further, let's give something away. It's always fun, as always, you know, we take the names of people who commented on our previous book Launchers live video, and we throw them in a randomizer, and then we pull them out of the randomizer, and then we have a lucky winner. And so I'm happy to announce that our first winner today is Bonnie Lester. So, hey, congratulations, Bonnie. Thank you for commenting on the video the day it was released. So, you know, your name is pulled and you get a prize. Bonnie, you can reach out to Angela@teambooklaunchers.com and she'll take care of you. She'll hook you up with the swag, you know, the coffee mug or the. The journal or, you know, whatever else, you know, that. That we have to offer there. Julie's book, I think is. Is on the. Is up for grabs, so. But anyway, congratulations to you, Bonnie, and, you know, it's fun giving away stuff. I'm gonna take a little sip, and if I'm going too fast, slow me down. I have a tendency to ramble on too quickly. So just comment in the chat. Slow down. So anyway, you've nailed down with your writing coach, who your model reader is, right? So now you kind of need to work with your writing coach. They can help you nail down your root message of your book. I call it the root message because everything else sort of grows out of that, blossoms out of that. This is also. People talk about it. It's your core message or it's the promise that you're making. Basically, it's like they have a problem. Your model reader has a problem and you have a solution, you have an important message for them that no one else is telling them that you're the best person to tell them. All that stuff goes into what we call a hook. And your writing coach works with you to develop that hook. That's like a sentence, maybe two. Just, it's a. It's quick way that says, you know, this is what your book is about and this is who it's for. So it helps you sort of visit like a, you know, a North Star to keep you going in the right direction as you're writing your book. And also points to the. The right, you know, market. When you go to market, your book tells you, who is this book for? So when somebody. Somebody's going to ask at some point, what's your book about? And you can ramble on or you can just go to your hook and go, this is my book about this, and it's for these people. And it's, you know, it's usually written and crafted in an engaging way. A little bit of a. Again, the idea is that it hooks the reader, the ideal reader, the model reader that makes them want to pick up that book and go through it because the information in there is something they just have to have at that point in their life. And let's see, I can't stress this enough. Just take the time to get this right, who you're talking to. You know, your. Your audience and your hook. Take the time to really get that sharp and as on point as it can be, because from that point on, you're going to go into the writing and later the marketing. And it's just, it's the thing that's going to guide you. It's, you know, it's the bumpers at the bowling alley, alley that keeps. Keeps you in the lane. It just. People try to skip it. And I just always tell them, don't you really have to. You got to do these things. And once you nail those, though, then, you know, you're at the point where, okay, now I'm ready to write my book. I know what I'm going to write in a broad sense, and I know who I'm writing it for. Really relatively specific sense. Writing a book comes down to really two questions. What is it you want to say? And then how do you want to say it once you've said it? So your writing coach is going to work with you on those parts as well. The first part of that is, again, you know, what do I want to say? To break it down even further, what I want to say, there's really two parts to that. Your writing coach will work with you to craft an outline. Don't get weirded out when I say outline. It doesn't have to be real detailed or specific. It can be if you want it, but it's really just sort of, you know, these are my teaching points. These are the things that I want to get across. And so before you start writing them, before you start writing on the page, it's a way to organize your thoughts, make sure you've got everything down that you want to say. You know, it's hard to write and think about what you want to say at the same time. So this is a process for just going, do these ideas connect? Is there a flow? Is there a structure? Things are going to change, but it just really gives you a place to kind of start and go. Have I made a point about everything that I want to make sure I say in this book? So again, we're just capturing what is it you want to say? And your writing coach helps you do that. You know, it's a chapter by chapter. Outline is usually the best way to do it. It's your roadmap for your writing. You got the main points of each chapter. You can make sure that you're saying what you want to say, that you haven't missed anything, that maybe you want to add something. You're going to have ideas later as you're writing, put them in your outline, write them down because you'll forget them. And your writing coach, again, is going to help you craft that outline again. Seems overwhelming at first. You probably just start with a list of ideas, and then you and your writing coach will kind of shape. Well, this would go here. Well, they got to know this first. So we'll move this piece down. Just that sort of. That sort of process. Same thing with the outline. A lot of people want to skip it. Don't. It's going to save you in those times