In this blog I am going to show you how to write a bestselling book in 30 days or less—with the current level of knowledge and expertise you have. In fact, the process helped me write 3 best-sellers and 30 other books in the past 11 years —and now, I’m going to show you how I did it—and how you can do it too!
Introduction: You have Already Written Your Book—And are Already an Expert!
Chapter 1: The Number One Reason to Write a Chiropractic Book
Chapter 2: The Three Major Benefits of Being a Best-Selling Chiropractic Author
Chapter 3: Define Your Niche
Chapter 4: What are You Going to Write?
Chapter 5: The Writing Process for Writing your Bestselling Chiropractic Book
Chapter 6: Publishing your Bestselling Book
Chapter 7: Graphic Design and Typesetting
Chapter 8: Plan Your Pre-Release Strategy
Chapter 9: Plan your Book Launch Strategy
Chapter 10: Marketing your Book to Best-Seller Status
Chapter 11: Leverage your Book Through Re-Purposing
Chapter 12: What’s Stopping you From Writing your Book?
Conclusion: Start Now and Become a Bestseller in 30 Days
Frequently Asked Questions When Writing A Best Selling Book
Every consultation you deliver, every message that you share—is the knowledge, skill and wisdom that you have that demonstrates your expertise as a chiropractor. It’s now time to take that knowledge and put it into print.
Many chiropractors believe that they cannot write a book—or at least, do not know how. Some believe that they could never write a book because they are not good writers, do not believe that they are effective communicators or lack the necessary literary skills to be able to put their thoughts into print.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Writing a book is far easier than you ever imagined. While some people do find writing easy—and for them writing a book may not be a difficult task—many chiropractors don’t find writing easy—but this does not limit them. The most effective way is an interview style process of writing.
The way it is done is simple—it is having the conversations that you have every day with your patients in practice.
Yes, it really is as simple as that.
Are there stories that you share regularly with your patients? Is there a consistent theme or message that you deliver to the majority of your patients when communicating and explaining chiropractic and what the solution for the challenges that your patient presents with is?
Of course, there are. You have a similar message for most of your clients.
You listen, work to understand what their challenges and problems are—and do the necessary testing and examination to uncover the cause of their presenting complaint.
Then, you provide a Report of Findings and make a care plan recommendation.
You support that with patient education, table talk and ongoing support.
Much of this is repeated throughout all of your consultations. All of this is a necessary part in the education and transformational process of the patient.
This, in part, is your book. As easily as you can communicate this to patients—you can write a book.
The method, for most practitioners, is to have a conversation with somebody about what they do, explaining in a way that they can clarify what they do intuitively or systematically within their practice—and put it into a framework of a book.
In this way, you have already written your book—you just haven’t put it into the written word.
The below video clip represents how I write most of my books. You can see me standing there, holding a Dictaphone—yes, writing a book. It really is as simple as that!
The below video is a short clip of me interviewing a chiropractor, asking questions about the process that they use in practice—if you watch this short video, you’ll see it is a matter of me asking a question and them talking about what they know—this is what we do in order to record, transcribe and write a book.
The final consideration is expertise. Many chiropractors do not believe that they are an expert—and, therefore, cannot express expertise through writing a book.
The reverse is true—when you write the book, you become the expert. However, you already have a high level of expertise.
The most important way of looking at expertise is—do you have more knowledge than the person seeking your expertise?
The answer is, obviously, yes!
Do patients come to you all the time looking for your guidance, education and support?
Of course, they do—because you’re an expert.
Are you able to help them and have a positive impact on their life?
Of course—because you’re an expert.
Do you know more than the people coming in to see about the health challenges they present with and the solutions they require?
That’s why they are coming to you. That is why you’re an expert.
It is important for you to accept your expertise status—and allow your book to represent that expertise status—and develop it even further.
Now that we’ve got past the limitations you may have had in your mind about the difficulty in writing a book and your self-limiting belief around expertise—it’s time for you to dig into this material and prepare yourself to write a bestselling book and have a powerful and profound impact in the health and lives of your patients and the community.
I have interviewed dozens and dozens of practitioners as well as read more than 50 books on the topic of becoming an author and developing expertise—and the number one reason that motivates people to write a book is that they have a message to share and want to positively and powerfully impact the world.
When I interview people—there maybe motivating reasons like growing their business, increasing the profitability of their practice or even being able to demonstrate authority and expertise through becoming an author—but above all of these reasons, most people feel like their book was a calling. The book almost wrote itself because the message was burning so strong within them that they needed to get that message out into the world. They needed to get what was stirring in their heart onto the pages of a book so that they could share their message.
