Exploring Life & Business with Candice Davis of Go Write Something

Today we’d like to introduce you to Candice Davis.

Hi Candice, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
A painful divorce, when I had no source of my own income, shifted my world and sent me running to the one skill I knew I could rely on—writing. I’d left my career in banking years earlier to homeschool my daughters. During that time, I’d poured every spare hour into studying fiction writing. Little did I know that “hobby” would save me.

I’d never believed I could make any kind of living from books or publishing. After all, the only person I knew when I was growing up who had published a book was my mother’s high school friend—and she was a nuclear physicist. Making a living with books seemed like an out-of-reach dream to me.

After my divorce, when I needed to create an income, I thought of diving headlong into a writing career, but my mentors warned me against it. “There’s no money in books,” one of them told me. They were award-winning authors, so I believed them. Then, one day, a friend told me he knew someone who was looking for a ghostwriter. Antonia Lofaso, a contestant on “Top Chef,” who made it almost to the end of her season, was looking for someone to help her write her first cookbook. And even better than a ghostwriting gig, she was willing to give co-writer credit.

We wrote the book proposal together and eventually sold it to Avery, a division of Penguin Books. And in an overnight success that was years in the making, I became a working writer. But one writing job wouldn’t feed my family.

After losing a precious piece of family land during the Great Recession, I decided I needed to develop a reliable source of income. I needed a business. I continued to take on ghostwriting and freelance editing jobs as they came in, but soon found I was doing as much book coaching as anything else, and I loved it.

Over the years, I ghostwrote more than thirty books and edited three times as many. In the meantime, I studied coaching, developed my coaching skills, and designed one-on-one and group coaching programs for authors who care deeply about the quality of their books. My coaching practice allowed me to help many more people write the books they dreamed of writing.

Today, I host “Nothing but the Words,” the podcast that gives you everything you need to know to write a phenomenal book. My book-coaching clients are mostly coaches, speakers, and entrepreneurs. However, I’ve never lost my love of fiction and continue to coach fiction authors as well.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As anyone who owns a business can tell you, entrepreneurship is rarely a linear journey. After I remarried, there were times when my clientele dried up, and I had to ask my husband for a cash infusion to keep going. Those moments stung, for sure, but they also inspired me to learn more about successfully running a business and really commit to scaling.

At one point, I entered into a partnership with two women, experts in their fields, and it seemed promising. Although we had some successes, we each had our own businesses to run, and the partnership turned into more of a burden than a benefit. Our partnership agreement made it fairly easy to disentangle our interests, but there were a lot of unfulfilled dreams left behind. I’d allowed myself to get distracted rather than stay focused on what I wanted to do in business in the first place.

I’ve had clients disappear in the middle of projects, and I’ve even run into people who tried to steal money from my business. The challenges have been very real, but for the most part, the people I’ve encountered in the business world have been incredibly supportive, and with the support of my husband, my children, and my other family and friends, I’ve built a business to be proud of and which has benefited many, many people.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Go Write Something?
I’m incredibly proud of the results my book-coaching clients have created with their books. Some have gotten traditional book deals with publishers like Harper Collins, Penguin, and small presses. Others have used their books to land major media appearances, like the “Today” show, “Good Morning, America,” “Dr. Phil,” “Dr. Oz,” and Steve Harvey’s radio show and former television program. Several of my clients have landed on bestseller lists or increased their speaking fees to five figures because of the quality of their books. Their success is truly my success.

I currently specialize in helping coaches, speakers, and entrepreneurs write nonfiction books, especially memoir, how-to, and professional or personal development. We focus on ensuring the quality of their books exceeds their readers’ expectations so my clients can use their books to share their message, grow their business, and positively impact lives.

As a coach, I specialize in helping my clients develop a structure for their books and a framework for their processes. I help them tell their story honestly, even when it’s hard to tell. My focus isn’t on how fast you can write a book. It’s on how well you can write it within a reasonable timeframe. To that end, I walk authors through the process, helping them go to a higher level with their writing and a deeper level with their content. I coach my clients to write from a place of joy and desire rather than fear or scarcity.

It was important to me to have options to help authors at every price point. My podcast, “Nothing but the Words,” is absolutely free, and I use that platform to share as much information and encouragement as possible with listeners who may never work with me. My group-coaching program, Authors Ignited, is for authors who are ready to invest in their books and expect to see a return from them. And my one-on-one coaching, Complete Author Coaching, is a premium service for authors who want to dive even more deeply into the process with me and be able to reach me whenever they need support or have questions.

We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
The biggest lesson I learned from the COVID-19 crisis is this: Ignore the naysayers!

My heart aches for the people who lost loved ones, jobs, and more during the worst of the pandemic. I’m blessed to say that wasn’t my story.

Some of the smartest people I know encouraged me to hunker down and find other work when the pandemic started. They thought experts would stop writing books and focus on more “practical” matters. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

At the height of the lockdown, my business flourished. Many experts turned from their public-facing businesses to write a book so they would have a tangible asset to use to launch a new line of business, to prepare for more public speaking when things opened back up, or just to pursue their dream of becoming an author while they had more time at home.

Most people giving advice mean well. However, I’ve learned to always filter that advice through the lens of my own experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://candiceldavis.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candiceldavis/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachCandiceLDavis
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachcandiceldavis/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CandiceLDavis
• Other: https://candiceldavis.com/jumpstart