14. Why Mentors Matter with Jennie Nash

STEPS TO STORY EP 16 - Jennie Nash - 5-2-2024

[00:00:00] Nicole Meier: Hello, listeners. Welcome to a special month of episodes. Because this is my book launch month, my fourth novel releases May 28th, I'm taking my podcast from solo episodes to interviews. So for the next several weeks, I'm sharing in depth and meaningful conversations with people in my author journey. And to kick it off, I'm starting with one of my favorite people, my mentor, Jenny Nash.

[00:00:28] Nicole Meier: My guest today is Jenny Nash. She's the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, a company that trains and certifies book coaches. She's the author of Read Books All Day and Get Paid for It, Blueprint for a Book, Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book, Blueprint for a Memoir, and others. I'm so pleased to share our conversation today on why mentors matter.

[00:00:53] Nicole Meier: Stick around, it's going to be a good one.

[00:01:03] Nicole Meier: Welcome to Steps to Story, the show that helps aspiring authors turn their ideas into action and transform their dream of writing a book into a reality. I'm your host, Nicole Meier, multi published author and certified book coach. I spent the first part of my fiction writing career desperate for guidance that was unavailable to me.

[00:01:25] Nicole Meier: I wrote draft after draft, flying by the seat of my pants, with lots of passion but little guidance. Thankfully, there was a writing community that opened its arms and welcomed me. This community sustained me, but when it came to strengthening my novel writing process, I was determined to find a better way, one that didn't involve piecemeal strategies and confusing courses.

[00:01:52] Nicole Meier: Now, more than a decade later, I'm serving my younger self who yearned for support while writing a book. If you're an emerging author seeking guidance, this podcast is for you. Are you on the list to get my novel writing guide? I designed this workbook to take you through five essential strategies that will level up your novel writing process.

[00:02:15] Nicole Meier: Grab your free copy at nicolemeier. com forward slash crafting greatness. That's NicoleMeier. com forward slash crafting greatness or at the link in the show notes.

[00:02:36] Nicole Meier: Okay. Welcome. Hello, listeners. I'm so excited to dive into this conversation with Jenny Nash. And I want to start off by welcoming Jenny and Jenny, I'm sharing your bio with our listeners before our conversation here, but it's always fun to get from our guest, if someone were to meet you on the street and say, what is it that you do?

[00:02:57] Nicole Meier: I'd love to get in your own words. what you do so you can share that with our listeners. So welcome and just jump right in. 

[00:03:05] Jennie Nash: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. And your question cracks me up because I usually don't like to tell people what I do. I try not to because when I tell them, everybody then launches into telling me about the book 20 years.

[00:03:22] Jennie Nash: And All the things and then all of a sudden I'm book coaching. It's funny, I try not to say what I do on the street, but what I do is I'm a book coach and I have been obsessed with the process of creating books for a very long time. So I was a writer my own self and then I transitioned into helping other people write.

[00:03:45] Jennie Nash: And then my most recent transition is that I moved into helping other book coaches help writers write. So it's all about the process by which good books are made. And I have my hands in that on a lot of different levels. 

[00:04:02] Nicole Meier: Which I love, and this is why, especially why I wanted you on today because I want to talk about mentors and why mentors matter, especially when it comes to the writing and publishing industry.

[00:04:13] Nicole Meier: So I wanted to share a story for our listeners because I think it demonstrates the power of finding the right mentor, especially when it comes to the writing and publishing industry. So as some of my listeners know, I have been offering books for around 10 years. And in this time, I was always searching for a mentor.

[00:04:33] Nicole Meier: I wanted someone wise, someone kind, not only someone who would champion my book, but someone that would show me the way because I'm the type of person that needs to see what's possible in order to thrive. So I always thought, okay, this mentor for me is going to come in the form of an agent, an editor, a publisher.

[00:04:54] Nicole Meier: And even though I worked with so many great people along the way, that just never presented itself to me in what I was searching. So listeners, fast forward to, I think it was 2022 when I got to spend time with you, Jenny, in real life and learn everything about book coaching. That I cried, I cried listeners when I hugged Jenny goodbye for that weekend, I cried because I finally had that thing unlock for me of what was possible.

[00:05:26] Nicole Meier: And I felt like I can finally thrive in the way that I'd been hoping for. And I finally found a mentor to sort of like turn on that flashlight and light the way for me. So not to put you on the spot, Jenny, but you were the mentor that I had been seeking and I just want to share this with everybody that it's possible to find the right person out there that can sort of light the way for you.

