Coaching for Accountability
Coaching for Accountability
Coaching for accountability is a great fit for coaches working with writers, even new coaches!
One concern that often holds newer editors back from offering coaching to writers is that they don’t know everything.
And of course, that’s true! No one knows everything. But as I described in this post, coaching isn’t so much about dumping your knowledge into another person’s head as it is about guiding them in solving their own challenges.
But of course it is true that writers will sometimes come to us to, say, unsnarl a complicated problem with perspective, and if you’re still a little wobbly about how that works, you won’t add much value.
The solution is to limit what you coach at first. No one expects every coach to be able to solve every possible writing problem they have.
Tips for Accountability Coaching
One of the areas that I recommend exploring is coaching for accountability. Writers want to write but they have many demands on their time (day job, children) and many distractions (streaming, Facebook).
Working with an accountability partner is a tried-and-true way to solve this problem.
But, you may ask, why would anyone pay you for this when they could ask a friend or join some online group (as surely there is an online group for this).
The answer is that spending money signals the importance of whatever it is you’re purchasing. If a writer spends money to hire an accountability coach, they are more likely to stick with it because otherwise it will have been a big, fat waste of money.
People know this intuitively. They also know that a friend may not actually hold them accountable. Part of this process is helping authors solve their barriers, not just accepting their excuses for not doing the work.
We also know that mirroring is a great way for ADHD individuals to focus. This means that if they work in the presence of another person (this can be online), they’ll be more productive. So, one way to offer accountability is just to have work sessions. The author pays for them ahead of time (so that they don’t get into th habit of canceling/rescheduling) and you both just work on your projects.
Or you can do weekly check-ins by videoconference, email, or text. The client sets their goals for the week and you check in at predetermined times to ensure they’re staying on target and to help them solves challenges that arise.
Building Your Coaching Skills
You can probably also imagine other more narrowly defined types of coaching you could do as you first start out. Maybe you’re very good at productivity. You could coach on that. Maybe you’re excellent at the technical aspects of self-publishing. You could coach that.
Don’t let “I don’t know everything!” hold you back from adding coaching to your menu of services!
Other Helpful Content
The Editorial Blooper Reel
Back when I edited a custom magazine, I assigned and edited a package about an upcoming event (similar to a business conference) which included profiles of some of the attendees and speakers, a how-to-get ready checklist, a travel piece on side trips to take at the location, a celebration of highlights of the event over…
Using information products to boost your bottom line
People like to pretend that you can write a book and make passive income from it. You can’t. If you write a book and stick it up on Amazon and never do anything to promote or market it, you’re not going to sell any copies. Okay, you might sell three or four to people who…
The Fine Art of Copyediting Fiction
When copyediting fiction, it’s common to run up against issues that pit author preference against standard editing approaches. For example, in a story I wrote some years ago, the main character’s neighbor is referred to as “3-B” as that is her apartment number and the MC doesn’t know her name. Fine. She can be referred…
