[Should I Quit Academia Series] On Writing And Becoming A Book Coach With Jennie Nash

Transitioning from academia to a writing-focused career or exploring new ways to get your voice into your industry can be exciting and overwhelming. In today’s episode, I am joined by Jennie Nash. Jennie is the CEO of Author Accelerator, a book coaching certification program that works with coaches and writers all over the world. 

We delve into the power of writing—whether for academic papers, books, or other forms of storytelling—and the importance of defining your purpose and audience. We also explore the role of a book coach, offering insights into how they help writers shape their ideas, navigate challenges, and find their voice. 

If you’re looking to refine your writing and connect with your reader more effectively, this episode is for you. Listen in to discover how to turn your ideas into impactful publications.

The Role of a Book Coach

A book coach helps writers shape their ideas, organize their thoughts, and develop their unique voice. They provide guidance throughout the writing process, helping authors refine their work and navigate challenges, such as procrastination or market positioning. A book coach is especially important for those who need external support to move from draft to finished product, ensuring the manuscript is aligned with the writer’s goals and the audience’s expectations.

Identifying the Purpose of Your Writing

Knowing why you’re writing is crucial. Whether you’re creating academic research, a memoir, or fiction, identifying your purpose helps guide your approach. For academic writers, this means understanding the larger impact of your work, while for trade writers, it involves aligning your book with the right market and audience. Defining your purpose keeps you focused and ensures your message resonates.

Centering Your Reader

Centering your reader means focusing on their needs and expectations while writing. For academic writers, this involves thinking about who will engage with your research and how your findings will resonate with them. Trade writing is about understanding where your work fits in the marketplace and why readers will care. Keeping your reader in mind creates a stronger connection and ensures your work speaks to their interests and needs.

About Jennie Nash

Jennie Nash is the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, a company on a mission to lead the emerging book coaching industry with rigorous training, high standards for certification, and support for coaches while they launch and build their businesses. Author Accelerator has certified 300 book coaches, who are working all over the world to help writers of all kinds do their best work. Jennie’s own clients have landed top agents, six-figure book deals, and spots on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. Jennie is the author of 12 books in 3 genres, including her Blueprint for a Book series for fiction, nonfiction, and memoir.

Want more?

• To learn more about book coaching, visit Jennie’s Subsack at Jennie Nash | Substack
• For a free training about building a successful book coaching business, visit Become a Book Coach Webinar_Organic Evergreen | Become a Book Writing Coach | Author Accelerator .
• To find an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach to help you write your best book, visit Find a Book Coach — Searchable Coach Directory — Author Accelerator

“In our training program, somewhere in the neighborhood of 33 percent of our students have been in academia. They have MFAs, PhDs, they have tenure, and all the things. They do come to a point where they’re not really doing the thing that they went into that area to do. They’re not really teaching, they’re not really nurturing, they’re not really sharing ideas. They’re going to meetings. There just seems to be all kinds of other pressures and things on them and they want a way to get back to the pure thing. When they turn to book coaching, it feels to them like this is actually the thing I thought I would be doing, what I wanted to be doing.”

“People are assuming writing is writing, is writing and books are books. And while that is certainly true to an extent, somebody who is writing in academia is doing something very different. So the advice for the poet, and the memoir writers, and the novelist, and the self-help writers, and business leadership books – you know all those other kinds of books – do not not apply.” 

We’ve opened the waitlist for our next cohort of Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®. Check out the program details and get on the waitlist here.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:

1. Our 12-week Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® program helps tenure-track womxn and nonbinary professors to publish their backlog of papers so that their voice can have the impact they know is possible. Get on the waitlist here!
2. Cathy’s book, Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing is available in print! Learn how to build your career around your writing practice while shattering the myths of writing every day, accountability, and motivation, doing mindset work that’s going to reshape your writing,and changing academic culture one womxn and nonbinary professor at a time. Get your print copy today or order it for a friend here!
3. If you would like to hear more from Cathy for free, please subscribe to the weekly newsletter, In the Pipeline, at scholarsvoice.org. It’s a newsletter that she personally writes that goes out once a week with writing and publication tips, strategies, inspiration, book reviews and more.

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