[00:05:48] Nicole Meier: So I'm sure you've had other people tell you that. 

[00:05:52] Jennie Nash: I could not hear that enough. That's a beautiful story. And I'm so grateful. Then I crossed your path at the right time. 

[00:06:01] Nicole Meier: Yeah. I mean, honestly, book coaching has been the thing that I was searching for and I adore it because I wanted this so badly for myself when I was an emerging author.

[00:06:10] Nicole Meier: I needed someone to show me what was possible, champion my work, do all the things with me. So I'm so happy to be sort of serving my younger self in that way. So, Jenny, my question for you, since I shared my personal story, is if you can think of a person in your life who profoundly influenced you in a way a mentor would.

[00:06:32] Jennie Nash: Well, I knew that this was going to be the topic of this conversation, and I've been thinking about that question a lot. thinking about what it means to be a mentor, to have a mentor, to be mentored, all of those things. And my answer that I really come to is that I don't think I actually have ever had one.

[00:06:54] Jennie Nash: I've had so many teachers and so many people that I've learned from both in a positive way and a negative way, learned what didn't work or what I didn't think was right or good. And then also in a very positive way, just learned from so many people, both people that I knew and people that I didn't know.

[00:07:18] Jennie Nash: So I've had a lot of teachers just because of the work you and I do. who are writers that I've loved and followed and teachers online who I've loved and followed and learned so very much from. So in some ways I consider those mentor figures and I certainly had people who lit my path as well at different points in my career and at different places and just taught me profound things.

[00:07:45] Jennie Nash: But What I came to and I thought, who would I name as a mentor, where I landed was I realized I think I'm still looking for that person. And I think I haven't yet found them. It's an interesting question because I do have that yearning and I think I've been on the lookout for a long time for that and feel the lack of that in my life.

[00:08:12] Jennie Nash: And part of the reason that I think I haven't. landed on that person is I do a really strange variety of things. Um, and there's not a lot of people that, and this may come across as sounding strange. There's not a lot of people that I consider my peers. So there's different pieces that I have. Teachers are people that I've learned from are people that I consider my peers, but nobody who, like you were saying, you wanted somebody to, shine a light down this path and I, I don't even know what the path is in some ways.

[00:08:50] Jennie Nash: Right. So I know I sound sort of like I'm circling around this idea, but it's because I know exactly what you're asking and I know exactly what it is. And the reason I know it is because I am that for other people and I know that and I feel a sadness that I don't have it for myself. 

[00:09:10] Nicole Meier: Yeah. And that's, I so appreciate you being honest about that question.

[00:09:15] Nicole Meier: I think that we all have that thing inside of us, that little tiny voice saying, there's more, but wait, there's more. And so we're searching for, well, if someone could just light the way or show me, and you're right, there's been so many good teachers in both of our lives that have shown parts of that.

[00:09:34] Nicole Meier: Yeah. Especially female figures. A lot of times it's really nice just being a female to see somebody that I can relate to or maybe has broken a barrier. 

[00:09:44] Jennie Nash: Yeah. And that's what I mean by I consider some people out in the world to be my mentors who I don't know them at all, but I'm watching what they do and I'm admiring what they do and I'm seeing how they do it and learning in that way.

[00:10:01] Jennie Nash: And that has been really nice and it's something that I value for sure. But I do find myself wishing for what you're describing. That's a long way of saying. I know exactly what you were saying when you said that you cried. I know it's that being seen in the wholeness of what you want to be. 

[00:10:26] Nicole Meier: Absolutely.

[00:10:28] Nicole Meier: Well, you've said it out loud now, Jenny, so a mentor may just come knocking. I'm waiting. I really appreciate that and I think that our listeners will relate to that because we are all sort of searching for that thing and that person and that community. I mean, I know community is something we're all searching for right now.

[00:10:47] Nicole Meier: And the best way to me is to really just keep talking to people, have conversations because it introduces a new thought and a new idea, a new person. But I wanted to switch that around or flip it around and say, now that we've talked about the power of a mentor, because you are training book coaches specifically who are mentoring writers.

[00:11:09] Nicole Meier: What kind of qualities do you see that good book coaches have or that a book coach can possess in order to help writers move forward? 

