Writing a book might lead somewhere you don't expect
Article, October 2025
Published in The Brown Book, the journal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University
Around seven years ago, I began to write a book. Two years later, I finished it and changed the focus of my career from working as a solicitor in large banks to running my own business, writing, and coaching other writers to finish their books.
They say it takes a village to write a book. As an editor and book coach, I am one of the villagers. We read of alumnae’s and Fellows’ books in The Brown Book and — especially when we know the author — we admire their achievement. An author is the creative source of a book. They are the inspiration for it. Unless they employ a ghostwriter, the author puts in the hard effort of writing the text.
But nobody who wants to see their book read by strangers writes all alone. Writing a successful book in a chilly, dusty garret is a myth. Maybe experienced writers, writing decades, centuries, ago in a less competitive and narrower market managed it, but now?
You may be surprised by just how many other people are involved in producing a book and getting it into the hands of readers.
The writer’s family and friends, perhaps (although beware! Marriages and friendships can be ruined by well-meant feedback), but there are many more: the book coach who helps the writer to understand the market they are writing for, to get their ideas clear and to structure the book accordingly; multiple editors; for nonfiction, an indexer and a researcher or fact-checker; the book cover designer, and the interior layout designer. If the book is published by a third party then there might be an acquiring editor and a commissioning editor. In big publishing houses, up to thirty people might have input into a book: sales and distribution teams, marketing teams, PR teams. There might be a literary agent; there is certainly a printer and an e-book formatter and audio team. Writing a book is a labour-intensive, highly professional activity.
Let’s go back to the earliest stage, the moment when the writer first had a flash of inspiration and said to themselves, “I have to write a book about that!” That’s where book coaching comes in: a book coach supports the writer as they nurse their ideas for a book into the first draft. It’s a relatively new profession that developed out of the trend of publishing houses to stop employing in-house editors who would work with commissioned writers to help them write their books. Those in-house editors adapted and survived by turning freelance, and some of them trained new entrants to the profession. The organisation that sets the industry standard for certified book coaches is Author Accelerator™, run by Jennie Nash.
Jennie and I encountered each other when I was struggling to find the best way to write my first book. By that time, I had entered my fourth decade as a solicitor working in London banks so I was feeling I might have got the hang of this law thing by now. It seemed a good time to take writing books seriously. I got myself certified in fiction book coaching thinking that would just teach me how to write a better book, but the Author Accelerator certification course is completely practical. In order to qualify, you have to help real, live writers with their manuscripts in a kind of apprenticeship. I discovered I loved the client side of book coaching. The following year, I gained my certification in nonfiction book coaching and also learned how to undertake professional editing and indexing.
Like my book coaching colleagues across the world — over 400 of them in 2025 — I work with writers at every stage of their book writing journey. I have helped bring into life books as varied as a history of US transportation policy (Shifting Gears, by Susan Handy of UC Davis, published by the MIT Press), an investment handbook for young professionals (Ready-Made Investing, by Walter Coxon) and a guide for business leaders who wish to create positive change by working to reduce their sense of disconnection from themselves, each other, and from nature (Conscious Impact, by Susanne von der Becke, published by the UK’s Triarchy Press).
One of the great things about book coaching as a profession is its flexibility. You design your own business. You decide what type of books and writers you want to work with — do you love to work with fictional or factual worlds? Do you adore historical romance or elf-and-hero based fantasy or intellectually challenging contemporary literary fiction? Do you want to learn more about niche areas of history or bring complex philosophy to a general readership? You decide how much work you want to do. You decide at what stage of the writing process you want to offer your expertise: are you good at helping to shape big concepts and to probe ideas? Can you support a writer as they write the first draft, offering feedback, say, chapter by chapter? Would you rather analyse and assess a manuscript of, say, a whopping 650,000 words and show the writer how they can cut it down to make it more impactful and, perhaps, more publishable?
You work independently, as a freelancer, and so you choose your specialism, your hours, your charges, your place of work. It suits people who have responsibilities such as raising children or caring for seniors. It suits inveterate travellers: so long as you have internet connection for video calls and emails, you can coach or edit anywhere. One of my colleagues spends a third of her year on cruise ships (giving history lectures) and she fits in her coaching business very effectively.
So far, so good and apparently all rosy. But it’s a giant step to move from the corporate world to solopreneurship. It’s a step that can turn into a stagger. You wouldn’t want to do it on a whim. You have to take the step with your eyes wide open. Starting five years ago, I made the change slowly, gradually reducing my working hours as a lawyer and slowly building my book business. There are so many pits you can fall into, and missteps you can take, that the process can feel like tiptoeing across a minefield. In the early years, you are your own marketing department, sales team, R&D team, and accountant — and then there’s the actual work you wanted to be doing. The first year or two of business can be so confusing and emotionally draining I wrote a short book about it (of course!) called Dear New Book Coach—A Quiet Companion. It’s quite a good way to understand the emotional risks of making a career change into the book world, or, indeed, any other type of coaching career.
And so, here we are again, talking about writing books. Writing a book is hard work. It requires focus and commitment and a large amount of time. Up to two years is a reasonable estimate if you are writing nonfiction and are on top of your subject, or if you are writing fiction and have mastered your craft. Provided you keep your reader in mind and never compromise on the quality of your writing, and provided you pull in a team of experts to support you from the start to the finish, publishing a book is within your grasp.
You should try it some time. You never know where it might lead you.
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