when you want to sit down and write but you're not sure what to write. Just go to your outline. What's the next thing on the list? Okay, I'll write about that. All this seems like it's work at the beginning. Like, why can't I just jump in? Writing it's work that's going to save you time on the back end. A lot of time. Much more time than it Takes to actually put this together. And I'm starting to see some good questions up here. Angela will be collecting those and we'll have a Q and A session at the end. But yeah, so when you've got an outline, it just makes your life easier. Then we come to the second part of your. What do I want to say? What do we call the what? And that's what I like to call the dirty draft. And no, it doesn't have cuss words. It's just, it's a real messy draft. It's basically you taking that outline and just writing everything and putting it on the page, following your outline. So you still have some semblance of structure. But, you know, your writing coach can help you. Just. This is where you start to get more into the time management stuff, the emotional challenges and, you know, the creative challenges as well. How do I want to approach this? The big thing that the writing coach is going to do at this point is going to help you keep from being self critical. The last thing you want to be in this phase is self critical. This is a creative phase. This is the brain can't switch between constructively criticizing itself and just opening and letting things flow and come out. This is the flow and come out phase. And your writing coach is great for reminding you that. Because we all have the desire to go, oh, I want to edit this now, I want to fix this now. You can do those things, but it's just going to take forever because again, the brain has to switch between two modes. It's better to just kind of in the first dirty draft, just get everything out. Just follow your outline, get everything out. And your writing coach will again, like I said, the guardrails kind of keep you focused on that, reminding you, you know, well, you, you know, you went back and rewrote that chapter three times. You know, let's go ahead and move ahead, that kind of thing. And again, you're going to beat yourself up because you wanted to write a chapter a week. I don't know. Everybody wants to write a chapter a week. I don't know. Your book coach is going to be there to remind you that, you know, a week is an arbitrary construct of time and chapters vary in length. So let's just focus on maybe a word count. You know, the writing coach is going to come up with a writing plan for you that works for you. You know, when do you have time to write? Are you a morning person? Are you an evening person? Okay, maybe try doing it this way. Or maybe try writing this time. Of day. Maybe you're a person who would be better for dictating. Let's look at some ways you can dictate your first draft and then go back and revise it again. There is no one way to write a book. And a good writing coach will have several methods. Hopefully be able to find one that works for you with your lifestyle, with everything you have going on. And, you know, it's your. The biggest thing that a writing coach does in this phase is definitely, you know, the time management and the insecurities, you know, because everybody has them. I have them. I've written several books, nonfiction and fiction, and I still have those days when I sit down and either A, got nothing to say or B, am like, who do you think you are? Are just, you know, go do something else. You just learn. It's just a voice that we have in our heads, and you just have to learn to shut it up. And your writing coach can help you do that. It can remind you that, you know, you're bringing something to the table, you have something to say. And most importantly, there are people out there who need to hear what you need to say because it's going to help them. It's going to make their lives better. And that's why, you know, ultimately, you're writing the book not for yourself, not for your business, not for your reputation. You're writing books to help people improve their daily lives. And that's one of the things that the writing coach will constantly remind you of. Remember the end game. Remember why you're doing this? So anyway, you write your first draft, your dirty draft. You got your words, you got all your ideas. Think of it as like all the clay on the table. This. You know, some stuff may go away, new stuff may be added, but it's all there. You're not thinking, what else do I want to say at this point? At this point, you're ready to move into how do I want to say what I want to say? But before we get to that, we're going to give away some more stuff. Let's see, who is my next winner. There it is. Okay, the second winner today is Marcia. Is it Alec? Marcia. Alec. Marcia again also commented on the video the day was released and her name was spat out of the randomizer. And Marcia, you can contact Angela@teambooklaunchers.com and she'll. She'll take care of you. And let's see here. Congratulations again to you, Marcia. We've got, just so you know, we got one more prize to give away near the end. So stick around. Don't go away. It won't be based on comments on the video being posted, though. It'll be based upon comments in the, the live comments today. So go ahead, and I hope you stick around. Might win something and you might, you might learn something. Because now we're at the point where you're finished with the what do I want to say? And you're at the. How do I say it again? This is where you're moving from