[00:11:18] Jennie Nash: Oh, it's such a good question. The more I do this work, the longer I do this work, the more I understand what profoundly powerful work it is to help somebody in the creative process, to help them along their way.

[00:11:34] Jennie Nash: And what a good book coach does. It's interesting because this idea I've been thinking about it. What is a mentor? And, you know, you're talking about someone who lights a path or who shows you the way and it's not do these things. That's not exactly what it is. It's not follow these steps. It's more a process of.

[00:11:57] Jennie Nash: Tapping into your knowing, tapping into your intuition, tapping into your, what you want for yourself and how you want to be in the world. And that's the quality that a really good book coach has is the ability to It's not swooping in and saying, this is what your book should be, and this is how you should do it.

[00:12:18] Jennie Nash: And here's, you know, it should be this, or it should be that, or I think it should be. It's so not that. It's really listening to that writer, to their deep level, why, why are they doing this? What do they want from this? Why does it matter to them? And that really deep listening. And when I see somebody who's doing this as a coach.

[00:12:42] Jennie Nash: It just blows me away. It just really does because it's really subtle work. It's looking at how that writer's eyes light up when they talk about something, looking at how they deflate when talking about something else, listening to them, When you're batting ideas back and forth, listening to when they fight, when they say, no, no, that's not it.

[00:13:11] Jennie Nash: That's not it. It's this, I'm trying to do this. They're fighting for their vision and the coach is holding space. They're holding space for that vision to come to life. And like I said, when I see someone do it, it really just takes my breath away because it's having a person see another person and see what's possible.

[00:13:35] Jennie Nash: That's the thing to see what's not there because the book isn't there. 

[00:13:40] Nicole Meier: Yeah. 

[00:13:41] Jennie Nash: Either you're working with someone at the beginning of a project or you're working with in the middle when they're revising, and it's not done. It's not baked. It's not a thing yet. It's not sitting on the shelf. So you're seeing them and you're seeing this vision, like trying to catch the vision that they have for it.

[00:14:00] Jennie Nash: So it's, Holding that space for the writer to turn it over in their minds and kick it around and bat it back and forth, it's a very living, breathing thing. And the people who are really good at it have this unique combination of understanding people, understanding the creative process, the process of making a thing.

[00:14:25] Jennie Nash: and understanding story. It's those three things all come together. And usually when I encounter people and they haven't heard what a book coach is, or it's a new term to them, or they didn't know it was a thing, people just are like, Oh, that's what I am and what I've always been doing and what I want to be.

[00:14:44] Jennie Nash: And those are my talents. Because it's this very special thing to have all those things and then people who have it. I see you smiling. 

[00:14:53] Nicole Meier: Because you know, right? Yes, I know. Yeah. You have it, right? Yeah. And I love all the things you're saying because one of the first objections people say to working with an editor or a coach is, but I don't want anyone to change my story.

[00:15:08] Nicole Meier: And I always say, but a good editor or coach. will help strengthen what's already on the page and bring out that sort of, I call it a superpower. You have superpowers as a creative. And that's their goal is to draw that out even further. That's a shift, right? 

[00:15:24] Jennie Nash: Yeah. And the longer I do this work, the more I come to believe that it has very little to do with the words on the page.

[00:15:35] Jennie Nash: I think there's too much emphasis on craft in the teaching of writing. There is a time and a place for craft, a hundred percent. You have to learn craft, you have to deploy your learning of craft, all of that is true. And I think the best writers are doing something beyond that. They're tapping into something that craft alone can't capture.

[00:16:01] Jennie Nash: And it's this ephemeral, we all know it when we read a book that has it, and when we read a story that has it, that It factored that thing and it's not about craft. 

[00:16:14] Nicole Meier: Yeah. And it's also what people are seeking. I can just tell you from looking at the statistics on my podcast, the episodes that are more about the writer and the mindset and what they're going through are the more popular podcast episodes as opposed to the craft ones.

[00:16:30] Jennie Nash: Well, I think that that's why writers tend to feel so alone and What's so amazing about the time that we're living in now is that people can tune into a podcast and follow it and tap into that piece of the writing life that would make it less lonely because the lonely part is not sitting alone in your room typing.

