Conquering Self-Doubt with Amy L. Bernstein
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Cathy:Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating your third act with style, power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy Worthington.
Merry:And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you conversations with successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, and people with vision who are making a difference in the world.
Cathy:Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the ride on each interview, recounting the journey our guests have taken to get where they are, inspiring you to create your own path to success. Let's get started.
Cathy:I'm Cathy Worthington. Hello, and welcome to late boomers, the podcast where we explore the adventures, choices, and challenges of life after 50.
Merry:And I'm Merry Elkins. We know that as baby boomers, we've made a lot of big decisions in our lives, careers, family, lifestyle, and now we're making choices that shape this exciting new chapter of our lives.
Cathy:But let's be honest, sometimes those choices come with a little voice of doubt. Should I try something new? Am I too old to start over?
Merry:So today, we wanna remind you doubt is normal. It just means you're stretching, you're growing, and pushing beyond your comfort zone. The trick is not to let doubt stop you from moving forward.
Cathy:And that's why we're so excited about our guest today, Amy L. Bernstein, who literally wrote the book on this topic, Wrangling the Doubt Monster.
Merry:Amy's a writer, a coach, and creativity advocate who helps people navigate the very fears that hold them back. Her book is all about identifying doubt, managing it, and turning it into a tool for growth instead of a roadblock.
Cathy:So let's dive in and learn how to wrestle that monster and win. Amy, welcome to Late Boomers.
Amy L.Bernstein:Thank you so much, Cathy and Merry. I'm really glad to be here with you.
Merry:And so great to have you. Tell us how we stop doubting ourselves so much.
Amy L.Bernstein:Well, I think if we stop doubting, then we're not really human. I do think that I do think that doubt is a normal part of our psychological makeup. It's, fine to doubt. Doubt can even work sometimes in our favor. If you think about, for example, a surgeon who pauses before making an incision, you know, that surgeon may having that moment of productive doubt, which is, is this the right am I do I have the right tool?
Amy L.Bernstein:Is it the right limb? And so doubt can be a force for good, but I often say, you know, it could be a friend or a foe. So my my my belief is that we can learn to manage our doubts and we can learn to walk with our doubts, but we'll never entirely banish doubt nor should we.
Merry:So you make a friend of doubt?
Amy L.Bernstein:I think sometimes it can be a friend and but very often, particularly people who are real in really creative endeavors, whether that's entrepreneurs or or writers or or people of, you know, doing anything creative, it may not feel like your friend. It may be that voice that's sort of telling you over and over and over, oh, you know, what made you think you could do this? You're probably not good enough. It probably isn't going to work. You're going to fail.
Amy L.Bernstein:You're going to be embarrassed. You know, everything's going to go wrong. Those thoughts are such a normal part of taking risks. Right? And but we don't grow.
Amy L.Bernstein:As you said at the outset, Mary, we really don't grow without taking those risks. And so part of what we need to do is let the sort of scary aspects of self doubt, which feels like this giant set of brakes sort of making us come to a screeching halt, We need to let those breaks operate, and yet we don't sort of stop going forward completely. So we live with the scary aspect of that, but you keep going forward. It really is a pretty significant mindset change from calling a halt to going forward with doubt as opposed to letting it stop you.
Cathy:Great. Yeah. I love that. Love it. Well, how can people bring more creative joy into their lives, especially at midlife and beyond?
Amy L.Bernstein:Yes. You know, this is something like you, I mean, I have lived this and and, really learned so much about doing this. I had a high paying stressful job for a number of years. And while I was doing well at it, I was not feeling like my full self. I wasn't reaching my full potential.
Amy L.Bernstein:I wasn't being who I thought I needed to be. But in order to become who I really needed to be, I was going to have to make a lot of changes. I was going to have to find different kinds of work that didn't take up so much time, and I was going to have to open myself up to being so vulnerable to doing trying new things, particularly in a field like writing. So I think, you know, we have that day in midlife where I think we wake up and we like the Peggy Lee song, we say, is this all there is? You know?
Amy L.Bernstein:Like, the song is guess is that all there is? If that's all there is, my friend. You know? So I think and so we we, you know, we've I I did what I call the big pivot, and many people in midlife do this big pivot or they approach it, and I I really have to advocate for it. It's so scary, and it means beginning to make small changes in your life that add up to bigger changes so that you can open yourself up to becoming the person you still want to be and you don't feel feel that you are.