what I call the dirty draft to what most people call a rough draft, which is to say, you know, it's, it's a, it's a semblance, a reasonable semblance of the, the, the final manuscript. I mean, things are still going to change. It's still going to be a complete mess, but it's going to be, you'll see the shape of what your book is by the time you get to a rough draft. But I want to make a point here. And this is a very big. This is something that you will only get from a writing coach unless you're thinking about it. But when you get to the end of your dirty draft, please take a moment and celebrate that most people don't even get to that point of just the end of the first horrible, dirty version of what it is. I want to say most people don't even get that far. So, you know, if you're a drinker, have a drink. If you're, if you like to go, you know, go out, have dinner or maybe just, you know, go take a walk or just treat yourself in some way, celebrate in some small way, because it isn't a very, it is a very important milestone. And as a writing coach, that's one of the things I'm always telling people is you, Congratulations. Nicely done. You did it. You made it this far. Most people don't. And now you're going to go to the next phase. Most people don't finish that, but I'm your writing coach. I'm going to make sure you do. And that next phase is again, that. How do I want to say it? It's the rough draft. You know, you've got everything you want to say on paper. Your manuscript, it's an unruly, glorious mess, but you're going to fix it. You're going to get everything that you want to say. Let's see. Lost my place here. Oh, yeah. So early when you're doing your dirty draft. I told you I didn't want you to, to be too critical. I want you to be creative. Well, now is the point where you can be more self critical, but it has to be constructive. It has to be geared toward making your manuscript better. And there can be a lot of doubt that enters that. A lot of like, is this better? I don't know. And it's way too early to show it to somebody else unless that person is a professional. And that's again where writing coach comes in. You know, you can show it to your spouse, you can show it to a friend, but they're probably not qualified to give you the kind of feedback that you need. And they may, even if they could, they may not want to because the things they have to say might be hard to hear and they would rather maintain a good relationship with you than, you know, tell you this part of the book is really boring. But a writing coach can go, I see what you're trying to do here. I don't think you accomplished it. Here's some suggestions. You know, this seems boring. If this is a little dry here, here's some ideas that you can punch that up so that you get your point across. That's one of the, in this part of the process, that's where a writing coach can be a huge help because you are at this point kind of going, is this, I don't know what this is, Is this good? Again, I don't know what it's going to be either, but I know how to get there. And this is part of the process of going through and fixing those things and taking that thing that was what you want to say and turning it into how you want to say it, how you want to say it. Is interesting aspect because part of it is we think of as your voice. What do you sound like? But another key part of that is what is your model reader sound like? They have to pick up that page and in the pick up that book and in the first page they have to see themselves in that book or else they're not going to finish that book. When I say see themselves, it's language that they use. It's definitely the problem that they have. And hopefully at that point you've kind of established it through your marketing to them, like, oh, this book might be about solving the problem that I have, whether it's self development or my financial advice or even like a memoir, something like that. We learn things from other people's stories and so a lot of people will gravitate toward memoir to go, I'm having trouble raising my child. Oh, here's a memoir about somebody who raised a difficult child. I can learn something from this. So, yeah, that. That's one of the. The. The key points with this part of it phase. I lost my place again. Hold on a second. Yeah. Is the self. Is the. The critical brain part where this is where you start to say, how do I want to say it? And not just what do I want to sound like, but how do I say it in such a way that my model reader responds to it? And so your writing coach can help with that. I see this a lot with financial books, where there's a lot of financial jargon. And jargon is great in the sense that it tells the reader, you are experienced in that industry, you know what you're talking about. But remember, your reader is not. And so it's little things like when you use a certain jargony phrase, pausing right there to then explain briefly what that means in plain language that your reader might use. You start doing that like you've got them. You've got them hooked with the idea. You got them hooked with the way you're speaking to them, because, again, it feels like you are speaking directly to them. And every book is really just a dialogue in the reader's head, which is why I always say kind of focus on the singular reader, not the audience reader, because that process is going to be just you talking to them in their head. So, anyway, yes, that's kind of, you know, you're going through. You're working with your writing coach to figure out, does every story I tell, does it hook the reader? Does