[00:16:52] Jennie Nash: Usually when you're doing that, you're so engaged in your story that you don't even feel alone, but true, right? It's the moments when you think. What am I doing? Does anybody care? Is this any good? Is it getting on the page in the right way? All of those questions. That's what makes it lonely because oftentimes writers don't have people around them who get that.

[00:17:14] Jennie Nash: They don't get what you're trying to do. So to be able to listen to somebody or listen to conversations or be in a relationship with a coach or a mentor who does get it, that's the thing is that now you're less alone. 

[00:17:29] Nicole Meier: Yeah, absolutely. You're less alone and just like a good coach or mentor would do, you're being shown the way of how to keep going and make it stronger and believe in yourself and believe in your story.

[00:17:41] Nicole Meier: Stand by your story. That's 

[00:17:43] Jennie Nash: it. And that's the work. And that's. The hard part. That's what's hard about writing. Yeah. 

[00:17:49] Nicole Meier: Okay, well, you actually offered me a beautiful transition because we talked about the podcast for a minute, but I also wanted to ask you, now that we're in the world of remote communication, this has really changed the world of coaching and mentorship.

[00:18:04] Nicole Meier: And so how have you seen this specifically play out for writers? 

[00:18:09] Jennie Nash: Yeah, it's fascinating. It's a fascinating time where writer communities used to be your local library or maybe a bookstore if you were lucky enough to live near a good one or a writing center. Some of the big writing centers like the Loft in Minneapolis or Muse and the Marketplace in Boston, these hubs for creative writers were That was where you could go.

[00:18:37] Jennie Nash: And it was the only place you could go, perhaps travel to a conference or travel to work with what I call like a famous writer workshop in Italy or something like that. Things have changed so dramatically. There are now really robust online communities of writers that are gathering around genre or gathering around a podcast like yours or a expert in a certain genre or gathering around a personality of some kind and they're offering writers this 24 7 access to the kind of people that can be their people and where they can really be seen and known in a way that just didn't exist before.

[00:19:28] Jennie Nash: I mean, I'm old enough that I remember that time and worked in that time very well when that was all there was. And I remember going to some of these events, these local library type events or writer group events, and you'd go into a room and maybe there's 20 people there. And you know, when you say, Oh, we're going to have an event on writing books.

[00:19:50] Jennie Nash: It's such a generic phrase that you might have somebody in there who's some World War II spy buff who's writing a historical fiction 700 page thing that they've been working on for 12 years. And you might have somebody who wants to write poems about their cats. And you might have somebody, not that there's anything wrong with that, right?

[00:20:14] Jennie Nash: But, and you might have somebody who. Wants to capture their life story for their family. And all those three people are in the room together and that's writers like I'm using air quotes. The writers are there together, but they are not going to find their people in that room. So what's great about these online communities is each of those writers can now find like minded people who are thinking the same way about their project and wanting the same things from it and can connect with those.

[00:20:47] Jennie Nash: All over the world. I mean, it's right. How cool it is. 

[00:20:51] Nicole Meier: Yeah, you hit on such an important point. There is finding what I call finding your tribe. Yeah. I remember when I first started writing for magazines and then started working with publishers on my novel, you would be assigned an editor and you wouldn't have any say in it.

[00:21:07] Nicole Meier: And that editor has completely different interests than whatever you're writing. Half the time they don't have a bedside manner. And so you feel like it's this very sort of impersonal exchange. And now there are so many people out there, whether it's a conference or a group or an online get together or critique groups or book coaches that are niched so far down that you can find your actual people and make deeper connections that will deepen your creative work.

[00:21:35] Jennie Nash: Well, and it's interesting that we're talking about this because the evolution that I have seen in my business of training book coaches. So I've been in business for 11 years and. In the beginning, nobody knew what a book coach was. It was a brand new thing. It was kind of strange to a lot of people. And I was coming from that place where we're going to help the writers.

[00:22:01] Jennie Nash: And over the years, especially I would say in the last four or five years, my company has certified more coaches and I've seen those coaches really niche down as you're saying and really focus on a very specific kind of writer. I've seen two things happen. Their businesses are booming for one thing because writers really are looking for that.

[00:22:30] Jennie Nash: And then the second thing is the level of expertise that they have on their topic and their subject has become so deep and so profound. And there are now genres that eight or ten years ago, I used to say for my own self, I can coach anything, bring me your book, I can help you write a better book. And I believe that to be true because of what I said before, it's not always about craft.