Amy L.Bernstein:It's about making
Cathy:become space sources of joy then. Yes.
Amy L.Bernstein:Oh, absolutely. It's scary. It's incremental. You know, people often think that if if they're discontent and they wanna be living a different life, they think, well, I can't do that because I have to base basically just blow up my life, and I'm not going to do that. You don't have to blow up your life.
Amy L.Bernstein:You know, you can you can look for ways to continue to earn a salary maybe in a job that where the commute is shorter, so you take back time. I did that. Where the responsibility is a little bit less so that it's not weighing on you twenty four seven. I did that. And in doing moves like that over a period of time, I began to open up more space in my life for taking a course in playwriting, for meeting other writers, for getting to understand how theater works, for starting a novel.
Amy L.Bernstein:So I made space for these things that I didn't have room for, but I really did do it gradually, and I changed that balance over time. I want everybody who approaches this pivot point when you wake up and you say, you know, is that all there is? Know that you have the ability to make these incremental changes that will add up to the big change that will really transform you. It just doesn't have to be all at once. It doesn't have to be that scary.
Merry:Oh, that resonates. I have two questions. Do you have that sounds like a great way, a real strategy to manage self doubt. Do you have other strategies that you can actually list for us? And also
Amy L.Bernstein:Yeah. Mhmm.
Merry:Also, on the second question, kind of well, it it ties in. It's all about handling rejection. So two questions.
Amy L.Bernstein:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's talk about some strategies for how to sort of manage doubt. And, again, this is all in our heads.
Amy L.Bernstein:Right? So that we're always talking here about mindset, about making deliberate psychological shifts in the way we think. So one of the things that I talk about is how we learn to change the channel in our heads as if we had multiple radio dials in our heads. And it so happens, and this is particularly true for women, that dial is set to the self critic station. Right?
Amy L.Bernstein:I did this wrong. I wish I had done this differently. I probably shouldn't do x. Right? It's there.
Amy L.Bernstein:And so it's just we live there. Right? And that's in our heads. What we need to do is give ourselves permission to tweak that dial because what you're the station you're not playing is all the your own greatest hits, all the amazing things you have already done, the successes you've already have, the the the the ways that you've exceeded your expectations, you know, throughout your life in so many different ways, large and small. So you need we need to change the channel and play that station because, you know, the doubts the doubts are not, as I said at the outset, it's not that they're going to evaporate.
Amy L.Bernstein:I don't think that's realistic. But we have to do a reset here on the balance so that it's not just the negativity. Now there's something very related to that. It's one thing if you change the channel in your own head, so to speak, or at least you play that nice channel a little more often. Right?
Amy L.Bernstein:But it's really important to surround yourself with allies that could be people or it can be institutions that are going to support the changes you want to make, the journey that you want to take, the pivot that you feel called to do. You wanna surround yourself with people and institutions that will say, go for it. This is great. You're on the right track. We support you.
Amy L.Bernstein:It may feel weird and crazy and strange, and you feel like you're stepping off into thin air. That's okay. We're here to be with you and to catch you.
Cathy:That's so true, Amy, because so many times
Amy L.Bernstein:Yes.
Cathy:Family and friends can pull people down.
Amy L.Bernstein:That's absurd. Them. That's right. So our our adversaries can be people paradoxically who love us. They can it can be a partner, a spouse, a sibling, a best friend, and they will pull us down because they don't understand our intentions for ourselves.
Amy L.Bernstein:They don't see or share our vision, and people are afraid to watch other people make change. It's scary. It's scary to watch. And they're they're so afraid you're going to fail and be hurt. They don't want that for you.
Amy L.Bernstein:And so I this I give this little bit of advice. When you're surrounded by adversaries, you need to distance yourself from them politely. If these are people who are close to you in your life, that doesn't mean you stop talking to them. But what you do is you say to them, you know, I can see that my desire to do x is making you uncomfortable, and maybe you don't fully understand it. That's okay.
Amy L.Bernstein:This is something that means a lot to me, and I'm going to do it. And if you'd rather not talk about it anymore, that's fine too. We don't have to talk about So you give them permission to pull away from that piece of you, and you give yourself permission to go forward without having to have that adversarial conversation every time you see this person.