it give the points? Is it getting across the points that I'm wanting to get across? Is there something that we need to add that they can then take so they can apply those, you know, to their. Apply that. My reader can apply that in their own life. So, you know, a lot of moving parts here. And the writing coach kind of helps you go, you know, we're going to go through once and we're going to look at language. We're going to go through once and look and see if there are steps that we need to add or, you know, graphics that we need to add. Simple graphics that help explain a concept or an example or an anecdote or a story. You know, the difference between an anecdote and a story and an example, you know, what are those things? Basically, they have to do with, you know, sort of length and how quickly you get in and out of them and how thoroughly they illustrate the point. So the writing coach can kind of help you figure out, like, oh, you need a story here. No, you just need a little anecdote here. Just a little something to help kind of illustrate this place point. And yeah, again, writing Coach is not an editor, but they will make suggestions. They will. Sometimes they'll like, give you examples of their own. Like, if I were to tell you, oh, you should have a story about this, and you're like, well, I don't have a story like that. I might write one up for you or just give you one verbally and go, like, something like this that you can pull from your own life or your own experience. It's just, it helps again, to have somebody there to kind of, when you're facing that sort of, oh, I don't know which way to go kind of point in this direction. Let's go down there and see if there's something down there that gets us where we want to. Where we want to be. And eventually, you know, you're going to get to the end of that draft, which is your, you know, your rough draft, your working rough draft. It's still kind of a mess. There's still a lot of work to be done. It's going to go to, you know, in Book Launchers, anyway, it's going to go to what's called a content edit. So the content edit is done by another writing coach or ghostwriter at Book Launchers who knows nothing about your project. What we're looking for is someone with fresh eyes to look at your manuscript and go, this doesn't make sense to me. Or I don't know that I believe that. I think you need to cite your source for that. Or, you know, or this is great. Can you tell me more? Can you add more to this section? Or, you know, it would be helpful here. You know, at this point, you and your writing coach have been spent so much time with the material, you're going to have blind spots, both of you. And that's why we do a content edit to somebody who is qualified to give constructive feedback. Again, it's not your mom who's wanting to know why you wrote about your neighbor and said those things. You know, it's somebody who says, I think what you're trying to do with the story, you accomplished that or you didn't. And here's something that may help you get your point across. So, yeah, and then it'll come back from the content edit. And your writing coach will help you kind of evaluate the suggestions and the comments and figure out like, okay, well, how do I use this? How do I revise my Manuscript based on this feedback. Is this something? Do I just take it and plug it in? Or is it something I need to think about? One of the things I always stress writing coaches are great about this is you'll get feedback that says you get feedback and you're like, I don't like that at all. The whole point of the content editing phase is to make your book stronger, and you do that by breaking it. Which is to say, I didn't understand this section or, this was slow. This part needs more clarity. And sometimes it's a question of not necessarily taking the suggestion or the comment, but figuring out what's behind that suggestion or comment. And a writing coach can really help you nail down what exactly is the issue. Because a lot of times it's not what. Again, something's about, it's how it's about it. So you said the thing you want to say, and you think you said it the way you want to say it. Say it how you want to say it. But maybe for some reason there's something in there that obviously there is that made the content editor go, oh, I don't. I don't like that. There's something about that I don't like. It's your job to figure out, is it the. Is it the what or the how? And a writing coach can help you determine, like, not just, oh, it's the how, but then, like, here are some suggestions for how you might revise this so that people aren't thinking about anything other than what your message is, what you want them to think out of it. I hope that makes sense. I kind of went down a path there. But anyway, so you get to the end of that, and at that point you're kind of done, at least with book launchers. With a writing coach, you're going to go into some more editorial rounds, like copy editing, and then you'll go into production mode. You'll have that team there to support you. You'll go into the marketing mode. You have the great marketing team to support you. So you really don't need a writing coach at that point. But the idea is that you have to get to that point before any of the other real fun stuff happens. I always explain it as, you know, the writing part that I do is like, the pregnancy. It's the gestation of the book. And then you are all about the pregnancy while you're pregnant. But then once the baby is born, you don't even think about the pregnancy. It's about the. The. The path and