The truth is, before you write your book—you need a compelling reason to begin. Without one, the message will be weak at best and the motivation to complete the project will wane. As Simon Sinek, in his book Start With Why, emphasised if you have a big enough reason why, you will always find the how.
You need to tap into your primary motivating reason for writing your book—and use it to compel you into action all the way through to completion.
While the number one reason to write a book is to share a message—there are a number of reasons—the key is for you to find yours.
Here is a list of 10 other reasons that people choose to write a book—which one resonates most with you?
Just like there are dozens of reasons to write a book—there are a number of benefits of becoming a bestselling chiropractic author. These include:
Having your name on a book automatically makes you perceived as an expert.
Hang on, didn’t I already say you were an expert? Yes, absolutely! You are an expert. Your patients perceive you as an expert.
Now, you are a #NextLevel expert by being an established author.
You are an expert amongst experts. You are the go-to expert because you have high levels of knowledge and skills—as evidenced by the fact that you have a book.
Equally, you now take on an authority position. By being an author, your expertise gives you a higher level of authority and positions you preferentially in the minds of your audience and leader.
Ultimately, this generates greater levels of trust. People who position you, in their mind, as an expert and hold you as an authority—invariably, have a higher level of trust in the words that you say, the recommendations you make and the care you deliver. This trustworthiness is a natural extension of expertise and authority.
Being identified as an expert, having authority and holding a place of trust in the hearts and minds of your audience are by far the three most significant benefits of being a bestselling chiropractic author—but there are numerous others. The following list represents many of the other major benefits of writing a bestselling book—which do you think will help you succeed most in practice?
Your niche is the area that you are going to write in and evidence your expertise.
This is a very important question—what area are you going to write in?
Knowing the answer to this question makes all the difference in the world.
If you try to be all things to all people, you end up being nothing to no one.
A generic book appealing to a general population does not have the same weight or evidence expertise as a specific, niche-focused book.
A book titled: Fix Every Health Problem Ever, may attract some attention, but it does not to appeal to a reader looking for a specific solution.
On the other hand, The Arthritis Solution appeals specifically to people who have arthritis and are looking for a solution.
Most people are not motivated to find solutions until they have a problem—and when they have a problem, they are looking for specific solutions to their specific problems or challenges. When your book addresses those challenges and problems—you become a person that they will look to to answer the questions that they have.
If you had arthritis—which would you buy?
Put another way—if a person is looking for a solution for their arthritis—they will be searching Google, YouTube and Amazon for things on arthritis. They will be typing into the search engine terms like:
They are not putting into the search engine: how to fix every health problem ever.
This means, if you want to appeal to people looking for a solution—identify the niche you want to work within and speak to those people. Otherwise, your ideas fall on deaf ears—because they are not looking for the solution you’re willing to provide.
This is the importance and power of a niche.
There are hundreds of niches that you can choose from within the chiropractic profession—my suggestion is simple: do something that you love, something that is simple:
These three elements are essential.
You need to know enough about the topic that you are working in to be able to answer questions and provide solutions. It is as simple as that.
In reality, you already have this level of expertise. You are a chiropractor—you change the health and lives of patients in the community in profound and powerful ways. Now you are going to let people know that through your bestselling book.
Furthermore, it is essential that you love this area of practice. It’s not enough to be an expert because of your knowledge, skills or abilities—you must also enjoy working in the field. You may be fantastic at sports medicine but feel like you’ve had enough of working with sportspeople—if that’s the case, don’t write in that niche. Identify where you love working—who the patients you love working with are—and right in that area of influence.
Finally, you need to have an audience for your book. It is not wise to carve out a niche in an area where there are very few patients available. Rare genetic conditions, conditions that are not generally thought of as within the chiropractic domain—anything that chiropractors rarely see or that patients do not think that chiropractors should be addressing within their practice should be avoided. On the other hand, there are hundreds of niches that chiropractors have a positive effect in and could be considered.
The following is a short list of possible chiropractic measures:
The list goes on—the question now remains for the niche that you are going to select—so that you can evidence your expertise and build a patient-base upon that.
It is important to reiterate—you are going to build a practice as a result of being a bestselling-author in this area of your niche; you need to love this. You need to want to have patients coming all the time that have the wants, needs and desires consistent with the outcomes that your niche provides. Make sure you love what you do—and the rest will take care of itself.
This is an extension of your niche—once you’ve decided the niche; and for the purpose of this blog post, I will use an example of chiropractic peak performance.