Cathy:Yeah. That would be such a
Amy L.Bernstein:relief you. Thanksgiving and go to Thanksgiving and tell your whole family, Yes. I'm yes. I'm writing a book. No.
Amy L.Bernstein:It's not finished. No. I don't know when it'll be finished, but I absolutely love the joy of writing. I'm on an incredible journey of exploration, learning so much about myself, and now we don't have to talk about it anymore. Then it's Woo hoo.
Cathy:It it does everyone. Right?
Merry:Yes. It does. It does. Are you listening world? That's
Amy L.Bernstein:right. Yeah. And say it listen. Don't worry about me. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm okay being vulnerable right now.
Amy L.Bernstein:This is good for me. Don't worry about me.
Cathy:I love that. I love rejection aspect then? Well, this is something.
Amy L.Bernstein:Yes. I I I've come a long way on this. When I was, when I pivoted and began to really sort of write full time, write creatively full time. I've always been a writer. I was a journalist and lots of other things, but creative writing, you know, fiction, and all these other things.
Amy L.Bernstein:I would get all this rejection, and I had this I would feel terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. But I had an epiphany one day about it, and I said to myself, oh, you are in the middle of your life, and you're practicing a new craft and a new set of skills that you have not mastered, and you're expecting to step out of here and just be an expert.
Amy L.Bernstein:Well, that's not how this works. Look how long it took took you to get good at all the other things you've done. So you're starting out as a novice. When you're new at something and you're not that good at it yet, of course, are going to reject your work. If you just haven't you just haven't worked through your craft yet, you need to keep working on it, and you will get better, and you will have more success.
Amy L.Bernstein:And that is exactly what happens. So rejection feels like this direct hardwired line between the the entity that or person that is rejecting us and our self self esteem and self self worth, we think it's a hardwired thing. It is so not that. When we are being rejected, there are so many factors that have nothing whatsoever to do with our merit as a person, as a creator, as an artist, as a human being, as anything. Has nothing to do
Merry:with not personal.
Amy L.Bernstein:It's not personal. It it it is a business decision. It has to do with that their their their mix of needs. What do they need right now? You just don't happen to fit that mix.
Amy L.Bernstein:You may be, coming in with something too similar to what somebody else is doing, and that's it's there's no slight on the merit of what you've done. It's just it could be a timing issue. It could be you know, in the writing world, publications are oversubscribed as our agents all the time. They get thousands of submissions for tiny windows of opportunity. You cannot expect that you are going to thread that needle every time.
Amy L.Bernstein:You just can't, and those factors are not in your control. And so there are there are market conditions that surround reasons for rejection that have nothing to do with your merit as a creator, And you have to remember Brilliant. You have to remember that.
Cathy:And and on that note, how how does a writer know the best way to publish their work?
Amy L.Bernstein:Well, writers now have more up to we're we were you and I, we were all talking, you know, the at the at the top or before we we hit record about how everybody's got a book. Right? Well, that's because there are more ways than ever to publish a book because the power to publish is now in the hands of the individual. This was never true through history. Right?
Amy L.Bernstein:Mhmm. The the the ability to publish was a highly controlled endeavor. You know, you had a a printing press or a letter press or an offset press. It was a big mechanical thing, and people had to be in a room and run run the paper and the ink and make the thing. Right?
Amy L.Bernstein:Now, of course, with a few miraculous presses on a keyboard, and some cover art, you have a book. So
Merry:If you're good at that.
Amy L.Bernstein:If you're good at that. Well, there's lots of people to help you now with that even if you're not good at that. There are many, many people willing to help you to do that, to self publish. So I think that, you know, there's many ways to publish now. There are many paths to publishing.
Amy L.Bernstein:The fundamental thing I'd like to remind people is that if you take great joy and pleasure and satisfaction in writing and you want to share that work with the world, then you'll find the path that is right for you because there is a path for everybody. And, you know, a lot of people, they just wanna write their their memoirs for their family and publish that and put in put in pictures. That's great. It's I I've seen people take tremendous dwarf in that. I helped a woman.
Amy L.Bernstein:She just wanted to get her own book of poems published, and I helped her to to go through that process. But, you know, I also work with authors who have agents and, you know, intended to have best selling best selling books that kinda change the world. I work with those people too. So it depends on who you are Mhmm. What your motivations are, what your ambitions are, and kinda where you are in your own in your own life.
Merry:Mhmm. Yeah. Do you have any very exciting stories to tell about people whose books actually became bestsellers?
