Timothy: Creates arts podcast interview.
Amy Bernstein.
Hello friend.
This is Timothy Kimo.
Brian, your head instigator for create art podcast, where I bring
my over 30 years of experience in the arts and educational world.
Today, I get the privilege of talking with Amy Bernstein, who is a book coach,
which I had never heard of before.
And I met her through pod match, which is a service that allows
guests and hosts to connect together.
And if you are interested.
In being part of that, you can use my affiliate link.
That's podmatch.
com slash create art podcast.
And that's if you would like to, you know, be a, be a host or be
a guest or even an agency that is looking for guests for their podcast.
But back to Amy.
Now, she writes stories that let readers feel while making them think.
Now, her novels include the Patero Complex, the award winning The
Nighthawkers, Dreams of Songtimes, and Fran, the second time around.
Her non fiction book, The Nighthawkers.
Wrangling the doubt monster fighting fears and finding inspiration will
be published in the fall of 2024 about in September and pre orders
will be going on sale very soon.
Now, Amy is an award winning journalist, speechwriter, playwright,
and certified nonfiction book coach.
She also teaches workshops on various aspects of the craft of writing, and
she loves inspiring others to unlock their inner artist and explore all All
aspects of writing, publishing, and taking creative risks each and every day.
Now she reached out to me through pod match, and I'm so glad that she did.
And the way that she reached out to me is she said, Hey, Tim, I'm
not here to, you know, sell a book.
I'm here to help out your audience.
I really enjoy what you're doing.
And so that's why I thought she would be the perfect guests to
talk to us about something that we may not have heard of before.
I know I haven't heard of a book coach before.
But let's get on with that conversation that I had with Amy just recently.
All right.
So thank you everyone for joining us here today.
I have the privilege of having Amy on here with us.
Famous book coach, Amy, how is it where you're at right now?
Amy: It is an absolutely beautiful clear evening and cool and I'm watching the
lights twinkling out over the city.
Timothy: Excellent.
Excellent.
Well, let's jump right on into this.
As I said, before we started hitting record, I've never talked to a, an
author coach or a book coach before.
So from the get go, let's, let's hit it hard.
What does a author coach or a book coach bring to the game versus just
like having an editor or a beta reader?
Amy: Right.
So that, that is a really good question and people are often confused about the
difference among those kinds of folks who were there to support writers.
A book coach is someone who is really there to help the writer, uh, with the
totality of their journey, often from an idea through to structuring a book.
It could be nonfiction, fiction, memoir, and Helping that person, uh, as an
accountability partner by helping to help them, helping them meet deadlines, by
encouraging them to really stick with a particular project, by helping them to
problem solve in creative ways when the writer gets stuck, and many book coaches
also help on the, The end of helping folks find an agent or identify a publisher.
But I think the really most important thing that a book coach does is to
be that a person who walks sort of alongside the author writing is a very,
very difficult, lonely thing to do.
And when you have a book coach by your side, you really get some support
and structure and tools to help you.
To help you really find success on your writing journey.
So it's a, it's a very special and wonderful relationship.
Timothy: I, I wish I would've met you about, I don't know, I started writing in
1988, so , I wish I would've met you back then because I know for me as, because
I'm a writer, I do mainly poetry, but for the past couple of years I've been
doing the national novel Writing Month.
Amy: Sure.
Mm hmm.
Timothy: I have three unfinished novels, as I'm sure everybody does.
Amy: Well, and you know, and Tim, that's such a typical thing.
And so very often someone in your position will, will start a relationship
with a book coach and say, Hey, look, can you read 50 pages of this for me
or, or read this manuscript for me?
Um.
You know, I just can't figure out where to go from here.
I just can't finish the thing.
I can't see my way through.
And a book coach can really help you kind of excavate what's going on in that book
or in that project and whether you really can develop that vision to finish it.
The other thing I wanted to add about this is, you know, Many editors
work primarily with text, right?
