Some of the best books in the world are there, pretty much fully formed, inside the author’s head. And there they stay, keeping you up at night while you think of more fabulous ways to explain your concept, rewriting it all inside your head. At some point though, you realise that it’s been rather a long time, and nothing has actually come out. There are so many ideas, but you don’t know where to start with writing it all down.
Or, you have written and written and written; you have notebooks full of everything you know, hundreds of pages tapped out on the keyboard in a frenzy of excitement. And then, nothing. You realise that a lot of writing is not actually a book. It’s a valuable brain dump, it’s golden research, it’s many things, but it isn’t actually a book.
A book coach is the person you call in at this point, when your family and friends are sick of hearing about your book that never seems quite finished. Make sure you find one who gets you, who works in your genre and has good feedback from other authors. It’s quite an intense relationship, so find a coach you really like.