the life of that child. It's the same way with your book. Your book's going to go out there into the world at some point, and you're going to say, you know, you're going to forget all about the. How tough it was writing it, and you're going to be focused on the marketing and getting the word out and helping people. And just like with the kid, after about two years, you're going to go, hey, I think I want to write another one. Kids and books, I don't know what it is, but, you know, after about two, three years, you're like, I don't remember any of the horrible parts. Let's do that again. It's true. It's weird, but it's true. So anyway, that's kind of, you know, that's kind of what it's like working with a writing coach. Whether it's a book launcher's writing coach or someone else, they really do. They help you just sort of throughout the whole process, figuring out what the book is and who it's for, and then like any good coach, sort of maximizing your abilities. You know, I've coached some sports in my life, and it's amazing to me how similar it is to, you know, to keep teaching a kid how to hit a baseball or throw a baseball, and then how similar it is to just getting someone to write the best, you know, chapter they can write on a subject that they know very well. And sometimes it's just about helping them get out of their own way. Sometimes it's about me getting out of their way. Once I said I'm on the right course, but it's, you know, it's. It's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done because it's helping people tell their stories. Just like, you know, you writing your book is going to help other people solve whatever problem it is that you're solving for them. It's just, it's. It's incredibly rewarding. And, you know, if you do the work, like I said at the beginning, figure who you're talking to, you know, and then you get to the marketing part and it's. That part goes even easier because you know exactly who you're talking to and you know where to find. The marketing team knows where to find them and how to speak to them, and then hopefully you get a bunch of people that you get to help. So anyway, that's kind of what it's like working with a writing coach. Why I would encourage people to do it. There may be some people who don't need one. But I've yet to work with anybody who didn't find value in working with not just me, but with a writing coach, because sometimes I'm not a good fit for somebody, and I totally get that. But everybody, you know, everybody can use a little help. Everybody can use another set of eyes. So I just, you know, it's. It's like I said, we're in the golden age of writing coaches, and it's come up because of different. Different ideas. But I'm thankful that it's something that I get to do, and I think as a. As writers, it's. It's something that hopefully, I think you all would. Would benefit from. So that's kind of that. If we want to start going through some of the questions, we'll do that. And then after the questions, I can give away today's. Today's final prize. All right. Okay. Angela says we have questions. Good. Thanks, Mike. Okay. I've written several books, and none of them sell. Why? There's a million reasons. This is from Dr. Mark Zuppo. There are a lot of different reasons why a book might not sell. Everything from the core idea to the. Are you speaking to the model reader? Are you speaking to them in the right way? It could be your, you know, your sales page on Amazon or other booksellers. But, you know, the. Like I said, there are a lot of moving parts to that. It could be your cover. Who knows? But if you, like I said, kind of work to figure out exactly who you're talking to and speak to them, you know, in a way that they understand, solves their problem, whatever that may be, you will usually eventually find your audience. It's just a lot easier if you nail that down earlier and have clarity on that. But again, yeah, there's, you know, I know the feeling, too. When books don't sell, that's not fun. But, yeah, there's a lot of different reasons to that. Bye, Kathy. Let's see, any other questions? Some to have applied to. Oh, Caitlin Duncan wants to know, should she. If she hasn't heard back after applying at Book Launchers, should she move on or follow up? You know, following up is never a bad idea. We're always looking for talented people. So let's see. What are the dangers of writing a little bit in a nonlinear mode? That's a good question. That is from Jupiter Video Vision 99. What are the dangers of writing in a nonlinear mode? There are very. I'm assuming what you mean by a nonlinear mode is like jumping around like I'm going to do chapter two and then chapter seven, you know, if that's what you mean. There's nothing wrong with that. Especially have an outline, because then you really won't get lost. And I encourage people like, they're like, you know, you do not have to write chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, especially if you have an outline where you've laid out your teaching points. And so even though there's a real key piece of information they need to know in chapter three, you can go ahead and write chapter seven because you know you're going to eventually go back and explain that key piece of information. So I always tell people, you know, it's the Marie Condor. What chapter gives you joy? What are you most excited about? What do you want to talk about right now? Go ahead and jump into that because that's, you know, that's one of the things that we ways we procrastinate is I don't know what to say. I don't know which chapter to