We recently connected with Allison Wells and have shared our conversation below.

Allison, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?

It used to be that in order to see your book published, you had to wait to find an agent, then hope and pray a publisher would pick up your book. The process could take several years if at all. Now the world has shifted to DIY publishing which has brought a massive number of books to readers, but it has also brought book quality down a few pegs. I’ve seen countless books with great storylines get bad reviews because of poor editing. Or books that are grammatically superb but the storyline is subpar.
It’s an easily avoidable pitfall, however, if authors did a few key things before hitting publish on their book. This is where a trained, certified book coach comes into play. Much like how your favorite athletes have coaches, there are also coaches for writers – myself being among them. We are trained to help authors not only edit their books but to find plotholes, spot inconsistencies, and push authors to create the best story possible.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been in the writing world for over twenty years, starting off as a news reporter and now as one of a select few to be a certified book coach. With a degree in journalism, writing has been my passion for decades. Depressed with the world of news reporting, I began writing novels as an outlet. It took fourteen years for my first book to be picked up by a small press publisher, but within three years I had four novels published. Friends asked me to look over their written stories, and I found I had a natural knack for editing (or maybe it was the years I spent as a journalist and writing my own books).
I edited a few novels for friends and heard about becoming a certified book coach and took the leap to continue my education and dive deeper into the world of books and publishing.
Helping other authors develop their books, assisting them in finding an agent or publisher, or helping them publish independently is a magical experience. I live my dream every day as an author and as a book coach.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part is putting a smile on people’s faces. Helping authors have that “ah-ha!” moment with their manuscript or achieving their publishing goals is worth every second. As an author, giving the reader something to make them laugh or cry or sigh means I’ve done my job right. Seeing other people’s joy and enjoyment is definitely the best part of the job.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

It took me fourteen years to get my first published book. I had written a book, then another, then two more. I had several half-finished stories that were just gathering dust because nothing was happening. Inexperienced writers think that writing the book is the hard part. That’s the easy part. The hard part is what comes next. I wrote my first book in 2005. Then I wrote the sequel. I changed gears, however, and I felt my third book was incredibly strong, so when it was written I started pushing it to agents and publishers. I did this for years. Every other month I was sending it off to new prospective agents in the hope that someone would pick it up.
In 2018 I interviewed a local author who had written a children’s book and we hit it off. She told me about her publisher – a small press located about an hour from where I lived. Oh a whim, I submitted to them. Instead of my third novel, I sent my first one. They picked it up and it was published in 2019. They published the sequel in 2020. I heard about a different small press and felt it would be a good fit for my third novel and sure enough, they snatched it up – along with my fourth.
I now have eight books published, all within the past four years.
But It took fourteen years to get that first one. That is a long time of waiting and hoping and crying. But I didn’t give up. If you have a story worth telling, never give up.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.whatallisonwrote.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/whatallisonwrote
• Facebook: facebook.com/whatallisonwrote
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-wells-writes/
• Twitter: twitter.com/whatalli_wrote