You need to come up with and generate hundreds of breakthrough ideas for the topic of your bestselling book within your niche—to position yourself as an expert.
In essence, we are answering the question here, “How do I know what to write about and where do I get my ideas from?
While there are a number of ways to generate ideas for your book topic—within your area of expertise—I’m going to provide a suggestion here:
Generate ideas based on existing books!
It is beyond the scope of this blog to cultivate ideas for your book—I cover that in my book, Author Mastery: The Chiropractors Blueprint for Writing, Publishing and Selling Life-Changing Books to Rapidly Grow their Practice while Transforming the Health and Lives of their Patients and Community! However, the most generative idea is…
… Go through existing books on your bookshelf and reframe them in the area of your niche.
To help you out, here are half a dozen books in my library—reframed for the purpose of peak performance in chiropractic:
As you can see, you can take existing book titles and use them as stimulation for your own ideas in your own area of writing.
In the video below, I go through this process in a number of different niche areas demonstrating how easy it is to come up with hundreds of book titles.
This chapter represents the blueprint for writing your bestselling chiropractic book. You will have enough guidance here to write a quality book. Of course, if you need help bringing this together, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. On your own, the step-by-step process is as follows:
Mind Map the Book: Crafting your Table of Contents
The process begins by mind-mapping your book. This mind map then becomes your table of contents.
To mind map your book, you begin by reflecting on all of the conversations you have with your patients that represent the message that you want to share. Invariably, it is a sequential process.
Without realising—this is what you already do within your practice. This is already how you communicate to your patients—leading to breakthrough.
This is how you mind map the patient journey, experience and the communications that are expressed in your book—and then becomes a table of contents.
Once you have mind mapped the process, put it into a sequential order so that it becomes a linear table of contents, the journey that the patient will go through.
Produce your Chapter Outlines
Once you have a mind map and a table of contents—it is now time to produce chapter outlines: an explanation for each of the chapters. This allows you to create building blocks for the material within your chapters while also clarify your understanding for each of the steps in the client journey.
The chapter outline should be one sentence that clearly explains what the entry into the table of contents means. If someone were to read it, it would give them enough clarity to be able to explain, in their own words, the understanding of what you are intending to take place.
An example might be:
Chapter 1: There is a need for New Information on Arthritis
As you can see from the chapter title, I am provoking the reader into believing that their current knowledge and understanding of arthritis is insufficient. There is something more important that they need to know within their current awareness or level of understanding.
Chapter Outline: the belief that arthritis is a natural part of ageing is redundant and potentially dangerous. People need to know that arthritis is not a part of ageing; that it is a consequence of unaddressed, accumulated trauma—and that people can heal—that there is an arthritis solution!
The chapter outline emphasises what the table of contents entry means at a deeper level—and provides enough information for a reader to be enticed into exploring the principle further. Equally, it becomes the building block for writing the content of the book.
Of course, you don’t have to do this on your own. I help docs write their bestselling book. I interview them on their table of content and chapter outlines. The interview process allows me an opportunity to ask you questions and uncover the key message that you want that chapter to hold. Equally, it is an important way to clarify your thinking, direct your writing process and explain to third parties what your key message of the chapter is and what you mean by the title of the chapter.
If you’d like some help, I’d love the opportunity to assist you in the book writing process. Here’s the link to set up a time: https://www.chiroauthormastery.com/strategysession/.
Create a Writing Plan
Okay, you have your table contents and chapter outlines—you’re ready to start writing your book.
Stop!
One of the most valuable methods of writing your book—and seeing it through to completion—is having a content calendar: a way of designing, mapping and monitoring progress through to completion of the book.
Many authors fail because they do not have a writing plan or a structure for writing a book. Now you do, you have a mind map and table of contents, as well as a chapter outline to direct your writing.
This is where your content calendar becomes essential.
A writing plan begins by recognising how much time you have available for the writing process—and then committing to that process. You put it into your calendar, whether it’s 5 AM in the morning or 9 PM at night—and you stick to it!
You commit to your writing schedule in the same way that you commit to making your chiropractic adjustment (or you expect your patients to maintain a commitment to their adjustment schedule). This way, you design the writing process, you map it out in advance and you have a method of monitoring your progress.
This means, every day you contribute to the writing process. Every day you will check off the success towards the writing you have done.
In time, you’ll complete your writing journey and ensure that the book is complete.
Conversational-Style Interviewing
I absolutely love writing books this way! I am a much better communicator than I am a writer—and I find this is true for most chiropractors as well.
Think of it this way—when you are with the patient, how do you communicate with them?