Amy L.Bernstein:Well, I'm I have I I can't say anything definitive, but I have a client right now whose book is with her second book is with a big five publisher. In other words, one of the really one of the really big ones that you've heard of. I don't know which one, but one of the really big ones. And, you know, we're waiting to see whether that editor, you know, is going to take the book. And I know that if they do take it, I'm pretty sure it will be a bestseller.
Amy L.Bernstein:I again, I it's I feel like it's not my place to say too much about it because it's too premature. But, she's really, really good. This is nonfiction. She's super confident in her field. She meets she feels a great need, and I think it's just got bestseller written all over it.
Amy L.Bernstein:Mhmm. So I have a couple other clients in different in different phases of of getting ready to be published and a friend who's coming out with his own book, this week as well. So, it's very exciting to watch authors take this journey.
Merry:What what do you think are the key trends in publishing today?
Amy L.Bernstein:It's a really, really complex business right now because there are many different things happening that seem incredibly contradictory. I could I don't have the stats at my fingertips, but I've looked them up in the past. You can find data to tell you that nobody is reading anymore. Oh.
Intro:And then you can find data to tell
Amy L.Bernstein:you that there are more books being published than ever in the history of mankind. So if nobody's reading anymore, what are why are all those books being made? Now a lot of them are self published. So there there's there are lots of contradictions. You know, you can find statistics that will tell you that teens, teens don't read.
Amy L.Bernstein:They they they they they don't read in school. They don't read whole books. They just read screens full. They read on their phone, and then you'll find out that the young adult market for books is booming. So who's reading those books?
Amy L.Bernstein:So Mhmm. There's a lot of there are a lot of weird contradictory forces going on in publishing right now. Labor is really expensive. Paper has gotten really expensive. So the big publishers are taking fewer and fewer risks, because they only wanna they only wanna publish really big bets.
Amy L.Bernstein:Like, 30 they wanna know that they're gonna sell 30,000 copies of from the get go. So because it's so expensive for them that they're just they're taking fewer risks. So lots and lots of really, really, really good books are having trouble landing great publishing deals compared to maybe years past because it's the the competition's so intense, the costs are so high, and the risks are are bigger than ever fight, as a business.
Merry:What about the smaller independent publishers if you don't go to the big five? And you're not doing a hybrid, which I'd love for you to explain to our audience what that is, how does that work?
Amy L.Bernstein:Yes. I'll explain hybrid, but let me answer the first part of the question. Something really interesting is going on with the smaller publishers right now. When we say smaller publisher, this could be a company that's run by one or two or three people. They may be operating virtually.
Amy L.Bernstein:They may use contract freelance editors for their books. So they're not a big entity the way Simon and Schuster with a big shiny set of offices, you know, in in Midtown Manhattan is. Right? So this that's the one way of thinking about what we mean by small slash independent publisher. They're gonna be a much smaller operation.
Amy L.Bernstein:I know for a fact that agents, top literary agents, are now shopping some of their their clients' books, their authors' books down the food chain, so to speak, to the smaller publishers because they can't get deals with the really big publishers. So one of my I I have four books with four different publishers, and one of my publishers told me not that long ago that agents are approaching him with properties that would have been placed with, like, you know, a Harper Collins or a Simon and Schuster back in the day, but that window is so narrow now that they're not. So
Cathy:Oh, that makes it really hard on the people farther down the food chain.
Amy L.Bernstein:That that's right. And, you know, and even and even these smaller presses, as you can imagine, they're not they can't bring out that many books a year. They just can't. So they're only bringing out a handful of books a year, and they're still getting hundreds of subs of submissions from authors. So it's an it's an incredibly competitive cutthroat cutthroat situation.
Amy L.Bernstein:And this also gets us back to rejection. When your manuscript is rejected, sure, it's possible that the book isn't that strong. It's possible that you need to rewrite it or it needs another editing pass, but it's also incredibly possible you're just playing in a very, very, very, very crowded marketplace, and not everything finds its home right away. It can take years.
Merry:Is there a marketplace that isn't as crowded these days? Because I know that go ahead.
Amy L.Bernstein:No. I mean, only real well, no. I mean, only really if you self publish because then then you control everything. You control how to make the book. You control all the profits.