They're really concerned with what's on the page.
Many book coaches do work with text, but a book po book coach, first and
foremost, is working with the writer.
They're working holistically with that person.
And we often joke in the book coaching community that we sometimes we're
doing a little therapy there as well.
And, you know, it's all sort of, it's all part of the job when, when
the writer gets distur discouraged and they lack confidence that book
coach is there to sort of help them see, see the path forward.
Timothy: That leads right on into, you know, what type of training
should, as an author for myself, what kind of training should I be
looking for in a good book coach?
Amy: Oh, that is a wonderful question because from the author's perspective,
what do you look for in a book coach?
Well, I think first and foremost, you want to find someone that you feel
really comfortable with and you can develop a trusting relationship with.
Trust is so key to this relationship because writing is a sensitive.
business.
We're sensitive about our work and you want to know that you're
working with someone who's going to respect and value what you're doing.
You want someone who's a really good listener, but
coaches do have to listen well.
And you want someone who's going to be empathetic, meet you where
you are as a writer and really help you to realize your vision and
be able to share in that vision.
So there's a lot of careful listening and you of course want
a book coach who's going to.
Really respect and value and pay close attention to, to your work.
Timothy: As far as a professional book coach, are there any
kind of certifications that I should be looking out for?
Like, you know, I would, if I'm looking for a tax attorney, I'm looking for
a CPA or certified financial planner.
Amy: I could have planted that question with you, but I didn't.
It's amazing.
I am, I am a certified book coach through a marvelous program
called Author Accelerator.
And Author Accelerator has, at this point, trained roughly, or maybe just
over, 200 book coach, book coaches in fiction, memoir, and non fiction.
And it is a very rigorous program for people who love to read, who love
books, who love the writing community.
And we are, we get a tremendous foundation with very specific kinds of
tools that we can use with our authors.
And we really are well trained in really best.
Best coaching practices.
And we work ourselves with a community of coaches who are
always keeping us on our toes.
And so it's a marvelous way.
If someone loves to read books and is looking to potentially make
this a side gig or a career, I can certainly recommend this path.
Timothy: Well, I'm definitely going to talk to my wife about that.
Cause she is a huge, a voracious book reader.
As you can see behind me, I've got a bookshelf there.
She's got about 20 of those bookshelves.
So, and, and she encourages me every day.
So that's probably why we're married kind of stepping a little
outside of book coaching here.
I want to talk for a second about imposter syndrome.
That's something we talk a lot about here at create our podcast.
I'm always telling people to, you know, tame that inner critic.
I think having a critic inside your head is a good thing as long as it
doesn't stop you from doing what you need to do, doing the actual work.
But for you in, in your personal writing or when you're coaching
somebody, how do you coach somebody to deal with that inner critic?
Amy: Yes.
And that is truly one of the things that everyone in every creative
field wrestles with at some point.
Let me just stop and say that I draw a distinction between
imposter syndrome and self doubt.
For me, imposter syndrome is often what arises when you're someone
who has had some, some success.
You've been viewed by the world as someone who's made a mark or been successful.
And then you take a look at that, that successful version of you and you say,
Oh my gosh, this, this can't be me.
This, they're, they're, they're complimenting the wrong person here.
I don't deserve this money or these accolades or these awards.
This isn't that I, I'm not worthy.
Right?
So imposter syndrome is almost where you've kind of climbed the mountain
or you're, you're well on your way up and then you kind of panic.
It's like, no, no, no, no, you all made a mistake now.
Whereas, something like self doubt, sort of deep inner self doubt that can
keep us awake at night, that can create, you know, anxiety and panic attacks,
that can really keep us from doing things we otherwise really want to do.
That really comes from, you know, a place, a couple different places.
One is, you know, a place of fear and vulnerability.
We, we, we are truly.
We truly care what other people think about us, and if we put up,
say, some piece of, of art or, or some creative endeavor out in the
world, people are going to judge it.
And what if they don't like it?