[00:23:00] Jennie Nash: But I've stopped saying that and I've stopped believing that because I see, I'm thinking specifically of some coaches that I know who specialize in thriller. And they're making products and programs to help people very specifically with the three twists of a thriller or the final twist of the thriller or getting that antagonist right or that sort of thing.

[00:23:23] Jennie Nash: And I see the products they're making for their writers and the way they're coaching their writers and how they're holding the space for those writers. And I think, Oh, I would never coach a thriller writer again. I would send them to those people. The longer I do this, the more I see that power of specificity that the internet is allowing because there can be people gathering around, not just a genre, it could be a type of person.

[00:23:55] Jennie Nash: And it could be. mom writers or perfectionist writers or lgbtq plus writers or, you know, it doesn't have to be around a genre, you know, or writers trying to pitch agents or writers who are self publishing you can slice and dice any way you want and find a group of people that are passionate about that thing.

[00:24:15] Jennie Nash: And that's just incredible. And that's new. 

[00:24:19] Nicole Meier: Yeah, it's very new and it's very powerful and it's effective because just as you said, I personally have no business coaching someone on poetry or self help books. Those aren't things that A, I read very much and B, I know how to coach. I know how to coach what I'm very passionate about.

[00:24:36] Nicole Meier: Right. I love staying in my lane because my passion bleeds into the projects I'm helping with. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:24:43] Jennie Nash: That's right. You know, it's very humbling to, I guess it's what any teacher wants, and I consider myself a teacher, is you want your students to soar beyond wherever you are to greater heights. And I see that happening all the time.

[00:24:58] Jennie Nash: over the place. And I think it's really exciting. It's an exciting time for writers, and it's exciting time for the people who help them. 

[00:25:09] Nicole Meier: I totally agree. And one thing that was funny that I just recalled was when I announced that my novel is coming out this spring, I also credited one of my fellow book coaches because she was my developmental editor and my book coach.

[00:25:23] Nicole Meier: And I got so many, which is shout out to Lydia Hilde. Oh, yes. I got so many comments in my DM saying, wait a minute, you have a book coach? I thought you were a book coach. And I want people to know that even editors and coaches need editors and coaches because I needed someone to show me how to strengthen my work and to tell me I wasn't losing my mind going down some rabbit hole in my story.

[00:25:47] Nicole Meier: I needed that feedback as well. 

[00:25:50] Jennie Nash: It's a truth, a universal truth that you can't actually see. We have blind spots to our writing. We just do. And I have a book coach as well. And when we talked before about what makes a good one or what qualities make a good one, Barbara Boyd has coached me on my blueprint books.

[00:26:09] Jennie Nash: The last one was a blueprint for a memoir. And I have an idea that I have. been noodling on for some time, another kind of writing book. And I did my blueprint process with her, which was very meta because I trained her in it. And then she did it on me. And of course, at first I thought, Oh, I don't really have to do it.

[00:26:33] Jennie Nash: I'm special. But she said, Oh, no, you do have to do it. And the result of that work was she told me. She said, I don't think you should write this book right now. I think you should put it aside. I think you should take some time. And at first I was kind of offended, you know, that like, well, who are you? And, and then I realized, oh, she's so right.

[00:26:59] Jennie Nash: She's so right. And she did that thing. I was talking about what she, she saw something in me that I was not getting down to the thing that I said I wanted to do, and I wasn't getting down to it because I simply didn't have the time to do that work. I was trying to whip it off, and it's not the kind of thing that can be whipped off.

[00:27:23] Jennie Nash: Sometimes a book can be, but this particular book was taking more time than I had, and she saw that, and she called me out on that, and she said, come back to it when you can give it its proper time. And what an amazing gift. I was not going to do that to myself. If I was on my own, I would have just hammered away or followed the dictums we all hear about writing, like, oh, you have to write every day or you have to write a thousand words a week or, you know, whatever it is, I would have thought I'm just going to power through.

[00:27:56] Jennie Nash: I know how to persevere like I would have kind of done that whole get it done productivity pathway that we think is the way and having someone hold that mirror up to you and see you and you as the creator, I'm just so grateful to her for that. So I'm the same as you. I'm not ever going to write a book without a book coach.

[00:28:22] Jennie Nash: It's not that I don't trust myself, it's that I trust the process of that collaborative energy around an idea so much that I wouldn't want to be without that. 

