Tell your clients what coaching is
Getting clients for your coaching business is easier if you tell them what it is!
Define your coaching services
When I first began offering coaching to writer clients, I had copy on my website that said something like, “I offer coaching services for all aspects of writing and publishing.” If a potential client got in touch to ask me what kind of coaching I did, I would say something like, “Anything that is outside of a typical edit on a manuscript.”
Hardly anyone ever hired me to coach them.
I thought that “I can help you solve most writing- and publishing-related problems!” was a great marketing strategy. It wasn’t. It didn’t help potential clients visualize why they would ever need coaching.
How to market yourself when coaching writers
Then I started listing specific things I could do:
- I can provide feedback on query letters based on my experience as a literary agent and as an acquisitions editor
- I can show you how to solve plot or characterization problems in the novel you’re writing now
- I can help you get unstuck when you can’t seem to figure out what happens next
- I can interpret rejection letters so that you can understand where your ms is not hitting the mark with agents
- I can review your revision chapter-by-chapter to make sure you’re staying on the right track
Once I started doing this, people hired me! They could see themselves needing the services I was offering. They also began to ask specific questions like, “I can’t figure out how to write a good synopsis. Can you help?” It wasn’t on my list but, yes, I could help. (And then I’d add it to the list.)
Defining exactly what you can do for a potential client should be the first step in your marketing plan.
Other Helpful Content
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Setting problems: lack of concrete locations
Writers often use setting like a painted backdrop to their stories, rather than as an integral element of their storytelling. As developmental editors, we can help them make the setting come to life. If we think of Wuthering Heights, we think of the Yorkshire moors. When we think of Moby Dick, it’s a whaler on
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How Setting Can Reflect Character
Authors have a tendency to prefer focusing on character and/or plot at the expense of setting/world-building. (The exception is some SFF writers, who focus on setting and forget about plot and character.) So as editors we will often call that out and say something like, “Add a little description here. Otherwise it’s like Miles and
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How to Identify Developmental Problems
Noticing a developmental problem (the pacing is slow, the character is inconsistently portrayed) is only the first step in the editing process. The next step is to explain why it’s a problem for this manuscript. This second step is one that most editors skip at first (and many editors skip forever) but it’s crucial for