Exactly! You talk with them. You explain what you understand their problem is, what is the solution they require and the path forward.
You talk with them to help them get the Big Idea.
Most chiropractors find talking about chiropractic, speaking with their patients, doing presentations and delivering patient education relatively easy—when done on a one-to-one basis.
This is how I interview chiropractors to write their book.
Using the table of contents and chapter outlines as a starting point, I interview the practitioner about their patient journey. Using this framework, we are almost always able to complete a first draft of the book within three hours.
Yes, it is as simple as that!
You get clear on the patient journey and the story you want to tell; I ask you a few questions—and you write a book!
Why is it so easy? Because you have told this story a thousand times! Every day in practice, you are sharing the story, communicating with your patients and providing the information necessary for the patient to experience transformation!!
You are documenting clearly and concisely the patient journey—and by me interviewing you on the process—now you are able to write a book describing that clearly in the mind of the patient, offering confidence and certainty in written form—in the same way that you deliver that in a one on one consultation.
Here is another video of me delivering this interview style process of writing a book. As you’ll see, it is far easier than you ever imagined.
Naturally, if you prefer writing—use the table of contents and the chapter outlines as the starting point for writing.
If not, I’m always happy to help you write your book.
Using the IAET Model: Inspiration, Aspiration, Education and Transformation
Okay, it’s important to know how to structure your book to be able to share your message in a compelling and effective way.
While the table of contents provides a clear pathway for the reader—there are elements that take place within the consultation that make your engagement with the patient so effective.
This is what I call the IAET: inspiration, aspiration, education and transformation.
To impact your patients on the most profound level—to help them make a decision in regards to the care that you recommend—you do certain things naturally.
Firstly, you inspire your patients. The connection you have with them, the stories that you tell, the hope that you provide—all of this goes towards creating positive energy and momentum towards making a commitment. Your book needs to have inspirational stories that have the same effect your in-person conversations and communications have.
Next, you need to make sure you are also aspirational. You need to give them a compelling vision to move towards. They need to see themselves as transformed—capable of moving in the direction of achieving the results, benefits and outcomes they desire.
Once again, this is something you do naturally within your consultations. The message that you share with them not only gives them hope of the possibility of change—it shows them what they are going to do, how they are going to do it and what results they are going to achieve as a result of the care that you deliver. These communications need to be embedded within your book—and a story is the most effective way of doing this.
Education—this is something you do incredibly well!
You know your stuff! You could talk for hours on chiropractic—and the area of your niche. You are, after all, an expert in what you do—and you can provide the knowledge that people need to achieve breakthrough.
For most practitioners, this is the easiest part of the book. When I ask them to explain what it is that they do, how they produce the results and impact that they deliver—they can literally talk for hours!
In fact, this will be 80% of the content of the book. So, I’m sure you will be pleased to know that you know everything you need to know in order to write the book effortlessly.
Finally, we need to produce transformation. Embedded within the pages of your book, there needs to be a mechanism by which the reader can achieve some level of transformation in their own life—or at least see the possibility of transformation by working with you.
Once again, this this is most easily done with story. When you share transformational stories, the impact that people have as a result of working with you—you not only create inspiration and aspiration in the minds of the reader—you give them a clear pathway to achieve the results that they desire. By showing them how transformation is possible—by giving the tools for transformation in their own life—you dramatically increase the likelihood of them committing to working with you.
It is a combination of inspiration, aspiration, education and transformation that demonstrates your authority and expertise—and demonstrates a path forward for the reader—creating excitement, anticipation and willingness to work with you.
Take time to define how your book is going to create inspiration in the mind of the patient. Help the reader to aspire to something greater than they have now as well as educate them on the path. Finally, make sure that you have a clear way of helping the reader experience a breakthrough—creating a transformation in their health and quality of life that is a natural by-product and result of reading your book.
Do Your Research
You have the nuts and bolts of a book. 80% of the work is done—but to make the book more credible and authoritative, it’s likely you are going to need some supportive research.
While you can do the research yourself—I don’t recommend this. There are people that are far better at research than you, that have access to the research papers and can do it more efficiently—so I recommend outsourcing it.
What exactly do you outsource? Any claims that you make!
If, in your book, you say that exercise improves somebody’s health and well-being—you need a research paper to support that.
If you make a claim that diet and nutrition helps people have a greater mental clarity, focus and concentration—you need research to support that.
The process is simple though: outsource to a researcher a request to find research articles that support all of your claims within your book. They will find you dozens of recent articles, book citations or newspaper articles within the last two or three years that positively support the claims that you’re making.
