I could tell you I'm great. But honestly? These people say it better. (And with fewer run-on sentences.) Every testimonial on this page is from a real creative who made a real decision to stop letting their story stay stuck.
Sometimes words on a screen don't quite capture it. These three clients sat down on camera and told their Book Maven story — unscripted, unfiltered, and honestly better than anything I could have written for them.
I had been "writing my novel" for eleven years. Eleven. After Vomit Draft Vogue, I had a complete first draft in six weeks. The course is chaos and magic and exactly what my perfectionist brain needed to hear. I've since finished two more drafts and I'm currently querying. L.A. changed my creative life.
As a screenwriter, I thought my craft struggles were different from "regular" writers. Plot Whisperer proved me spectacularly wrong. L.A. understands all 30 creative types and it shows in every lesson. My pilot is now in pre-production and I have three more in development. This course is the real deal.
Shut Up, Inner Critic didn't just help me write — it helped me understand why I'd been stopping myself for years. I'd been carrying a story I was too afraid to tell. L.A. doesn't just teach writing. She teaches you how to be yourself on the page. My memoir is now with an agent. I still can't believe that sentence.
I came to Book Maven as a songwriter who couldn't stop starting and never finishing. Brain Buffet gave me more completed song ideas in one month than I'd had in three years. The creative unblocking strategies are universal — it doesn't matter what you make. And Mic Check 1-2-3 completely rewired how I think about lyrics and performance. I've released two EPs since.
Ghost with the Most gave me the vocabulary and the confidence to charge what my work is actually worth. I tripled my rates within 90 days of finishing. L.A. understands the invisible labor of ghostwriting in a way that almost no one else talks about publicly. This course is a career investment, not just a writing course.
I started with the free "Shut Up, Gerald" eCourse because I wasn't ready to invest money in something I wasn't sure would work for a blogger. Within five days I had written more content than in the previous three months. I immediately enrolled in Beyond the Caption and haven't looked back. The free stuff alone is worth more than most paid programs I've tried.
Mic Check 1-2-3 is specifically designed for audio creators and it SHOWS. Every lesson accounted for the fact that writing for listening is completely different from writing for reading. My podcast grew from 200 to 12,000 listeners in six months. I attribute a huge portion of that to the storytelling and scripting skills this course built in me.
From Manuscript to Money Moves taught me that I had been leaving significant money on the table because I had no idea how the publishing ecosystem actually worked. I published my business book, landed speaking engagements from it, and now use it as a client conversion tool. The ROI on this course is legitimately incalculable.
I took the personality quiz on a whim and the results were so accurate it was almost alarming. It told me my biggest creative block was fear of success — not failure — and recommended Shut Up, Inner Critic. I'd never have arrived there on my own. Three months later I submitted my first poetry manuscript to a contest. I placed second. Gerald was furious.
Words That Pay the Bills is the only writing course I've found that actually treats copywriting as a creative discipline rather than a mechanical skill. The section on brand voice alone completely changed how I pitch to clients. I'm now booked three months out and I finally feel like what I do is a legitimate art form. Because it is.
I hired L.A. for private coaching on a play I'd been "almost done" with for two years. In eight sessions she helped me identify exactly why I kept pulling back from finishing — and it had nothing to do with the play. It was entirely mindset. The play opened six months later to a sold-out run. Coaching with L.A. is a completely different experience from any coach I've worked with before.
As an academic writer I was skeptical that any "creative writing" resource would apply to my work. The Gerald Eviction Kit and the Revision Pass Planner are now non-negotiable parts of my manuscript process. The planner alone saved my sanity during my dissertation revision. My committee commented that the final submission was "remarkably clear and compellingly organized." That's the Book Maven effect.
Your Real Life Is Riveting gave me permission to stop treating my own journalism career as less valid than "literary" writing. I wrote my first long-form narrative essay while taking this course, pitched it to a major magazine, and it was accepted. The craft and the confidence came from the same place. This is a course that doesn't separate them.