That means they don't like us.
It means we're not good.
It means we're not good enough.
And so you can go into this deep spiral.
And for me, I think part of what this is all tied into, particularly in the
United States, is a culture that really celebrates certain ways of succeeding.
And it doesn't really kind of let you experiment and fail too much.
And when, as creative people, whether we're writing, painting, making
textiles, baking, or even starting a new company, failure kind of is.
Part of the bargain and we need to be, we need to allow ourselves to fail
because that's one of the ways that we, you know, also address our doubts.
Timothy: Something I've always wondered is because I've worked with an editor
before, it was a great experience.
How do writers or how can writers balance the constructive criticism
that you're giving them, but yet it's still their voice?
You know, how do we.
Balance that
Amy: that is that is really a good question, a really good question.
And, you know, I've had experiences with editors who didn't do a very
good job of that on my work, which is to say I felt sort of put down
and made to feel dumb, which is not a constructive way to work with a writer.
So, A really great way to approach a writer as a book coach or as an
editor, let's say, so whether you're working holistically with the person
or primarily with the text, is to raise questions, is to ask the author about
intentions, ask, share perspective as a reader of their material of,
gee, here's how this made me feel.
Is this what you intended?
Or, you know, and asking questions like, I wonder whether, you know,
did you think about whether this character is also X or Y or G, I'm
curious as to why your protagonist did this thing at this time in the story.
So it's a lot about questioning and gentle and sensitive probing.
It's very much about suspending judgment.
We are not here to judge.
We're here to.
Prod and prompt and get that writer to think as deeply as
possible about their own work.
So the more that we, whether we're book coaches or, or editors, the
more that we can bring that respect to, to the writer and the writer's
intentions, the more we can really.
Build on trust with them and, and help them when they get stuck or when they
may not be doing something as effectively in their work as they might, you've
got that, you're in that position where you're coming from a place of
sort of respecting their integrity and helping them to, to move forward as
opposed to being critical and judgmental and, and making snap judgments.
Timothy: Absolutely.
Yeah, I, I, I was in a, uh, Writer's workshop little thing back when I lived
in Chicago and it just seemed like we had an English professor there and he was all
about just tearing us apart and I, you know, that's why I stayed away from an
editor for decades and that, that really turned me off to it for a long time.
But I, I'm loving your approach to this.
I'm, you know, it's, well,
Amy: you know, there's, there's this famous thing called the feedback sandwich.
Yeah.
And so the feedback sandwich is say something really positive about
the author's work, then offer a constructive criticism, and then
end again on a positive note.
And so that's the sandwich.
And, you know, we, we're not going to write our best if we feel attacked.
We're just, we're not going to do anything our best if we feel attacked.
It's not just writing, but writing is a particularly vulnerable endeavor.
And, you know, As a book coach, I'm always looking to support and encourage
my writers often in their darkest hours.
And they do have dark hours.
Remind them why they're doing this work and why they're so passionate about it.
And the other thing I just want to add quickly about this and book coaching
is at the same time, you want to be a truth teller to that writer.
But in the most positive and constructive way that you can, where you're really
seeing, you're sharing with them insights about perhaps what's not
working, because you know they have the capacity to, to, to revise something
and find the way that does work.
So it's that combination of things.
Timothy: After my years and years of writing, I have really and doing
podcasting, we're always trying to find that target audience for our
readership, you know, and finding that and defining that and especially new
authors, because, you know, I know my poetry books are not for everybody.
I, I know that I know who my audience is, but how do you help that author
kind of find that target audience?
Obviously we want to make, you know, millions and millions of dollars.
Yeah.
Be Joe Rogan on the podcast world.
But how do we, you know, help.
Define that target audience and for a wide audience that can
actually support us as writers,
Amy: right?
Again, such a key question.
One of the things that we always start with early in a relationship
when we're working with an author is the the author's why?
Why are you writing this?
Why are you writing this now?
And who needs to read it?