These citations are then placed into an appendix within your book—offering evidence for the claims that you make and support for the authoritativeness of your book.
You definitely don’t need thousands of citations or even hundreds—30 to 50 is a good number. When you do this, not only does your authority increase—your knowledge and expertise in your niche is enhanced. I also find that a number of authors get excited about the research that is dug up for them—and it improves the quality of the book by them writing further on the areas of research.
It’s a lot of fun learning how the things that you know and say in practice—are both scientifically validated and clinically effective.
Share Compelling Stories
I’ve already explained how inspiration, aspiration and transformation are most effectively embellished with story—it is during this phase of your book writing that you think about the compelling and powerful stories of patient transformation—and embed them strategically within your book.
Your introduction will make a promise to transform the health and lives of your patient—and a story will support that!
Your conclusion will demonstrate how transformation is possible for the reader—demanding that they take immediate action towards making positive change in their own life and reinforced by a powerful transformational story.
You will help people aspire to the positive changes that are possible for them within their own life through stories—and you will even educate the patients on what they can expect through the process of story.
Story is used everywhere throughout your book—because it is the medium of emotion. People do not care as much about the knowledge you are sharing within your book—as they do about the feelings they get from the stories they read.
Stories move emotions. Emotions drive decisions.
If you want somebody to work with you—tap into their emotions. If you want to tap into their emotions—tell them a story.
Your book is a series of connected stories impacting the emotion of your reader—directing them to positive change. The positive change begins in reading your book—and continues by working with you, either in your practice or online.
When you understand that this is the purpose of stories—you uncover an incredible wellspring of emotional and meaningful stories that find their way strategically into your book.
As you read the story above—could you feel excitement? Could you see how this may influence a reader to make a decision to begin working with me?
It happens all the time—your book needs to make this happen to.
Develop your Content
Congratulations! You have 95% of your book done!!
You created the framework for your book—supported it with research and filled it with powerful and compelling stories—now you need to develop the content.
Most of the work you would have done will have been written in a style that may not lend itself to perfect readability.
That’s okay—that’s exactly how it should be.
Now, you will refine the writing and make it into a readable book. You need to move from you telling your story—to presenting the content that a reader wants to read. While you can have an editor help you with this—it is really important for you to go through it on your own; tidying up some of the text, making sure that it is a conversational-style read—and eliminating any unnecessary and wasteful language.
In essence, it is getting the book to an almost ready-to-read stage; something that you’d be proud to give out—and that you know would positively influence the reader.
Introduction: Your Promise
The book is not complete yet—there is more to go; not just with your content—but with your introduction and conclusion.
Your introduction is your promise. It is the compelling message you open the book with so people are already psychologically committed to reading it.
Why do we leave the introduction until now?
Well, you spent hours writing your book, going deep into telling stories, ensuring the research support your claims—you have a feel for the power of its message and the impact it is going to have.
You have also clarified the reason for writing a book—now you are clear about the impact the book can have on a person’s life. I mean, really clear!
It is going to transform their health and quality of life. It is going to impact them in profound and powerful ways.
How?
When you can answer this question—when you know the promise that you can make a reader—this is what frames your introduction.
The introduction is not an introduction to the book—it is an introduction to the possibility of transformation. It is an invitation to read the book.
It needs to generate interest, excitement and confidence that reading the book will transform your life.
This is why there needs to be a promise.
If you believe your book is going to change your life—you need to tell them. You need to tell them how. You need to make it clear and specific. You need to make it compelling!
When you do this—your introduction means that they not only buy the book—they read it.
I want to make this clear:
Step 1: The title and cover cause your book to stand out and attracts interest.
Step 2: Because of this initial interest, the reader opens to the table of contents to find out more.
Step 3: The table of contents is so inspiring and shows so clearly the patient’s journey towards transformation—they want to find out more, so they begin reading the introduction.
Step 4: They read the introduction, see your promise and decide to buy the book and begin reading it.
Step 5: They begin reading it all the way through to the end, noting how transformation is possible for them and act on the call to action.
Step 6: They book an appointment with you or buy an online program.
The natural by-product of writing a book is the patient working with you.
The introduction is the promise of what working with you will mean.
When you do this—your book will not only be a bestseller, it will be a new patient lead magnet like no other!
Conclusion: Your Call to Action
In the same way that your introduction is your promise—your conclusion is your call to action.
You need to say something powerful and compelling in the conclusion that demands that the reader take action.
First, what action do you want them to take?
You need to tell them!
Is it to get on the phone and make an appointment?
Is it to go online and purchase a program?