[00:28:33] Nicole Meier: Yeah. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. So powerful. And we need that. And that kind of just ties right back into my idea of why mentors matter, why book coaches matter.

[00:28:42] Nicole Meier: You know, especially in the writing world, we need just what you said, all of the things, plus someone to stand back and almost hold up a mirror and say, what is it that you are trying to say? Yeah. When you were speaking, I was thinking of one writer in particular. In one of my most recent groups, and she said to me after a few times of our group meeting together.

[00:29:05] Nicole Meier: Oh, wait a minute. I didn't realize that this wasn't supposed to be this hard charging, gaining sort of experience. Writing is supposed to be enjoyable. Writing is supposed to be saying that message you want the reader to take away by the end of the story. Writing is supposed to be encompassing all that you have to say about humanity.

[00:29:23] Nicole Meier: And that to me was like, okay, we can be done because even though you haven't written your full manuscript, now, you know, it's not this hard gaining sort of, it is, yes, we want to write with consistency, but it's not the same purpose, if you will. 

[00:29:39] Jennie Nash: Totally. It's not just getting words on the page. Just before you and I were speaking today, I was in conversation with a writer who's brand new to me wanting to be coached.

[00:29:52] Jennie Nash: And. I read some of the pages that they have for a book that is on a deadline with a publisher. So this person has an agent, they have an editor, they have a book deal, and they were feeling stuck and sent me these pages and that holding a mirror up to the writer because of some of the things that this writer said to me about what they wanted and what they were doing and why they were feeling stuck.

[00:30:17] Jennie Nash: I was able to read these pages and see. that they were fine. There was nothing wrong with them. They were fine. And she's doing a fine job and it would have been a fine book. That's not what she wanted. And that's why she came to me. She was feeling that yearning for more. Which is what the creative process is, a yearning to make a thing that doesn't exist.

[00:30:43] Jennie Nash: It's such a weird yearning, right? To spin this tale, to write this book, to have this thing that you made. I have to always remind myself that there are people out there that don't feel that yearning. 

[00:30:57] Nicole Meier: Yeah. 

[00:30:58] Jennie Nash: And I happen to be married to somebody like that, that never has that kind of impulse. And sometimes I'll look at him and I'll be like, wow, what's it like to not feel that impulse to make something, you know?

[00:31:11] Jennie Nash: But so with this writer, what I said to them was, this is fine. But I suspect that you don't want fine. And I suspect that that's why you're stuck. And that what you're looking for is how do you take this to a deeper level? How do you make this something bigger than what's here? How do we get from it's fine to something that might actually change somebody's life and impact them?

[00:31:38] Jennie Nash: And the reason I love book coaching so much and I will probably always do it no matter how busy I get running my company. Is that when that message lands, like I just told the story when it landed with me and here it was landing with this other person coming from me and she just said, thank you so much.

[00:32:00] Jennie Nash: Yes. A hundred percent. That is what I need. That is what I want. Can you help me? That's what we all want. We want someone to see into our yearning creative heart. 

[00:32:12] Nicole Meier: Absolutely. Well, I think that that's a perfect another segue into there are people listening right now who are thinking, I either want to work with a mentor book coach, or I would like to think about becoming one.

[00:32:30] Nicole Meier: And I'll tell you listeners right now, if you love to read and you love to write and you love maybe giving feedback in whatever form that is, I would really encourage you to ask yourself if this is something that's calling you and even just to do a little bit of research because to me, it is a growing, thriving business and opportunity and Jenny, you really shine the light for so many people who become book coaches, become mentors.

[00:32:59] Nicole Meier: And so I would love for you to share Two things, it's going to be two pronged. If you want to share for people who are looking for book coaches and editors, and also who want to maybe become one themselves. Well, that 

[00:33:13] Jennie Nash: is a great question for me to answer. So if somebody is thinking about working with a book coach and they're nervous about it, I would ask yourself.

[00:33:27] Jennie Nash: What am I worried about? What am I worried would happen if I did this? And you named it before. I think one of the primary concerns is someone will change my story and or a permutation of that. Steal my story or, you know, that sort of thing. Is that what you're worried about? I mean, a reputable book coach is never going to do that.

[00:33:51] Jennie Nash: And also, you You can't steal an idea. It doesn't work like that. Your execution of that idea is all your own. And I would turn it around and think, what benefit could I find if I were to invite somebody into my process and invite them to help me improve my story? How less lonely would I be? How much better a book could I write?

