In December 2024, founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, Jennie Nash interviewed me about my journey from freelance copyeditor to book coach. This originally was published on December 27, 2024 on Jennie Nash’s Substack. Read an excerpt of the interview below.
1. What did you do before becoming a book coach?
After working from home during COVID shutdown, I decided to quit my job with a nonprofit to work with fiction authors who wanted to get their manuscripts cleaned up. I think it was realizing I was happy working from home at my pace. Life was fairly hectic before March of 2020. I was editing on the side, working for a nonprofit, on the board for City Club of Central Oregon, a wife and a mom of a high school student (and everything that comes with that). When I was forced to slow down, I reveled in the lack of hurry.
I have been a freelance copyeditor since graduating in 2009. I’ve edited different forms of copy, including photo books, magazines, memoirs in progress, online content, commercial real estate marketing materials, grant applications, etc. I loved solitary work. I loved connecting with the content, but I have also enjoyed the people I’ve worked with, to see the progress made, their breakthroughs. I loved being able to sit with the written word and figure out ways to help improve it. I love hearing back from clients when I’ve helped them solve a pain point, but especially when I can see they’ve moved their story closer to where they want it. Their satisfaction with their work is fulfilling for me.
2. How did your background prepare you for book coaching? What skills/talents/experiences feel most relevant?
If I can answer this in a roundabout way, being a copyeditor involves a lot of challenges that would’ve been impossible for my high school self. Getting an English degree started with being horrible at grammar and being a Spanish major. Yeah, not a recipe for success, right? Growing up I had no connection to where commas lived and how dependent clauses were different from independent clauses. I can’t tell you how many English comp classes I took before I started seeing the connections between text and the rules. Oddly enough, it took Spanish grammar classes as a Spanish major to help everything click. . . .
Read the rest of the interview here.