So You Want to be an Author?
Everyone has a story to tell, and CG Sports Publishing helps you get the word out. But how, exactly, does that work? To get an idea, let's take a look at our upcoming August releases and how we brought these projects to life.
Coach Christen Shefchunas' book, 30 Days to Confident -- A 30 Day Confidence Challenge for Female Athletes is coming Aug. 3. But the writing process started much earlier with an idea: Coach Christen, who has worked with female athletes to boost their mental game for more than 20 years, wanted to bring her methods to the masses.
She outlined and journaled and dug deep into her career's worth of presentations and notes. As the book's title tells you, she created a month-long guided study in female athlete confidence.
She wrote a little every day, relying heavily on her own voice -- she wanted readers to practically hear her speaking to them. As a result, when you sit down with 30 Days to Confident, it feels like Coach Christen is in the room with you.
Not every day was easy, though, and toward the end, Christen hit a mini confidence crisis of her own. She knew the topics she wanted to cover, but the words just weren't coming together like she wanted. So CG Sports Publishing offered her a writing coach to help get over the hump.
The writing coach and Christen talked through her ideas and made a plan. They recorded their conversations, so that they could capture Christen's expertise, which she so easily shared verbally, in a converted text file. Christen was then able to take that file, polish her thoughts, and turn in a completed manuscript before her deadline.
The entire CG Sports Publishing team was standing ready for editing, cover design, layout, and marketing, and we're all so excited to launch 30 Days in, well, less than 30 days.
World record holder and three-time Paralympic swimming gold medalist McKenzie Coan took a different route to publication for her memoir, Breaking Free -- Shattering Expectations and Thriving with Ambition in Pursuit of Gold (coming Aug. 11). She chose to work with a co-writer from the start, so CG Sports Publishing set her up with Holly Neumann, a former sportswriter, newspaper editor, and lifelong swimmer.
McKenzie provided a list to Holly of her life's highs and lows -- from gold medals to body casts -- and that document served as a reference to guide Holly's research.
Holly interviewed McKenzie and McKenzie's parents, coaches, doctors, brothers, and friends. She got the same stories from multiple perspectives and memories, and with McKenzie's help, she then developed a plan for the book that included the strongest themes.
Holly also sussed out McKenzie's goals and dreams for the memoir, which boiled down to telling a story of hope through the lens of athleticism and disability. As Holly later turned McKenzie's words into chapters, she kept that overall desire top of mind, and the end result is an insider's look into the grit, sportsmanship, athleticism, disability, family, humor, and hope that it took to get McKenzie to the world stage. (There's even a little romance, so, really, there's something for everyone in Breaking Free.)
McKenzie and Holly met weekly once the writing started, so McKenzie could eyeball and approve everything along the way. Her involvement and input continued once the entire CG Sports Publishing team added the assists in the production process. Breaking Free was truly an exercise in teamwork, as all things are at CG Sports, and we can't wait for you to read it.
What's your story? We'd love to hear it, and we want to help you tell it. Let's talk.
From our authors:
“I’ve known I wanted to write this book for a long time, but I did not want to self publish, nor did I want to go through the long publishing experience and lose control of my book. On my very first call with the entire CG Sports Publishing team, I knew I was in the right place and in very good hands.
Having a brilliant team supporting me has allowed me to create something that I am very proud of.”
- Christen Shefchunas
"Being a professional athlete with a rare disability has been a unique experience that I've always dreamed of sharing through my own words, and CG Sports Publishing made that possible. In committing to this writing process, something vitally important to me was to be involved from start to finish. I was able to do that with an extraordinary team of people who recognized my vision and helped me bring it to life. Initially, I was nervous about the foreign process of writing a book, but CG Sports Publishing made it a fun and reflective process. I am so proud to share the finished product with the world, and I hope through my story, I can inspire others to look past the obstacles they may face and chase their dreams."
- McKenzie Coan
