7 Reasons Why Your Book Coaching Prices Are Too Low
7 Reasons Why Your Book Coaching Prices Are Too Low
The third in a series about pricing.
Parts 1 and 2 in this series on pricing:
I’ve spent a lot of time talking to book coaches about why they price their services so low and discussing what’s holding them back from raising their rates. These are the top seven reasons:
1. You Were Raised In a Culture That Does Not Value The Work of Nurturing
We live in a culture that doesn’t value the work of nurturing (think: mothers, teachers, physical therapists, organic farmers). We are raised to believe that the slow, behind-the-scenes work of helping someone get better at something (or growing tasty tomatoes) is not worth very much. There aren’t a lot of role models showing us a different truth.
2. You Are Working In An Industry With a Particular Pricing Practice
There is a long-standing tradition among freelance editors and proofreaders to charge by the word or the page. This makes it easy to determine the difference in price between editing a 45,000-word middle-grade manuscript and a 90,000 epic fantasy, but this practice does not translate very well into book coaching. Performing a one-time copyedit is more transactional than helping a writer figure out a protagonist’s motivation, pin down two different timelines, write a complete draft, and overcome their fear of sharing their work. Both contribute powerfully to the creation of a good book, but it’s a very different kind of work that demands a very different pricing model.
3. You Believe In Race-To-The-Bottom Pricing
Many people who run their own businesses in the writing education space believe that the primary way to get clients is to join freelance marketplaces such as Fiverr and Upwork. The structure of these marketplaces leads users to look for the lowest price instead of the best person to help them reach their goals. Book coaches who are doing the high-value, long-term work of nurturing writers convince themselves that the only way to get clients is to offer lower prices than everyone else.
Another way this limiting belief shows up is when book coaches depend on some outside organization to give them work at a low fixed rate. They believe that this is the only way to get clients and therefore they believe that accepting the low rate is their only choice.
3. You Have Bought Into The Myth Of The Starving Artist
A lot of people believe that writers don’t have the money to invest in their success. This “starving artist” myth comes from the belief that writers don’t make a lot of money — and there is obviously some truth to that reality: It’s difficult to make a living as a writer. But book coaching clients are not necessarily depending on their writing income to survive. They are entrepreneurs and CEOs, doctors and lawyers, directors of nonprofits and university deans, project managers and baseball coaches, preschool teachers and plumbers. They are seeking out book coaching because they desperately want to flex their creative muscle, to raise their voices, to tell their stories — and they are ready, willing, and able to pay for someone to help them manage the overwhelming task of writing a good book and trying to publish it, regardless of whether or not they make any money from their writing.
5. You Have Bought Into The Myth Of The Bestselling Writer
This myth says that the only people who know how to teach others to write a good book and get published are those who have already done it. It ignores the fact that not all bestselling writers have a talent for teaching or nurturing other writers and that many people who are not themselves bestselling writers might be exceptionally good at it. We accept this truth in other professions. As I am writing this newsletter, the Boston Celtics are one game away from sweeping to a win in the NBA finals. Their head coach is a 35-year-old guy named Joe Mazzulla who has never played in the NBA. He was a college basketball player whose team made it to the Final Four, but never to a championship game. Coaching is its own form of genius.
6. You’re Customizing Packages For Every Client
If you take every client who knocks on your door — no matter what they are writing, no matter what their goal, no matter what where they are in the process, no matter what their genre, no matter what their topic, no matter what their skill level — you are necessarily going to be making up a price for every single one of those projects. This customization leaves no room for repeatable systems and processes that can bring efficiencies to your business. It often leads to chaos and when your business is in chaos, it’s really difficult to build a solid pricing practice.
7. You Don’t Believe In Yourself.
I put this one last but it’s the primary reason that underlies all the others. If you are feeling like an imposter, or like someone is going to call you out for not being a bestselling writer, or like you can’t charge very much until one of your clients becomes a bestselling writer, you need to find a way to shake off that doubt. Trusting yourself is the first step to convincing your clients to trust you — and to pay yourself the kind of money you need to run a sustainable business.
Learning to trust yourself is an ongoing and never-ending endeavor, but there are three main components to it:
Identify the weaknesses in your business model (including your pricing!) and your skills and work to improve them by reading books, taking classes, and collaborating with other book coaches.
Make sure you are working in your Zone of Genius.
Do excellent work in serving your writers.
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Want to learn more about pricing your book coaching services?
Join me on July 12th for a masterclass on The Art of Pricing. We already have the minimum number of participants for both the session for new coaches and for the session for experienced coaches — and there are still seats available. Check it out HERE.