Having a Coauthor is Awesome. More Writers Should Do It.

Here’s how to make it a successful partnership

In September 2021, I was a brand-new freelancer trying to figure out how to make money. I had just left my full-time job of almost nine years as an acquisitions editor, and I was nervous. Would I be able to replace my income? What about the loneliness? I was super close to my team at the publishing company and I missed them already. I also lacked a mentor and guide, which I’d always had when I was an acquisitions editor. Who could help to steer me in the right direction and help me make decisions for my career?

I pondered all of these things in my heart.

And then I met Liz. 

My very first freelance gig was as a subcontractor for an editor who was launching a new agency with her boyfriend (now husband) Jeff Goins. Liz was Jeff’s right-hand woman, and she was heading out on maternity leave. We were ships passing in the night—me coming into the agency, and her going out—and yet, in our first conversation we immediately bonded over our shared journey toward motherhood and our freelance ambitions. 

When she came back from maternity leave in January 2022, Liz left me a long rambling Voxer message that was basically, “Wanna be freelance friends?”

Umm… YES.

We started meeting together regularly to encourage each other, share network connections, and help each other solve problems. We brought two more writers/editors (now three) into our meetings to form a monthly mastermind. 

Liz and I continued chatting about our shared dreams:

• We both believed that more authors could get published than currently do, if they only knew how and had the gumption to keep trying

• We were both borderline obsessive about understanding book structure. We saw books like elaborate puzzles, with rules governing the process of putting them together. We saw this truth clearly—but for some reason, a lot of authors didn’t seem to get it. We felt this was a key missing piece to their success.

So we decided to create a course together. And then, with some encouragement and prompting from our friend Kent Sanders, a book and a podcast, too. 

Et voila! Hungry Authors.

Liz and I have shared this story several times on various podcasts, but today I want to talk about what happened next. How did we work together for several months to write a book? And then to start a business together? 

My experience partnering with another author has convinced me that coauthoring is an incredible way to get a book done, and something that more (especially first-time) authors should consider. 

First, what exactly is coauthoring?

Coauthoring is writing in partnership with another writer, but it differs from collaborating or ghostwriting. As coauthors, you share everything: the responsibilities of getting the book done, the credit on the book cover, the advance given by the publisher, and the royalties that come from book sales. How you split up the responsibilities is up to you (maybe one person does the majority of the research, while another person tackles the writing itself—or maybe you split the writing evenly). And how you split the rewards is up to you, depending on whatever feels fair—50/50? 60/40? 75/25? 

With ghostwriting, the author hires a writer to write the entire book for them, for a flat fee. The writer isn’t considered an “author” on the book, and the author’s name is the only one on the cover. The writer typically doesn’t receive any royalties from the book.

With collaborating, the author hires a writer to write some or all of the book for them (like ghostwriting), but usually with cover credit (i.e. “AUTHOR NAME with COLLABORATOR NAME”). The collaborator might be paid a flat fee, or they might agree to a flat fee + royalty share. 

Liz and I are 50/50 coauthors—meaning we split everything 50/50: the writing, the advance, the royalties, the cover credit, the marketing responsibility, and any and everything else that comes along with having a book together.

The Benefits of Coauthoring

When I was an acquisitions editor, I worked with a lot of author teams. I saw examples of author teams who worked well together… and plenty of author teams that did not. (I’ll share one horror story in a minute!) I could see up close and personal the benefits and the drawbacks of coauthoring—and how to do it well. 

So let’s dive into the benefits. What makes coauthoring worth it? 

Here’s what I’ve experienced from working with Liz:

You share the burden of writing the book. Especially for my very first full (50k+ word) book, I was nervous about writing that much! Would we really have that much to say? Thankfully, I felt more confident knowing that I wouldn’t have to do it alone. (And our final word count was around 60k, so plenty to say!)

You have someone to hold you accountable. I knew that there could be no procrastination—because Liz was counting on me! If I didn’t fulfill my end of the bargain, I would be letting us both down. 

You experience less imposter syndrome. Here’s what I mean. There were plenty of times when I thought (sometimes I still do): Who am I to write this book? But then I think about Liz, who is an incredible pro and writes amazing manuscripts—and I realize that we are (or at least she is) the perfect person to write this book. And we take turns holding that belief for the other person on the days when we don’t feel good enough.  

You have double the effort of championing the work. It’s easier for me to advocate for this book because it’s not just for me—it’s for Liz, too. It doesn’t feel like bragging when I’m doing it for both of us, not just myself.

You can divide and conquer. While we love doing things together, we also don’t mind doing speaking engagements and podcast interviews separately, too. That way we cover more ground and get the word about Hungry Authors out to an even wider audience. 

The Drawbacks of Coauthoring

Liz and I  have had an incredible experience. Enough that I want more authors to start their publishing journeys off with a coauthored book and experience these benefits as well. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that it always works out. 

Here are some of the drawbacks:

When something neither of you wants to do comes up, someone needs to be willing to pick up the slack—and it can’t always be the person who’s a people pleaser, otherwise resentment will start to build up. I’m the people pleaser in our relationship, and I’ve had to get better about asking Liz to take certain things on and admitting when I need help. Thankfully, she also makes this easy by being such an active and engaged partner, and being truly willing to help shoulder the burden of everything we’re doing.