I'm a stand-up comedian who also writes. The idea that Mic Check 1-2-3 would have anything relevant for someone who writes jokes felt like a long shot. It was not a long shot. The material on pacing, audience connection, and the psychology of performance writing was the most specifically useful thing I've consumed in years. My tight five got me a late-night audition. Gerald did not make it past security.
Ghost with the Most was recommended to me by a fellow UX writer who said the section on writing in someone else's voice was the most practical professional resource she'd found. She was right. The client management framework alone has cut my revision cycles in half and my client retention has gone from 40% to 85% year-over-year. This course pays for itself every single month.
Beyond the Caption completely changed how I think about content strategy. I manage social media for three brands and I was burning out trying to create from nothing every single week. The "Content Voice DNA" framework L.A. teaches in this course means I now batch content in two days that used to take me two weeks. My clients' engagement rates are up across the board. I am no longer crying in a Chipotle parking lot on Mondays.
I came to L.A.'s coaching hesitantly — I write grant applications, not novels. What I discovered is that narrative and persuasion live in all writing, and L.A.'s craft instruction applies universally. The section on creating compelling premises and structuring arguments completely transformed my grant writing. My organization's approval rate went from 31% to 67% in one fiscal year. I cried. Good tears.
I downloaded the Blank Page Survival Kit on a Tuesday night when I had nothing. By Friday I had a complete short story draft. I don't know what L.A. put in those prompts but they work in a way nothing else has. I've since published seven stories in literary journals. This freebie starter kit is genuinely one of the most useful creative writing tools I've ever used. And it cost me zero dollars.
I'm an illustrator who needed to write her own artist statements and portfolio descriptions and was absolutely paralyzed by it. The Visual Creative's Word Kit bundle was exactly built for me — and the fact that it exists tells me L.A. actually thought about the 30 creative types she says she serves. My portfolio relaunched with new writing and I booked four new clients the first month.
L.A. ghostwrote my company's origin story and it became the centerpiece of our pitch deck. The investors said our narrative was the clearest and most compelling they'd heard all season. She somehow captured my voice perfectly — and made it more articulate than I could ever be under pressure. Hiring L.A. for ghostwriting is not an expense. It is an investment with a measurable return.
I am a course creator who creates courses for other people and I still had impostor syndrome about my own content. Shut Up, Inner Critic is the most honest curriculum about creative self-doubt I have ever taken — and I've taken a lot of them. L.A. doesn't just teach strategies. She teaches you why the strategies are necessary in the first place. That depth is what sets her apart from every other coach in this space.
The "What Kind of Creative Are You?" quiz pegged me accurately as a Speechwriter and suggested Mic Check 1-2-3 and Red Pen Redemption. Both courses addressed specific pain points in my work that I hadn't been able to articulate. My client testimonials since have included phrases like "you made me cry" and "that's the best speech I've ever given." The quiz-to-course pipeline is genuinely one of the most useful diagnostic tools I've encountered.
I'm a photographer who needed to write compelling client proposals, gallery notes, and a personal essay about my work. The Visual Creative's Word Kit had every tool I needed in one place. The artist statement workshop alone is worth five times the bundle price. I now have a waiting list. The power of being able to write about your work cannot be overstated.
I translate literary fiction and had been struggling with the creative identity question — am I a writer or am I a service provider? L.A.'s coaching helped me understand that the answer is both, and that both are legitimate and valuable. Ghost with the Most gave me the business framework I needed. The coaching gave me the identity clarity. I now market myself completely differently and my rates reflect it.
The Writing Sprint System toolkit made the single biggest difference in my documentation workflow of anything I have tried in ten years. I write technical documentation for software products and the structure — not the creative writing bits — applies perfectly. Batched writing sessions, sprint tracking, and the schedule builder cut my production time by 40%. Gerald never helped me meet a deadline. This toolkit does.
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The Book Maven community isn't just for novelists. It's for every creative who has ever had a story to tell and something stopping them from telling it.
Every person in this page started exactly where you are right now — with a story they hadn't finished and a reason (or twelve) why they couldn't. The difference between them and where you are is one decision. Make it.
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