Trading Your Coffee Habit For Success: Coaching is More Affordable Than You Think
My critique partner, a wildly talented YA Fantasy author, once saved up $500 to spend one online hour with a Hollywood screenwriter expert and plot doctor. We had heard him speak at a national conference. His content was revelatory; his delivery was compelling. One hour of his attention focused solely, personally, on a writer's pages and book? Well, it sounded like a shortcut to success.
On the night after my critique partner's online coaching session, our group anxiously gathered to find out how her hour went. We hoped the expert screenwriter's Hollywood mojo would trickle down into advice for our stories. We knew all our friend had sacrificed to save that $500 and wanted it to be her golden ticket.
"It was awful," she said. "Worst money I've ever spent on writing."
The expert was patronizing, had not prepared for the hour by pre-reading her requested pages, gave her a rehashed version of generalities from his workshop, and broke the hour off before time was up.
She was flattened.
This incident happened years before I expanded my freelancing to coaching, but I never forgot the collateral damage that one hour had on my friend's confidence. How dare he? No, really. . . how dare he?
I've experimented with different pricing models over the years. Well-meaning business advisors suggested I have a firm booking model, where clients choose the same hour each week. Consistent income, they said. Great for me. Not so much for the clients with children and jobs and life's chaos. Over time, I trusted clients to drive the financial bus. Clients who had disposable income and a faster agenda met with me twice per week. Clients who struggled to carve out wiggle room in their time or budgets met with me once every four or six weeks. We took care of each other.
In an editor-client dynamic, clients pay for the hours an editor spends combing through a manuscript. If a writer makes the same mistake consistently, which almost always happens, the writer is paying the editor to correct that mistake at every instance. If, as a coach, I point out to a client that he has a habit of beginning sentences with unnecessary articles or dependent -ing verb clauses that cause issues with stimulus-response or simultaneity, the onus to change all instances of those mistakes fall to the client, on his time, for free.
For writers who are self-driven, who are hungry to learn and evolve, who need check-ins and lessons to know what to do and what not to do but who can take the knowledge and apply elsewhere, I contend that coaching is the most affordable way to get from point A to point Z. Efficient. Focused. Accelerated.
Fees vary widely. At $500/hr, our Hollywood friend was on the high end of the spectrum. At $50/hr., my fee falls somewhere near the middle. What you get for that hourly rate makes all the difference. My clients enjoy free communication between sessions, up to an hour between sessions for me to read and edit progress pages (if necessary), shared resources, and summary notes of what we discussed (if applicable).
Ask potential coaches what their fees cover. Will the coach charge you to respond to emails? What about reviewing pages you've revised? If you ask, "Hey, can you check if this chapter ending is enough of a cliffhanger?" will the coach get out her calculator? From these answers, it should be clear if the coach's focus is on invoicing or inspiring.