Who needs to hear what you're writing about?
I coach a lot of non fiction, and this is, it's very true
in fiction as well, for sure.
But in non fiction, it's also essential.
You know, why this message?
Why now?
And why you?
Why are you the person to write it?
And I think you could, you could certainly apply this in the podcast world.
You know, what are you passionate about discussing in your podcast?
Who really needs to hear that message?
And in the nonfiction world, I talk, we talk a lot about making sure we
understand the reader's pain points, because a nonfiction book will help
a reader to generalize for a moment.
to address a point of pain or a need that they have.
And you're helping them to sort of problem solve or find answers, right?
In fiction, we're looking to scratch that itch of someone who just absolutely
loves, you know, to, to read, to watch the detect, read how the detective is
going to solve, solve the crime, or they love romance and they just can't wait
to see how the lovers are pulled apart and then find each other in the end.
And so you do have to be really clear about what your why is for writing it.
And be clear about who your reader really is.
And a lot of that also in the book world, you have to do a lot of research.
You have to read a lot in your genre, a lot.
And you have to, you should be going, every writer should be going to the
bookstore and staring at the shelves and figuring out what is shelved where.
You know, what, what books are together and getting a sense of
what readers are looking for.
Timothy: So we've kind of hit that first point of, you know, before we even write
that book, we want to know why we're doing it, what's our target audience
as we're going through that book.
And there's a lot of people that have a lot of misconceptions about, you know,
the life of being a writer and all that.
Can you talk about some of the misconceptions about
the writing process that.
that, that people run into and how do you help the writer
address those misconceptions?
Amy: Well, I think it's funny because you could say that if you've met
one writer, you've met one writer.
Writers work so differently from one another.
And I just watched something recently I know it was the, the film American
fiction, which I, I recommend so strongly.
Is it?
Absolutely brilliant movie, but I I was yelling and screaming a bit
when I came out of the theater not because I didn't like it I loved it.
But because the main character is an author and he writes a
bestseller in like three seconds.
So He's on screen thinking about his story and then and just like the next thing
there it is So I think a misconception is that Books happen quickly.
They don't, by and large, good books do not happen quickly.
They take many months, often years.
It's a really slow process.
And another huge misconception is that by the time you're reading a
book that, that you say purchased, you think you're reading exactly
what came out of the writer's head.
And writers go through so many drafts and revisions, and then editors ask
for more changes and more changes.
So you are rarely reading The words on the page, the way they came out
of the author's head, you're reading a much later version of that, a
much more realized version of that.
And so that is a big misconception.
People write fast, the book, they just dash it off and this is, they
just write it once and it's done.
That is not true.
Timothy: Totally knocked out my misconceptions.
Absolutely.
Well, and, and cause as I said earlier, I take part in the
National Novel Writing Month.
Yes.
Thousand words in 30 days and even doing that, that those days go
slow because you're trying to hit a word count, which, you know, I
don't recommend it for everybody, but I think it's a good practice
to flex those muscles and all that.
Amy: I think that on the one hand, writing to a word count is very good for training
yourself to develop a writing habit.
It is not good for training yourself to write quality prose.
Those things don't usually go together.
I understand.
I mean, you know, NaNoWriMo is, is, is a, is a great exercise for getting
people to tell themselves, I am a writer.
I'm sitting every day and I'm writing.
I am a writer.
And that's really powerful.
That's emotionally and psychologically powerful, but that
doesn't make you a good writer.
That comes later.
Timothy: And let's talk about that later part.
Thank you for leading me into that.
I was just interviewing a, another author, uh, a couple of days ago.
And I asked him, I said, what's, you know, the worst thing about
writing and he said, marketing.
And so this kind of ties in with, you know, what do you need to do first?
Think about the audience, you know, and, and think about who this book is for and
what your why is, but then marketing, how do we, how do we survive marketing?