Amy L.Bernstein:You control how to market the book. So that's you're you are a one person band doing everything. So in the sense in the sense of your opportunity is wide open, I mean, that's how, that's how Colleen Hoover got started. She she self published her first couple of books.
Cathy:Oh. I didn't know that about her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Cathy:Tremendous success after that.
Amy L.Bernstein:Yeah. Right. But then you asked about you asked about hybrids. I'm sorry. I wanted to answer the question about
Cathy:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Amy L.Bernstein:Hybrid. The hybrid has come a very long way. The the term the you might think of it as assisted publishing. So when we talk about literary agents, that is a gatekeeping role. They are gonna come between you and a, usually, a fairly large or reputable publishing house, and they're gonna help make decisions about whether your book is ready for prime time, and they're gonna go shop it for you to the editors that they know.
Amy L.Bernstein:So there's a real gatekeeping function there. When you go directly to a publisher, they're gonna offer you a contract a traditional publisher, publisher, they they will will offer offer you you a a contract. Contract. They will, make the whole book for you, and it costs you nothing. They take all the risk.
Amy L.Bernstein:When you go to a hybrid publisher, you are going to be taking on some of the risk because you will be paying to partially subsidize the making and or marketing of your book, but you don't have so many gatekeepers. In other words, they'll take it in. They may or may not do some editing for you and basically get cover art for you and help you to make the book. They do this in different ways with different degrees of control and different lengths of time, but it is it is a lower gatekeeper approach where you take on some of the risk. You it'll it can cost anywhere from 8 to 10 to $15,000 for the author to go that route.
Amy L.Bernstein:But then you have a partner as a publisher who will collaborate with you on covers and on and on marketing, and you will earn a higher royalty rate than you would in a traditional deal where you did not invest
Cathy:in your success.
Merry:Is Sure. Do they do they market your book more than, say, a big five?
Amy L.Bernstein:No. No. Absolutely not. The the the small presses and the hybrid presses do a combination of things. The hybrid presses may offer you marketing packages that you can pay for separately for additional marketing assistance, social media campaigns, what they call what they call virtual book tours, things of this nature, trying to get you on podcasts, for example.
Amy L.Bernstein:You can pay to play for that. In traditional publishers, the author has to carry a lot of the burden of doing the marketing. Some publishers will still submit for, awards and things on your behalf. Some will split the cost with you, but the authors have to assume a lot of the marketing responsibilities almost across the board.
Cathy:That's tough because, you know, you you have your writer hat on and you're writing, and now you have to become this business entrepreneur, which some writers wouldn't be good at.
Amy L.Bernstein:Lot of writers hate it, hate it, hate it. They don't want to do it. It's not what they feel good at, and so there's a tremendous amount of angst in the writer community, believe me, because I have these conversations all the time. Tremendous angst among writers about how do I market my book? How do I know I'm doing it right?
Amy L.Bernstein:Am I doing the right things? And they try and do everything which you don't need to do. And
Merry:then they can't write.
Amy L.Bernstein:Well, they can't write, but but what the right what authors especially newer authors, what they really lose sight of is that at the end of the day, you can't you can't force a reader to materialize. You can't you can't just because you put something on social media, it doesn't equate to an automatic reader or a buyer for your book. This this notion about the TikTok influencers and book talk, I mean, half of that is mythology. Are there winners through that? Of course, there are, but it's it's a unicorn kind of situation.
Amy L.Bernstein:It's not that not that many in the universe of people who write. So you can't expect that all this marketing that you do translates into sales. It doesn't. Nothing translates into sales. You can't you can't control it.
Amy L.Bernstein:You know? You can't
Cathy:control it. Oh, wow. Well, let's talk about your book for a minute.
Merry:Yeah. Let's talk about your book. Wrangling
Cathy:the doubt monster.
Amy L.Bernstein:Yep.
Cathy:Was shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Award grand prize and won first place in Book Fest twenty twenty five in the inspiration and self help category. Yep. Bravo. We wanna congratulate you on that. How did that make you feel?
Amy L.Bernstein:Well, case in point, I felt great. Did it did it did it end up selling more books? I don't think so. But you know what? It's validation is a great thing, and you need to take it where you can where you can.
Amy L.Bernstein:And, basically, what it says to you is that your message resonated, what you said communicated itself to other people, what you intended, worked, it came across. That's the that's the satisfaction. That's the real satisfaction. Because to me, at the end of the day, it's always about communication.