It’s easy for someone to feel left out. Even though Liz is listed first on the cover and we want people to view us as equal partners, people often email me, sometimes without even copying Liz—something that bugs both of us. I think they do this because I have a more public brand online, and therefore maybe people feel like they “know me” better. They also do it because I’m the people pleaser. I always copy Liz back into the conversation, and we’re very good about making sure both of us are always included in important conversations. 

You can’t always make decisions quickly. Liz and I have a regular time to meet on Friday mornings, and we respect each other’s space outside of that time. So if something comes up on Tuesday that needs a decision, we’ve gotten better about saying, “It’ll have to wait for Friday.” And you know what—nothing has been dire. There haven’t been any bad consequences that have come from waiting until the other person could be consulted. 

Jealousy is a real thing. Even when you commit to being equal partners, other people do not always treat you as equal partners—and that creates a gap for jealousy to creep in. Is my partner getting more attention for this thing we both did together? There have been times in this process when each of us has seemed to get more of the notice/attention. But we both honor the commitment we’ve made to each other, and it’s each of our responsibility to make sure the other person is fully included and recognized.

But not every coauthoring team is like us.

When Coauthoring Goes Wrong

When I was a brand-new acquisitions editor, I inherited a book project with two coauthors who absolutely hated each other. They had written multiple bestselling books together in the past and had teamed up to form a thriving consultancy. But over the years, their partnership had soured. They couldn’t stand each other. They each thought the other person was cheating them out of their fair share of… well, anything and everything: namely, the recognition, money, and intellectual property for the work. 

They were on contract to write one more book (which they both said would be their last, thank God!). And I was the lucky, brand new editor who got to help them figure out how to do it.

It was my first major experiment in mediation and professional boundary-setting—a skill I would have to hone extensively in the following years. But it came with some hard lessons.

As soon as these authors found out that I was their new editor, they each started calling me with complaints about the other one. They would tell me the exact opposite stories, so I had no idea who to believe about what. Plus, they expected me to communicate decisions to the other person for them, as their go-between—which I was completely unwilling to do. They were wasting hours of my time. We were getting nowhere, and the book was stalling.

Finally, I had to put down some boundaries for my relationship with them, and for their relationship with each other.

• All communication will be written, not handled via phone. If one of you calls me, I’m not going to answer but will respond in email to both of you. 

• All decisions for the book need to be made as a group, with both of you on the email chain. 

Basically, I told them: Figure out your sh*t and then inform me together of what you want to do. 

This strategy worked. They were able to muster up enough of a collaborative spirit to bring the book across the finish line. Miraculously, it was a bestseller. But that experience taught me a lot about how not to be a coauthor.

So what should you do instead? 

How to Make a Coauthoring Partnership Work

Liz and I are not lucky. (Although we both feel that way!) Our partnership works because of the commitments we’ve made and the norms we’ve set around communicating with each other. 

Here are my best tips for making a coauthoring partnership work. 

Choose Carefully Who You Partner With

I can’t stress this enough. Liz and I are both fairly mature people who know how to regulate our emotions. That doesn’t mean we don’t get stressed, but we know how to handle it. We’re not vindictive. We easily forgive. We’re honest about how we feel. In many ways, it’s not dissimilar to a marriage. And you should go into your coauthoring partnership with all of the same caution and transparency as you (hopefully) would with a spouse.

Questions to ask yourself about your potential coauthor: 

• Is this person emotionally safe and sound? Do they take care of themselves?

• What strengths do they bring to the table?

• What weaknesses do they also bring to the table? Can you help to make up for those?

• On the flip side, what are your strengths and weaknesses? Will this person be able to help you where you are weak?

• How do we each see the world? 

• What parts of the publishing process do we each really care about? 

Find out your Enneagram numbers and talk about how you view work and reward. Liz and I had a super helpful impromptu coauthor therapy session with Christa Hardin on our podcast that really did help us work through some potential areas of conflict and some big feelings we were having!

Plan in Advance!!

Here’s another secret benefit to book mapping—it helped us avoid a lot of potential conflicts by forcing us to think through every part of the book in advance. Before we even thought about divvying up the writing, we mapped out every single chapter together, so that what we were writing wasn’t just the intellectual property of one person, but was truly a reflection of both of our thinking. 

Of course, each person brought their creativity and ingenuity to that table in their chapters, in how the message was delivered—but the ideas belong to both of us.

Don’t Be Too Precious

I think a large part of what makes our partnership work is that Liz and I are not overly attached to anything in our book. It also helps that we’re both professional collaborators, and we know how to have diplomatic conversations about book decisions. I have strong ideas about things like book proposals, but I didn’t write that chapter and I trust Liz’s expertise and different way of talking about proposals. And I know that it’s a fantastic chapter that is going to help a lot of authors write their proposals and get published. 

Liz and I didn’t get the subtitle we wanted—but we knew in advance that wasn’t a battle we were going to bother fighting. 