Is it to begin taking some action in regards to their lifestyle to produce health changes?
Get clear—and then tell them exactly what to do. Show them how they can achieve breakthrough and that the impact of the work that they are going to do is going to have on their health and quality of life.
Remind them of the promise, embellish it with a story—and demand they take action!
A book’s conclusion does not summarise the book; it is not a school essay—it is a call to action. Immediate and dramatic action.
Action that will transform their health and quality of life—and lead them to your door!
Appendices and Resources Page
The end of the book contains information that does not add inspiration, aspiration, education and transformation. Its value adding—but not essential!
You do not want to fill the content of your book with the article names and authors of your supportive research or with resources or links to pages that they may find interesting. That‘s for the end of the book.
Yes, build the content of the length of your book with these additional pages—but make them available at the end of the book.
As you can see, for the most part these are not essential for the transformational process of the book—nor are they where the massive value of the book is. That is contained within the pages of the book, between introduction and conclusion.
But of course it does not mean you neglect or ignore having appendices and resources—but you do not need to overemphasise this aspect of the book for it to be a bestseller or to successfully impact the health and lives of your patients in the community.
Speak to Read
Brilliant! The book is nearly done—but not quite.
You’ve worked on the book developing the content and improving the readability! Now you need to read the book out loud.
There are two reasons—the book needs to sound like a conversation; that is how it is read in the reader’s mind.
Equally, some passages within your book will simply sound terrible when read aloud. It either won’t make sense, the words will be difficult to read aloud, you’ll trip over the words as you speak them—this is a roadblock in the reading process in the reader’s mind that needs to be eliminated.
So, read the entire book aloud, making edits as you go before you give it off to the editor.
This is a simple, albeit slightly time-consuming process—but entirely worthwhile.
Professional Editing
Well, you’ve done it—you’ve written the book. It is not ready to be published.
Now, send it off to a professional editor.
Yes, it’s worth the investment. You will not find all the errors within the book; typographical, syntax, spelling or otherwise. It doesn’t matter how good a writer or how good at spelling you are—there will be errors and there will be areas of improvement.
Outsource to an editor to get a professional editing of your book to bring it to near-completion.
This blog provided by MasterClass provides 5 forms of editing when writing your book.
Final Copy
Once you accept or reject the changes of the editor, you have a final proof of your book.
Leave it alone!
That’s right, do nothing with it. Preferably for a month—but certainly no less than a week.
Then, read it again.
You may have new thoughts that arise that you want to include within the book—that will improve it. You may think differently about certain topics—and want to eliminate them or modify them because of experiences that you’ve had with the patient.
Whatever the case, take the work that is already done—and invest further and deeper into it to make sure that you have a final copy that you are completely happy with—and ready to publish.
Before we go on—if you got this far—congratulations!
You’ve done an amazing job—you are serving your patients in the community and the chiropractic profession. For that, I salute you!
Traditional Publishing versus the Self-Publishing Revolution
If you have the opportunity to publish in the traditional means—through a publishing house, whereby you get an advance on royalties of your book as well as an entire support team behind your book launch—including a manager, editor, graphic design team and marketing team—I suggest go for it. 100%!
It has a very strong chance to put you well and truly into a marketplace you had never even imagined.
Of course, to achieve this—you are going to need to have had an incredible idea, pitched book and had that pitch accepted. All of this is predicated upon the fact that you have an existing platform, existing backend product or service and an incredible opportunity to leverage.
Most traditional publishing houses are going to require this. If you have all that—I suggest leveraging your authority via that avenue.
If not—and this is for the majority of authors—I strongly suggest, courage and find incredible value in the self-publishing revolution.
In fact, that is what I coach chiropractors to do. That is what this entire blog is directed towards—helping you uncover your message and deliver that to the market.
In reality, it is getting more and more difficult to get published by a traditional publishing house.
[Source of Information: www.scribemedia.com]
On the other hand, it is getting increasingly easier to self-publish and be successful as a result.
[Source of graphic: blog.submittable.com]
My take on all of this: write a book, publish it yourself and be successful as a result. That is exactly what I’m showing you here. And if you need more help, you can always book a strategy session with me to help you uncover how you are able to achieve this: https://www.chiroauthormastery.com/strategysession/
Amazon Kindle (KDP) vs Other Digital Platforms
The majority of authors are using Amazon KDP—for good reason. Not only does it own most of the market—it makes being an author ridiculously easy.
[Source of Picture: blog.publishdrive.com]
It is beyond the scope of this blog to provide an overarching strategy of whether you should choose KDP or the other digital options—including iBook, Kobo, Smashwords, Lulu or the dozens of other options—but it suffices to say, you need a publishing strategy.
