Whether you want strategic mentoring through the writing process, guidance and hands-on (or hands-off) help with building an author platform, a strong fast start in marketing your book, practical wisdom for self-publishing, or learning how to find an agent and draw the interest of a formal publisher, we can help you.
Our goal is to help you think and act, to live and work, like a successful author. Sometimes, all you need is assistance with some practical aspects of the challenges listed above. Sometimes you need author-specific career coaching—or life-coaching!—to shepherd your time, space, emotions, and physical & mental energies.
Either way, the first step is to schedule a free initial consultation with us to describe your struggles and we will craft a customized coaching plan or editorial proposal for you, a wise path that will take you from where you are now to where you want to go.
Once you have that plan to publish wisely, it's up to you whether you hire us to help you achieve it. Sometimes a practical plan is all you need, and we give you that for free!
If one of our colleagues or competitors would do a better job of meeting your needs, we will gladly refer you to them. If we think a certain book or webinar is all you need, we will recommend that. And if your needs rest squarely in our strengths, we will tell you that too!
If you choose to hire us to help you carry out your plan, you sign a Letter of Agreement and pay a 20% deposit-and-retainer (if we've given you an estimated total cost) or you can purchase pre-paid blocks of time at a discount right here on our website. We'll get started right away.
Again, if you decide to pursue our plan on your own, that's fine too! If you ever get stuck, you know who to call.
OR
Focus on your craft. Write well, and publish wisely!
As it happens, we have a couple of writers' groups that could help you do those things...
PRESS Writers Group
Need some accountability to focus your full, fierce attention on that post, poem, article, manuscript, or screenplay you need to write? Join us for a writing sprint (or a study sprint, or a brainstorming sprint, whatever you need it to be) through one of our PRESS writers' groups! Let us help you press toward your goals, gain a new awareness of your personal productivity patterns, and discover productivity hacks that work for you. We will work and PRESS together! Click here for more information, or just sign up and barge right in.
SLAKE Writers Group
While PRESS focuses on productivity, on pressing words out of your head and onto the page (screen, document, whatever), SLAKE focuses on writing craft (and, to some extent, the business of writing), on quality, not quantity. At a SLAKE meeting we critique each writer's work in turn, and discuss various issues that come up. We also enjoy a bit of tea and snacks together, and might occasionally read aloud an excerpt too (but don't count on it). Unlike its more vigorous cousin PRESS, SLAKE has always been—and will always be— free. It will cost you nothing but your pride, your anonymity, your loneliness, and the time and diligence required to prepare a submission every month. SLAKE usually meets on the last Sunday of the month, for several hours, at the Wordsmith office (or on Zoom, if the office is shuttered). Click here for more information, or just sign up and send us your first submission.