Merry:Yeah. And and and knowing that somewhere with someone, even if it's one person, you've made a difference.
Amy L.Bernstein:Exactly. That you make a difference. And I know this book has absolutely made a difference for for people. Yes.
Cathy:Well, know on your website, you have a phenomenal doubt quiz that you offer. Maybe mention about that too.
Amy L.Bernstein:Oh, yes. The doubt decoder quiz. I don't know whether you can you can post this in some some notes with the show, but we created
Cathy:We can.
Amy L.Bernstein:My publisher and I created this wonderful quiz that basically helps you to see how doubt affects every aspect of your life from friendships to finances to time management. It asks all these questions about the way doubt is operating in your life, and are you a high doubter or a low doubter or a medium doubter? And you you'll get a you'll get a you'll you'll get, you know, results from the quiz. And what we're finding from just preliminary results from, like, several dozen is that time management is one of the biggest, areas of doubt for people. They just feel like they're really not good at how they manage their time.
Amy L.Bernstein:They have doubts that they're doing it well. So why we're waiting to see whether as we get more data, whether that finding is going to hold up, or whether there will be there will be a shift. And not surprisingly, there are a couple questions that lean a little bit toward the political, not too much, but about, you know, do you have doubts about the country or whatever? Yes. People do.
Amy L.Bernstein:Do you think the news is trustworthy? People are doubtful, things of that nature. Yeah. Mhmm. It's really interesting.
Amy L.Bernstein:So I do encourage people to take the quiz. It's about ten minutes, ten, twelve minutes.
Merry:Well, in order to write that book, you must have had some doubts yourself.
Amy L.Bernstein:You bet. This book came out of, you know, I'm a lifelong doubter. And as I've gotten older, I've gotten better at seeing how it's operated in my life and really held me back. Jobs I didn't go for, graduate degrees I didn't pursue because I thought I have no business even trying to do that. I have doubted myself my whole life, and I realized what a powerful way what a powerful force it is in shaping decisions, in in having you close doors before you even, you know, know what's behind them, and it it really could do that to you.
Amy L.Bernstein:And I think I just reached that point in my own life where I said and, again, this is part of that big midlife pivot. And I said, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm just gonna go for it, and I know I'll still have doubts. But the difference is I won't let the doubts stop me. And so what I say in relation to that is failure and success walk through the same door.
Amy L.Bernstein:And if you don't hold the door open to failure, you cannot also hold the door open to success.
Merry:Oh, that's powerful.
Cathy:Learned. Yeah. I like it.
Merry:I like it a lot. And and in a way, is that advice you'd give to a a writer just starting out?
Amy L.Bernstein:To a writer starting out, my advice is always write and write and write. Study your craft. Find really trusted people who understand writing to give you valuable feedback that's not your friend. It's not your sister unless they're professionals. You and so you need to find a writing community that understands what you're doing, that can help you to refine and improve your craft.
Amy L.Bernstein:And don't worry about publishing so much in the beginning. Worry about becoming the best writer that you can and being passionate about this your storytelling. That's where you need to start.
Cathy:Yeah. Right. So
Merry:you also operate as a book coach and a writer. So talk about what a book coach is, and who needs one?
Amy L.Bernstein:A book coach can be a couple of different things. A book coach can be writing is a deeply, deeply lonely and doubt filled kind of business. Right? And it's really hard to know what you're doing, if you're doing it right, if you're doing the right thing, if you're working too slowly, if you're making wrong turns, if your material's any good. It's very hard to know this when you're writing on your own.
Amy L.Bernstein:A book coach can function as an accountability partner to help a writer continue to make progress on a difficult project. A book coach can also help with the nitty gritty of helping a writer figure out how to structure a story, whether it's a novel or a non fiction book, whether that's an expose or a memoir or history, whatever it might be, to help them to find the right structure for that book so that they're gonna tell the story in a way that really connects powerfully with readers. One of the challenges that I see and other book coaches see over and over and over is people who might have a pretty good facility with a sentence, they but they have no there's no structure to what they've written. So you get fifty, sixty, 70,000 words, and it's not going anywhere. There's no big there's no sense of momentum.
Amy L.Bernstein:There's no sense of it building. There's no sense of what's the point? What why are you telling me this now? So that's structure. So a book coach helps a great deal with using specific tools and working closely with a writer.
