Coaching & Mentorships
Let’s finish your book
I have written more than forty-five published novels and 3 non-fiction titles. I can help you figure out where and why you’re stuck because I’ve been in the same place. On any given Tuesday.
I’ve worked with many publishers including:
Why coaching vs. hiring an editor?
An editor reads your finished work and gives you ways to improve it. In a substantive (developmental) edit, they’ll tell you which characters to drop, which storylines need to be fleshed out more, and which ones can be dropped altogether to improve the cohesiveness of the novel. A line editor will read your work for sentence structure and style consistency. A proofreader will scan your work for typos or grammar issues.
A coaching mentor serves a different purpose — and, honestly, it’s what new writers need most. We work together to find the story you want to tell. Who are you targeting with your work? Are you trying for a traditional publisher? Or do you want your work to be Indie? Who is your target audience? We will work on those goals as we go. We fix the structure before you’ve written 90k words on top of a broken premise. We work on what is needed to bolster your story structure when the sagging middle turns to sand. Having an outside set of eyes gives a writer clarity that we can never see for ourselves — without the added pressure of rejection.
Who this is for
Three kinds of writer
You have never finished a book
You have three chapters and four beginnings. Nothing is wrong with you — you have simply never had anyone hold you to a deadline. It can be so easy to start your story and lose your way. Having a coach hold you accountable gets you over that familiar stopping point where so many writers stall.
Your draft has stalled
Everything was going along swimmingly until you got to the middle. Now every path feels wrong. How do I keep the reader reading, and reiterate my protagonist’s goals without being repetitive? How do I fire up that sagging middle? This is the most common place to get stuck, and the most flexible!
You are changing lanes
You are published, and you want to move genres, move houses, or go independent. Different problem, and one I have lived through more than once. In this place, it’s very important that you keep key elements of your voice while changing and expanding one. We will work together to pivot your career.
Fair warning
What I won’t do
Tell you it’s wonderful
Your mother will. Your writing group might. That is their job and it is a kind one. Mine is the other job, and you are paying me for it.
Write it for you
Ghostwriting is an honourable trade and it is not this one. The sentences stay yours, including the bad ones, right up until you fix them.
Promise you a contract
Nobody can, and anyone who does is selling you something other than editing. I can get the book ready. The rest is a market, and markets have moods.
Pretend it’s still 1997
I sold my first novel into a different industry than this one. I will tell you what is actually selling now, even when it is not what you were hoping to hear. Publishing has phases — right now, historicals are really selling, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t time for your contemporary. We will work on targeting your work and making you stand out in this ever-fluctuating business.
What it costs
Three ways to work together
All three start the same way — you send me a page, I tell you what I think of it, and then you decide.
Partial Manuscript Critique
$125.00
First 3 Chapters up to 7k Words
A full read and a written editorial letter, plus a 30-minute Zoom call to discuss changes and make suggestions. One of the biggest mistakes new authors make is starting their novel in the wrong place. We'll ensure your story takes off like a rocket and has enough conflict to fill an entire novel. We'll discuss characters, voice and motivations.
- Up to 7k words
- Notes on your manuscript & editorial letter about your direction.
- One 30-minute follow-up call to discuss.
Full Manuscript Critique
$1,000
one finished manuscript
A full read and written editorial letter. Also includes notes in the margins of your work. You'll get my honest feedback and plan for the next draft. We'll discuss the expectations of publication and ways to make your story stand out and be more marketable in this competitive publishing world.
- Up to 85,000 words
- Editorial letter, 5-7 pages
- Notes in the margins where they help
- One follow-up call to talk it through
Most chosen
Three-month mentorship
$2,850
three months
For the writer with a draft that has stalled. We meet every week, you send pages between, and we work together toward a finished, submission-ready manuscript. This tier gives you constant feedback and sustained momentum through the hardest stretch of a draft. My job is to make the manuscript as strong as it can be. Publication depends on the market, agents, and timing — none of which I can control. But I can offer you my decades of experience and insights.
- Twelve one-hour calls
- Pages read between every call
- Plot and structure work
- Email between sessions
Payment can be split across the length of the mentorship. If money is the only thing standing between you and the book, say so in your email — I would rather know.
Questions
The ones I am always asked
Is this coaching or editing?
Coaching, mostly. Editing happens at the end, to a book that already exists. Coaching happens while the book is being built, and it is as much about the writer as the manuscript — the habits, the nerve, the willingness to cut a chapter you love. If what you want is a line edit on a finished novel, the critique package is closer to that, and I will say so.
Do I need a finished draft to start?
No, and honestly the earlier the better. The expensive mistakes are structural, and they are far cheaper to fix at chapter three than at chapter thirty. Come with an idea and a willingness to be argued with.
Do I have to be writing Christian fiction?
No. It is where I have spent most of my career and I know that market in my bones — who is buying, what the houses will and will not touch, and which rules people repeat that stopped being true a decade ago. But structure is structure. I have coached general market women’s fiction and memoir and been perfectly useful.
What I will say on our first exchange is if I think your book belongs on a shelf I do not know well. Hard science fiction, procedurals — you would be better served elsewhere, and I am not short of work.
Can you actually teach funny?
I can teach where the joke goes, which is most of it. Comic timing on the page is structural — it is about the order of the information and how long you make the reader wait, and that is entirely learnable. What I cannot teach is whether you find the world absurd. If you do, we can shape it. If you do not, please stop trying to write funny, because readers can smell it.
Should I just self-publish?
Sometimes yes, and I will tell you when I think so. Indie is not the consolation prize it was when I started, and for some books it is plainly the better deal. It is also a business, and if you do not want to run one, that matters more than any argument about royalty rates. We will talk about which of the two your actual life can support.
Will you introduce me to your agent?
No, and be careful of anyone who says they will. An introduction is worth nothing if the book is not ready and it costs me something every time I spend one. What I will do is help you write the query and the synopsis, and tell you which agents are genuinely buying what you have written. Get the book right and it opens its own doors.
What if it is not working between us?
Then we stop and I refund what is left. This only works if you trust me enough to hear something you did not want to hear, and neither of us can fake that for three months.
Start here
Send me one page
The first one. I will tell you, free, what I think a reader would do with it — keep going, or put it down and go find the remote. Give me one week and you’ll have your answer.
I read a limited number of first pages each month — if the window’s full, I’ll let you know and add you to the next round.
And if you are nervous about someone reading it: everybody is. I have been publishing for nearly 30 years, and I still hand pages over with my stomach in a knot. It never stops. But I look at it this way: private feedback is far better than a bad review on Amazon! Caring only means the work is important to you and that is crucial in this business.
Or write to kristin@kristinbillerbeck.com directly.