As a starting point, you can use Amazon Kindle. If you use it exclusively, it provides you benefits. If you want to work on multiple media, it restricts some of the benefits—but it does allow you to have greater exposure of your works to multiple platforms.
Ultimately, I believe this is the best direction to move towards (it is never great to have all of your eggs in one basket, but as a starting point, KDP makes it extremely easy, efficient and profitable).
Print on Demand and Other Printed Options
You will absolutely, without a doubt, want a printed copy of your book!
Whether it is sending it out to patients, have at the back of the room when you do presentations or to proudly give to your parents—it is an essential part of the publication process.
Printing 10s of thousands of copy at a printer can be financial suicide. You may end up taking months—if not years—to give those books away. A far smarter option is utilising print on demand.
Print on demand can be done through some of the digital options such as Lulu—but it is more effectively done as part of your Amazon strategy. Amazon allows you to have print-on-demand accessibility options for your book. And while it does potentially decrease the profitability by printing individual units as compared to having a printing press produce thousands of them—the risk of having multiple copies sitting around and money tied up in the printed copies outweighs the benefits.
So, I fully endorse and recommend getting your books printed on demand, but for having 50 copies available in your office at all times.
The print on demand books not only act as your business card within your practice and can be on the desk at the of back of your presentation—you can send them off to people that you would like to connect with: people you would like to guess blog for, guest podcast with or present on a somewhat alongside.
There is nothing that says, “I am a professional and have authority” more than a book that you can put in the hands of an influencer.
Audiobook and Other Considerations
Finally, would I suggest or recommend an audiobook?
Absolutely!
Having an audiobook allows you to put it on Amazon’s sister site, audible.com. People are moving towards audiobooks more and more as readership decreases.
[Source of Image: blog.submittable.com]
Equally, there are many other options that allow for you to present your information to a potential patient audience, including:
All of these allow for you to share your information in engaging and compelling ways—while also making the information accessible to people who might not otherwise read your books or even listen to your books.
By having video options embedded within your books, it makes the information more accessible and interesting to a variety of audiences.
Ultimately, when you have your self-published book available as an e-book on Amazon or the other digital media sites, a printed book available to share as well as its audiobook alternative—not to mention interactive reading, listening and viewing material—you go a long way to being able to share your information with the world!
And ultimately, that is all this is about.
Typesetting
Typesetting is the process of putting your written document into the appropriate formats for publication.
Digital publication requires specific formatting. For example, if you publish your book on Amazon Kindle, there are specific attributes that are required for it to be published for it to be read by the reader audience on the many platforms that use Kindle. The same is true for other platforms.
It is not as simple as saving a Word document as a PDF and uploading it. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
You need to have a specific editor to help you typeset the document in the necessary format. I encourage you to outsource this process to ensure that you get the quality you’re after, and you do not spend your time learning and developing skills that are not going to give you the most value for your time, effort and energy.
Equally, typesetting for your printed book requires specific skillsets as well. Turning your manuscript into a print-ready PDF publication requires specific software and a high level of expertise. Again, I will encourage you to outsource this—and this document will be necessary for your graphic designer to ensure that they can effectively produce the spine of the book. The number of pages in the typeset document influences the spine width and is a necessary part of the printing process.
Graphic design
Having a typeset book is one thing—having a cover for your document is something entirely different.
A typesetter is no graphic designer—although some people can be both.
The graphic designer will work with you, based on your brief, to produce a quality design that reflects the book and can effectively act as a marketing tool because of the design process.
Once again, I strongly encourage you to outsource this process to a graphic designer who has mastered the skills of the cover design to ensure that you get the outcomes you want.
There is nothing worse than producing a terrible cover for a book that limits sales.
The image above shows that a poor cover can detract from the sales. In fact, it can cost you your authority position if it does not reflect the expertise that you are endeavouring to demonstrate.
Digital books require different design considerations for your cover. For example, Amazon has specific size and image requirements that are different to the design for the printed format.
As such, you need to work with a graphic designer who can design for both digital and print options.
Once you have your cover art and your typesetting done—you have a book!
The combination of the typesetting cover art, when delivered to a printer, allows you to get your book printed. You will need all of these elements before going to the house—so it is important that you are clear on your milestones and the actions that you need to take.
Publishing your Kindle or other digital book is a lot easier—you need your digitally typesetted book with the single cover design, and then it gets uploaded.