Amy L.Bernstein:A book coach is also very much that champion. You know, when the going gets tough, it's like, you can do this. I'm gonna help you through this. I'm gonna talk you off the edge of the cliff because you're feeling burned out, and we're gonna keep going. I work with clients, oh, easily, a year, eighteen months, two years at a stretch.
Amy L.Bernstein:If they're starting from a rough idea for a book and we have to get all the way through to a really sharp compelling book proposal that you could take to an agent, that takes a long time. So if you're doing that with a book coach, you've got somebody to guide you all the way through. If you're doing it on your own, you often get lost. So the question is to who needs a book coach, it's a writer who's really serious about writing a book that's gonna have some commercial viability, and they wanna write the best book that they can.
Cathy:So if it's such a long ongoing process, how do you structure your fees?
Amy L.Bernstein:I structure my fees in phases. So I have a contract with a client, and we'll have a four to six month contract where we agree to cover certain things. It might be a one, two, or three phase contract just depending. And when we get and if when we get there and you can't know exactly when, but I've gotten pretty good at estimating. When you get there, then often, if we need to keep going, we'll just have a new contract and kind of renew our vows, so to speak.
Amy L.Bernstein:We'll figure out we'll figure out, okay, what are we where where are we now in this process, and what's what are our goals for this next phase? Because you can't you can't see foresee it all at once.
Cathy:No. Of course, you can't. And in addition to that book coach hat that you wear, Amy, tell everyone what services you offer and tell us what you'd like our listeners to have as a takeaway today.
Amy L.Bernstein:So as a book coach, I do work with people on serious nonfiction books, and I will very selectively work with memoir if there's a sort of activist component to it, meaning that the memoirist is also someone who's active out in the world and there's a kind of a social component to the book or historical component. So, they can visit my book coaching website, wordfirstbookcoach.com, and I'm sure you can put that put that in writing. And Okay. I I really wish I wish for every creative person, whether they're a writer or in some other field, I wish for every creative person to give themselves the permission to be be vulnerable, to break new ground, and make progress in this thing that you want to do or that you want to become. It is never too late to try, and it is never too late to start something new.
Amy L.Bernstein:And risk is a joyful thing because it helps us see ourselves in a new light. And that's that's really a gift if we've been on the planet for a couple of years, to be able to sort of reimagine ourselves. So I say go for it.
Cathy:I love that. Thank you.
Merry:Yeah. Thank you so much. That's very, very inspiring. I mean, when you think grandma Moses did her painting at 80, and now eighty's young. Right?
Cathy:Yes. And seeming like it's younger all the time.
Amy L.Bernstein:Every year. Absolutely. Yeah.
Merry:Yeah. I have a neighbor who just turned 100, and she's walking around, and and she received a plaque from the city of Los Angeles where Kathy and I live that she's one of the cent what is it? Centigenerian?
Amy L.Bernstein:Centigenerian. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm I'm about to become a grandmother for the first time, and so that's that's a milestone in in my Granny.
Merry:Oh, absolutely. Going forward. Congratulations.
Amy L.Bernstein:Thank you.
Cathy:Thank you. For sure.
Merry:Thank you, Amy. Our guest today on our late boomers podcast has been writer and book coach Amy L. Bernstein. Her website is amywrites.live. And, also, would you tell again what your other book other site is so that people can come to
Amy L.Bernstein:you for
Intro:They can find the book coach they
Amy L.Bernstein:can learn all about all about my books on the website you mentioned. They can find a link to the book coaching from the website you mentioned, but the book coaching website is wordwordfirstbookcoach.com.
Merry:Wordfirstbookcoach.com. And you can see what Amy offers and take her doubt quiz as well. So thank you again, Amy. It's been a joy.
Amy L.Bernstein:Thank you, Mary and Kathy.
Cathy:You're welcome. We at the Late Boomers Podcast wanna invite you to please subscribe to our YouTube channel even if you are listening on the other platforms. We're thanking you in advance. Please, you can find us on Instagram and Facebook also. Next week, we will have as our guest, Susan Normandy Eisenberg, who writes about vocal and performing arts.
Cathy:Thanks for listening today, and thanks again to our guest, Amy Bernstein.
Cathy:Thank you for joining us on late boomers, the podcast that is your guide to creating a third act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at lateboomers.us. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of late boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry:This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use of the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful third act with your own style, power, and impact.