write. It's like, we'll pick one and do that. And if you start on that one, sometimes it'll be like, no, I really want to work on the other one. That's what, you know, that's how we trick ourselves and tell ourselves these things. So if that's what you mean by nonlinear, as long as you have an outline, I'm all for it. It's really tough to hold it all in your head if you don't have an outline. But even then, it's tough to write sequentially A through Z without. Without an outline. I know some people are pantsers, as they say, and it can be done. I just, in my experience, it takes a lot longer that way. But you know, again, there's no one way to write a book. And if it works for you, stick with it, man. Let's see. Any other questions. From Efren, whom I've worked with? I have so much trouble not self editing, which definitely slows me down. I think I reread to get back into a zone for flow ideas to tame our inner self. Editor, Excellent question. Thank you, Efren. I think obviously it takes a certain amount of self discipline and I'm as guilty of it as anybody. I want to go back and I want to clean it up. Give, you know, it's okay to give you, like I'm going to go back one time and then I'm going to be done with it. It's when you find or I'm going to do it. I'm Going to go back and look at that chapter for 10 minutes or 15 minutes. It's really just about setting those limitations and sticking to it. If you can avoid it altogether, I highly encourage it. Just like, keep going, keep going. Again, this is in sort of the, the, either the, you know, the drafting phase or even in the revision phase. But like you're breaking your revisions down into different topics or different ideas. Like, I'm revising this just for stories. So I'm going to go through the whole book just looking at my stories. I'm not looking at grammar, you know, or I'm revising for spelling. I'm going to go through and look for spelling. Same sort of thing. Like you're going through look for spelling. And you're like, oh, that's story, though. I need to, I need to clean up that story. Stay on task, Make a note to yourself, you'll go back and clean up that story, but stay on point. Stay focused on the task at hand so you get through it. Because otherwise then you go off on cleaning up that story and then you kind of forget about, what was I doing? Oh, I was doing grammar. It takes a certain amount of self discipline and we all fail. Know that we all get sucked in, you know, or even worse, we get sucked into something else. Like, oh, I was looking up this information that I needed for my book and then it turned into something else else. You know, I spent My Time on YouTube looking at these videos of this guy from Book Launcher talking instead of working on my manuscript. So. Oh, good, you're doing some fiction. Nicely done, Efren. Any. I hope that helps, by the way, in terms of just, you know, how to, how to keep yourself on point, not revise. We all do it. Just know that it's. We're all guilty of it. We try not to. Should you limit the amount of people you share the draft with so you don't get too much feedback? Absolutely. And it's not just the amount of people. It's when you share it with people and it's who you share it with and what you're expecting out of them. That's a whole other thing that, you know, I work with people on is, you know, how to take feedback, how to sift through what's, you know, the criticism and what's, what's constructive and, and what says more about the person who's giving it than it does about you or your manuscript. The example, again, I kind of touched on earlier, that I always give is if you're writing a memoir and you give it to your mother. And your memoir has some not nice things to say about a neighbor. Your mother's gonna be like, I have to live next door to them. Why did you say that about the neighbor? Not really that helpful. But when somebody gives you constructive criticism like that, that part of that chapter was really boring. Like, that may hurt to hear, but that's gold, because then, you know, like, that's a weak spot. I gotta fix that. Early on in the process. You shouldn't really show it to anybody. You really shouldn't show your manuscript. At least if you're working with book launchers, you shouldn't show it to anybody until after you've had a content edit. And even then, you should, you know, kind of know who you're showing it to and why. Like, for instance, you know, I mentioned I worked with Efren, and Efren had some things that he wanted validated. Just kind of double check his own work by, you know, people who, like, I wasn't gonna be able to do it. These are people who are very, you know, they're leaders, very. In very specific fields. And it's, you know, it's. It wasn't math, but it's essentially double checking his math, and that was fine. But also, you know, he knew what he was looking for from those people. So if the person he was looking for to say, that's the process that we used at that time, and that person came back and said, that story doesn't make any sense, he would discount that. But if the person came back and said, you know, that's not the process we used at the time. If you remember it was this, then it's like, okay, yeah, you corrected my memory. We get things wrong. I can fix that part of the book. So even then, you know, he was showing it to people. It was, it was. He had very specific goals in mind with what he wanted from their. Their feedback. Let's see. I find dialogue and nonfiction makes my chapters too long. This is from Liz Clark, by the way. Reader attention spans are short. Yes, they