[00:34:14] Jennie Nash: Perhaps I would achieve a goal that I hadn't achieved such as actually finishing or feeling confident enough to bring that book out into the world or confident enough to pitch it. So really thinking about what you could gain from it. That's the first thing. And I think that second thing on that same topic would be people worrying about the money.

[00:34:38] Jennie Nash: And I don't ever think of the money that people invest in a coach to be a one to one correlation. Like, am I going to earn that money back? Right. And you might not, but it's not about that. It's about honoring your own creative self and giving yourself the best shot that you can and thinking about it more along the lines of something that you're doing For joy and for self improvement, and if you follow that path to its natural conclusion, you might end up with something that makes you money, but to think about the money in that different way.

[00:35:20] Jennie Nash: And then in terms of actually finding the right fit coach. I think the very best way is word of mouth, talking to writers that you know, who have used a coach, who write what you write and have maybe received some help. A podcast like this is a great way to get to know a book coach and who they are and what their vibe is and if they vibe with you.

[00:35:44] Jennie Nash: So if you're listening and you love Nicole as so many people do and write what she loves and is passionate about, this is a great way to. listen and discern and see if that's right for you. There are a growing number of podcasts with coaches and editors. So that's a kind of word of mouth. And then if somebody doesn't have someone to ask, I would send them to authoraccelerator.

[00:36:09] Jennie Nash: com backslash matchme. That's authoraccelerator. com backslash matchme. And we have a searchable directory of our certified coaches there. We have more than 220 certified coaches all over the world. 

[00:36:24] Nicole Meier: Wow. And our, 

[00:36:25] Jennie Nash: I know, our search engine is incredibly robust. People can search for keywords of all different kinds.

[00:36:32] Jennie Nash: You can search for time zone. You can search for lots of different criteria to find a list of coaches you think might be good. Go check them out and see what they offer and see how you feel about them and what that first step offer is with that coach. That's the path I would say to somebody who's looking for a coach.

[00:36:55] Jennie Nash: And for somebody who's thinking, I want to become a coach. I think we're going to share a URL on your site where they can get some info. Is that right? 

[00:37:04] Nicole Meier: That's right. So listeners, if you are interested in actually either of the answers Jenny's giving, how to find a coach or how to become a coach, I will add a link in the show notes.

[00:37:13] Nicole Meier: So make sure you drop down and you can always DM me on Instagram at Nicole Meyer writes if you just want to start a conversation and I can point you in the right direction. But Yeah, Jenny, I mean, I think if you just have any bit of advice or words of wisdom for people who are thinking about maybe they'd like to be a book coach too, what would you offer?

[00:37:34] Jennie Nash: I would say that if your reaction to hearing about book coaching is, wow, I would be great at that or wow, I would love that, to listen, that's your gut talking and it knows something about you and what you might love and. Nicole gave some great advice, which is learn about what it means to be a book coach and learn about what it takes and poke around.

[00:37:58] Jennie Nash: There's a lot of resources at my websites, which are authoraccelerator. com and bookcoaches. com. Lots of free resources to look at. And then the link Nicole will share, but just take some time to. study and learn and follow that instinct. 

[00:38:16] Nicole Meier: Great, Jenny. Thank you so much. I loved our conversation today and I hope listeners, you got a good nugget of truth out of this.

[00:38:24] Nicole Meier: There's a world of writers out there waiting to connect and also. find mentors or book coaches. And so the sky is the limit. Nothing is impossible. So hopefully this really sparked some good inspiration. Thank you, Jenny. And we can't wait to see whatever book comes out from you next as well. 

[00:38:42] Jennie Nash: Well, thank you.

[00:38:42] Jennie Nash: And I'm really excited about City of Books. It's an incredible read. I had a chance to read an advanced reader's copy. I loved it. So congratulations to you and enjoy your launch celebration. 

[00:38:55] Nicole Meier: Thank you so much. Okay, everybody until next time. Next time,

[00:39:03] Nicole Meier: if you want to check out my coaching programs for fiction writers, visit NicoleMeier. com. That's M E I E R. And if you liked this episode, I'd love you to take a minute to leave a rating and review for this podcast. This will help more writers like you to discover the show and to get going on their writing journey.

[00:39:24] Nicole Meier: Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, happy writing, everyone.