Amy: This has become the bane of every author's existence, including high end
authors who have big publishing deals with big pub, big five publishers, even
in this, even those elite authors are being asked to To do marketing activities,
most of us who are below that tippy part of the pyramid, even if we're published
by a traditional publisher, which is to say, just to make the distinction,
if you self publish, you're completely in control of the process and you do
everything you get, you get the book between the covers, you get the cover
design, you get your ISBN number, you get the thing manufactured somehow,
you decide where to distribute it.
You're in charge of everything, right?
Including the marketing.
If you're traditionally published.
A company is taking on a lot of those tasks for you at, with or without giving
you an advance as an author, and you still have to do a lot of marketing.
It's Incredibly difficult.
It's very painful for many authors to do.
It's overwhelming.
It's discouraging.
I've had countless conversations about this with people, and this
is how I'm going to boil it down.
At the end of the day, represent yourself.
And your book only in the ways that give you some sense of joy
and satisfaction and competence.
If you're not the kind of person who's ever going to go
on Tik Tok, don't go on Tik Tok.
If you're not the kind of, if you're the kind of person who has a lot of trouble
with speaking, speaking in, in, in public or like giving a reading in a bookstore,
maybe that's incredibly difficult for you.
You don't have to do that.
So you really, as an author, you really need to find what fits
you, what fits your personality.
Because if you do the things you're comfortable with and that give you some
measure of joy, you'll be representing yourself in your book nicely.
If you feel somehow compelled because the pressure is out there that
you're supposed to do everything, find umpteen bookstores that you
get your somehow get yourself to do.
And this, that's hard enough that you're supposed to be on Tik Tok and Instagram.
And Facebook and LinkedIn and threads and Oh, by the way, have
you done your blog this week?
And where's your newsletter?
This is driving authors crazy.
So you really have to curate, find the thing that you like to do and do that.
And if it's 1 thing, do 1 thing.
Maybe you'll add another thing later.
I think that's the only way to do this sanely.
Timothy: Amen to that.
You know, that goes for podcasting, that goes for painting, dance, all
of that because you're not going to be everything to everybody because
there's nothing to everybody.
Right.
Nothing to nobody.
So I know that's probably, probably not proper grammar, but that's okay.
It's a podcast.
Amy: Right.
And don't make yourself miserable.
You wrote a book.
How wonderful is that?
Your book is published.
That's amazing.
Now celebrate that in ways that you want to celebrate and don't
let that, that, that sort of marketing monster come crashing
down on you and, and spoil the fun.
Timothy: Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah, because it's supposed to be fun.
It's supposed to be something enjoyable that we do.
Amy: Exactly.
And here's the thing.
People think that, Oh, I'm never going to sell any books.
I've got a market, market, market.
I'm never going to sell any books.
You're not in control of how many books you sell anyway.
This is not in our control as authors.
You've got to let go of this notion that if you spend 15 hours a week
doing something that's called marketing, you're going to sell books.
There's no direct correlation here.
There are no promises.
So therefore I wouldn't sweat that.
It's going to be what it's going to be due to a broad number of factors.
Some in your control, many not in your control.
Timothy: Something you just said about newsletters.
I've just with create our podcast.
I have a newsletter that I do once a month and I give little ideas of what
people can do throughout the month.
And I understand that you have a newsletter on Substack.
Can you talk about that?
And, and.
Is having a newsletter, a marketing strategy, if people enjoy
doing that, that is successful.
Amy: It is a marketing strategy if you enjoy doing, cause I'm getting back to
my point, if you enjoy doing it right.
Some people it's, it's just agony for them.
So let me put this in context.
There's many different ways for an author to do a blog, which would just
be a shorter post or a newsletter, which you can, you can put out in sort
of an email system or, or on subsec.
You can do it.
To talk about your, your, your life as an author to reflect on some people's
newsletters are going to reflect on only their identity as an author,
and they're going to talk about the characters in the books or in the stories.
If they've authored a series, they're going to talk about
things related to all of that.