are. Advice about how to balance the material that grabs the attention versus the meat of your expertise. I mean, I love dialogue, and I would argue that dialogue actually is easier and quicker for people to read. It puts them in a scene. That's one thing I'm always pushing for, is using fiction techniques and nonfiction, especially in memoir. But it works great. Even in prescriptive self improvement or whatever. When you're telling stories and giving scenes especially, dialogue tends to keep things moving. There's A certain art to dialogue. Normally, with nonfiction, you're kind of drawing upon memory. If you're creating a hypothetical, it's a little tougher. Dialogue is tough in the sense to write, in the sense that you really have to make sure you're moving this particular story forward while making it seem natural and casual. That's why it's so hard to do in fiction. Normally in nonfiction, we're drawing from something in our experience, it's kind of ballpark. That's what they said because you didn't have a tape recorder at the time. I think in terms of. Liz, your question also kind of relates to how long should a chapter be? I get that question a lot. And the deeply unsatisfying answer is a chapter is as long as it needs to be. Because there are ways to break up a chapter with subheads. And, you know, Cassie and her team, they do great things with layout and they can, you know, break out sections and do shadings. And I'm, again, I'm not telling the plumber how to fix my plumbing. Cassie's got a whole tool bag for, like, you know, taking these pieces of information and drawing your attention to them and breaking it up and using white space. So it doesn't feel like that long of a chapter. One of the things that I always push for is depending on what the book is about or, you know, is what I call potato chip length chapters. And again, I didn't come up with that. I stole that from somebody. I can't remember who. But the idea is It's. It's about 1500-2000 words. It's just like. It's like a bag of potato chips. Okay, I have one more. I have one more. So the idea is the person is in bed at night reading your book, and they're like, oh, it's getting late. Oh, the next chapter is only like 50. I'll just read one more chapter. Like, that's the. That's the optimal length. But it could also be. Well, that's a 5000 word chapter, but around the 1700 word, there's a, you know, a break. There's a subhead with. Because you're introducing a new idea for that chapter, that's fine too, because then the person can go put my bookmark there, go to sleep. So the chapters can really, you know, they can vary in length. They should vary in length. Nobody wants to be the same, you know, but in terms of moving them, moving the reader through quicker, it's really about design and white space and like, I said subheads, things like that. Because again, if the we used to get that question a lot too with the beginning of the Internet, you know, that's how old I am. You know, how long should this blog post be? Because we've got unlimited space. Before we had only so many pages we could do, you know, for our newsletter. Now we've got a blog. How long should it be? It's like as long as it's engaging, that's fine. It's when you're not engaging, when the person's not getting any value. And that's why it's so important to know who you're talking to and what they need to know and how they say things because that's what creates that sort of like attention and engagement. See? You're welcome. Liz. Any other questions? All right, so I think it's probably time to give away our last prize, but I want to go look normally do like it's related to the date. Can we go? Let's look here. Okay. Cassie's thank you, sir. Comment today is the seventh. Can we go to the comment that's the seventh previous to that. Yes. I know it's making things difficult, but. See if we have a winner on that. Waiting, waiting. Also, if there are any other questions, feel free to just drop them in the comments there. Mike thinks it's Caitlin. Yay. All right, well, congratulations again. Reach out to to to Angela at was it teams book launchers.com yeah, team singular book launchers.com and she'll help you out. Just a few other things I wanted to mention. We're doing another deep dive on Saturday, February 18th. It'll be at 1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific. Again, that's a deep dive. The topic is still to be determined, so we'll let you know once that's hammered out. Also want to mention if you're interested, you can still join our next live Self Publish and Succeed class. It's going to start on February 27th. Again, that's live training group support. It's a great way to finish your book or start your book and make sure again, like we talked about, positioning it for success from a marketing standpoint. So anyway, it's a live online workshop that again is starts on February 27th. You can find out more details at self publishand succeed.com live class. Again, that's self publishand succeed.com live Class. There you can learn more about the live Self Publish and Succeed class. Oh, thank you. Thanks everyone for showing up. I. I appreciate it. I hope there was something of value that you got out of this. And you know, if you have any other questions, let me know. I'll be around. Or you can always reach out. Angela's just put the link in the comments for the self publish and succeed. So anyway, unless there are no more questions, I will go ahead and sign off again. I appreciate everyone coming and you have a great day and I hope all is well in your world. Thank you. Bye.