We both keep the main thing the main thing. The point is to get a high quality book out into the world. As long as we’re doing that, we’re happy. 

Working with a traditional publisher is about compromises, and so is coauthoring. 

A lot of authors are precious about their content, or about the cover, or about the title. Many writers say their book is their “baby” (which it’s not, by the way) and they want to try to tightly control things. 

If that’s you, then don’t coauthor with another writer. 

Have Hard Conversations Before You Sign Anything

Of course, you’re going to have to have an honest, potentially hard conversation about the responsibilities, the recognition, and the rewards (advance & royalties).

Here are the questions to discuss:

• Who should write what? 

• How do we want to handle all of the back and forth between us and the publisher? 

• How should we split the advance, if there is one?

• How much should each of us receive in royalties? 

• Whose name should be listed first on the book? When in doubt, choose alphabetical order. 

Conduct a Premortem Together

Spend some time imagining what could go wrong. Ask yourselves:

• If this project flops, why will it flop? 

• What are we going to do to avoid that from happening?

This is an exercise called premeditatio malorum, and it helps to set you up for success, identify potential problem areas in advance, and avoid blame when something goes wrong.

Be Transparent

Your coauthor partnership cannot work if you’re not transparent with each other. Liz and I talk about everything—from the personal stuff impacting our day to the professional decisions we’re making and the other projects we have on our plates. 

When it comes to making decisions for the book, decisions get made together, and we’re always copied on communication with our publishing team. As much as possible, we present a united front to the world.

Set Boundaries Around Communication

I mentioned already that we have time set aside for Hungry Authors every Friday morning. And outside of our Friday meetings, we communicate via Voxer, where the other person can get to the messages when they have the time and inclination. Liz and I know that if we truly need something asap, we can text each other. But almost nothing is urgent.

Have a Team to Consult for Help Decision-Making

We have an amazing mastermind group whom we go to for help with decision-making. It hasn’t happened yet, but if we were ever at odds on a decision or needed a tie-breaker, we would take it to our mastermind group. These are the ladies we trust and who know the ins and outs of our businesses best. They have the context and understand our broader goals to help us make the best decisions going forward.

Trust Each Other

There are always going to be times when the relationship is tested. Remind yourself that you got into this partnership for good reason. 

As I told Liz when we were reviewing the page proofs for our book, “We have to trust the earlier versions of ourselves knew what they were doing.” That’s how it is with a partnership sometimes, too. The trust is vital.

Create an Exit Plan

Almost nothing can last forever. Liz and I know that. When we started this thing—the book, the business, the podcast—we had a conversation about how to end it. We said if either of us doesn’t have the heart for it anymore, then we shut it down and we each go our own way, splitting everything 50/50. No, we didn’t draw up the business equivalent of a prenup (though it’s not a bad idea!). We made the decision to trust our future selves that we will deal with each other fairly. 

Obviously, partnering with another author is a risk. If you do it with the right person, though, I don’t think you’ll regret it.

What questions do you have around coauthoring? Would you ever try it?

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Tips & Tidbits

Imagine if Kids Responded to Their Teachers the Way Agents & Publishers Respond to Authors

A funny, tongue-in-cheek reframing of rejection if you need something to pick you up today, from one of my favorite British authors! Read it here. My favorite:

Dear Mrs D,

Thanks for the homework task. I think there’s something in there, but at the moment it feels a bit vague and undercooked. What I suggest is that you go away, think about it, and resubmit it in a different form. It could be really good, so stick with it!

Practical Ways to Support Your Favorite Writers

Want to know how you can help authors? Here are some great suggestions from Sarah Westfall, whose book, The Way of Belonging, is coming out June 11. 

Are Ghostwriters Responsible for Authors’ Errors (Lies)?

Author Kristi Noem has been getting into trouble for some apparently untrue stories that were included in her book. Many people have blamed her ghostwriter—Noem herself even appeared to shift blame onto her ghostwriter. But that’s completely unfair. Here’s why.

On that note, a funny parody

If you’ve been following the Kristi Noem book debacle, then enjoy this humorous parody of her response. 🙂

Totally Random, But Relatable to Me

I enjoyed this article on how the, umm, contribution of 100 nuns’ urine played a pivotal role in the development of IVF drugs. As someone who has had to pee on a lot of sticks and dip a lot of sticks in pee and taken many IVF drugs and taken the DUTCH test and also followed detailed instructions about how much water to drink for the optimal bowel positioning for a uterine examination—I appreciated this candid look at the importance of urine in the process of getting pregnant.

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What’s Bringing Me Joy

Yesterday, our neighborhood was hit by a tornado at about 6am. It took down multiple trees in the neighborhood, which crashed into the power lines, totaled our neighbor’s truck, and knocked a chunk out of another neighbor’s roof. You can read more about the storms across the midwest and the South here. Thankfully, no one here was hurt, and my husband and I are grateful that none of the massive pines surrounding our house came down on top of us. Now the skies are blue and I’m looking forward to a weekend of gardening, paddleboarding, and reading!

Wishing you a happy and safe weekend,

Ariel