And their fans are going to be hungry for, for, for that.
book news from that author.
They want to know about the characters.
They want to hear about the process.
How did you, how did you decide that, you know, this was going to happen to her?
They want that kind of an inside, inside the writer's mind.
That's one marvelous type of newsletter that many authors put
out and they're very good at it.
I'm going to just, I just do something very different.
I'm putting out a newsletter on Substack called Doubt Monster, which for me is much
more platform and brand building in a, in a more sort of global long term sense.
And it's because I have a book coming out in the fall called
Wrangling the Doubt Monster.
And I'm fascinated by this topic about doubt and self
doubt among creative people.
And I'm having an absolute blast doing it.
Writing a newsletter every week that's addressing some other facet
or topic of this drawing on basically almost any, any thread that's out
in the culture and I love doing it.
I have a journalism background.
And so I love research and sort of writing and essay writing now for someone else.
That's going to sound like.
Pulling their fingernails out and they shouldn't do that, but I love it.
Timothy: Well, let's talk about this book that's coming out.
So, uh, when is it coming out?
When, uh, can we do pre orders on this?
I'm excited about it because I'm sitting here going, I need
another book for my bookcase.
Amy: I pre you have Craig, right?
Of course you do.
Or 10 or 10.
I think the, I think my publisher will have a pre link ready in
the next, well, certainly in the next, certainly this spring.
The, the, the whole thing is just, just now going to the
advanced review copy stage.
It's called Wrangling the Doubt Monster, Fighting Fears, Finding Inspiration.
And from Bancroft Press in September, this September, I wrote this book.
It's not a how to and it's, it's a short, compact.
illustrated book.
So it's really fun to turn the pages because the illustrations are great.
That's really for anyone who doubts that they are good enough or that
they have the talent or they can, they can make art in any form.
And it really is meant to inspire and let people know that they are really seen.
And it's the idea is that you can dip in and out of this book.
This is not some big tome that you have to devote.
Weeks to, to getting through.
And I think it's also going to be a tremendous gift book for, for creative
people to risk, to give and to receive.
So I'm, I am very excited about it.
Timothy: Well, you know what, as soon as they come up with a pre order, I am,
I'm going to be standing first in line.
Amy: People can get onto my, if you get onto my mailing list
through my website, um, amywrights.
live, you will be, you will be among the first to get the pre order link.
Timothy: You got it here first from create our podcast, folks.
It, you know, it's coming out in September to think about, you know, holiday season
will be coming up before we even know it.
So definitely pick up a copy of this book.
Well, Amy, I want to thank you so much for joining us here and for
really enlightening me on, you know, what a Again, I wish I would've
met you back in 1988, but you know what, I'm glad I met you now.
So thank you so much.
It's not
Amy: too late.
Timothy: And I've got a author just, you know, she's, uh, you know, on
the couch right now, half asleep.
So we're good to go.
Amy: Well, Tim, this has been wonderful.
for a great conversation.
Timothy: Absolutely.
Thank you so much, Amy.
So there you have my conversation with Amy Bernstein.
She has a book coming out in September, so make sure that
you get on her mailing list.
And that way you can get the pre orders as soon as they come out.
Now I have all of the links for Amy.
In the show notes there, her Twitter account, her sub stack account,
Instagram, her website, it's all right there in the show notes for you.
So make sure you check her out and hey, maybe you need a book coach.
I can tell you just the conversation that I had with her.
It's making me think, Hey, I need a book coach for my novels that
are coming out and to have somebody help me finish those novels.
All right.
Well, we've come to that part of the show where we're going to let you go ahead
and get on with the rest of your day.
I want to thank you so much for joining me here for this interview.
And I want to thank Amy again for the knowledge that she
shared with all of us here today.
Go check her out, go to our website and for sure.
You know, hire her on as your book coach, but for right now, I want you to go out
there, tame that inner critic, create more than you consume and go out there and make
some art for somebody you love yourself.
I'll talk to you next time.