The uploading process is relatively easy, and I encourage you to do this on your own—if for no other reason, then to become familiar with your publishing platform. Later, when you have multiple books, you can outsource this process to.
Publishing your book is not something that happens by default. It is a “by design” process.
While you are working on your manuscript, start planning your release. In fact, your pre-release strategy has the potential to add such incredible value to your launch that, for the chiropractor that neglects this step, it could cost you thousands of dollars in sales and hundreds of thousands of dollars in new patient care programs. It really is that valuable!
Start with the End in Mind – Part 1
Your pre-release strategy is where the momentum begins taking your bestselling book idea, with its bestselling book content, into a launch process that results in having a bestselling book status!
That means you need to think now about what you need to do to get the outcome you want—having a bestselling book!
The following steps are part of the thinking that goes into your pre-release strategy…
Who is your launch team?
Part of your pre-release strategy is recognising that you need a team to support your launch process if you want to have a bestselling book.
Who is your launch team?
Whether you combine them all into a Facebook group or simply maintain close communication with them about the plan, the actions that you would like them to take and where you are up to in the launch process—it is this unity that maximises the potential of your book.
What does your launch team do?
They provide a genuine review (hopefully, if your book is good enough and they really like you) a five-star review!
Warm your Audience with your Vision
Part of your pre-release strategy is letting your own audience know that you’re going to write a book.
Yes, you need to put it out there!
Be vulnerable—it’s okay. People love to know the personal side of their practitioners—including that they are writing a book.
Do a Facebook live—tell people about your vision. Send out an email, do a Facebook post—ensure that your social media platform knows about the purpose of your writing a book, the topic of the book and encourage people to provide their ideas, post questions and ask what solutions they are looking for in the area of your interest.
This gives them some ownership towards the end—and begins the engagement process.
Share these posts with your launch team—and have them share them with their audiences were as well.
Polls on Book Titles
Next, do a Facebook poll asking your audience about the titles that you are considering for your book (by the way, I hope you have thought a lot about your book title and are considering a number of different options).
Your poll is not only a way to get feedback on the best options for your book—it is another way to gain engagement.
Again, make sure you share this poll with your friends so that they can share it with their audience.
Polls on Cover Designs
Once your graphic designer has provided you with some sample designs for your book cover—do another poll.
Once again, this brings engagement—gets people involved in the conversation. It is starting to generate excitement as well as emphasizing the fact that the book is coming soon.
Take the votes seriously—and give your graphic designer feedback on the design process so that you can get the right cover.
For more information on cover design strategies—my book, Author Mastery: The Chiropractors Blueprint for Writing, Publishing and Selling Life-Changing Books to Rapidly Grow their Practice while Transforming the Health and Lives of their Patients and Community! provides detailed instruction on creating the perfect cover design and working with the graphic designer to achieve that outcome.
Once again, ensure that your launch team are involved in this process as well.
Beta Readers
While all of this is going on—have your beta readers reading the book, get feedback from them. You can use this in the final editing stage—but more importantly, you can use these readers to post messages about the book that you are writing and also to get testimonials or endorsements for the book that will go on the final cover or back cover of the book and the inside pages.
Again, the more involvement from your launch team, the greater the beta reader comment and feedback, the more impact you are going to have with your book.
For more, information on how to use beta readers most effect, I’ve written a specific blog on that here. [link to the beta reader blog post]
Presales are King
Okay, I don’t want you to miss the significance of the prelaunch strategy process—especially when it comes to being a #1 bestseller.
The number of presales you make on Amazon before the book officially launches aggregates until the official launch when the book goes on sale.
Meaning, if you sell 500 books during the pre-launch sale period, and you sell another 200 when the book actually goes on sale—the total sales for your first week will be 700. That is almost guaranteed to catapult you to number one bestselling status (in most non-fiction categories).
So, make sure that your friends, family and as many people as is humanly possible are purchasing during this period of time.
This is why it is so valuable having a launch team; people on your side, people promoting the book and making sure that the sales are taking place.
It is also essential during this period of time that you have the book at $0.99 so that people are comfortable and willing to make those purchases.
Launch Team Activation – Part 1
The key thing during the prelaunch phase is to maintain regular communication and contact with your launch team. If you have selected them well, they will not only be supportive of your endeavors—they will take the necessary action to support your goal—launching a book and producing a positive and profound impact.
Keep in contact with them—support them in their support of you so that the outcomes that you want are a natural by-product of the effort that you make.
Once again, it is important that you be thinking all of the time about what you need to do to hit bestseller status.
You’ve done a lot of groundwork already—but don’t hit “publish” just yet. There are a few other things you need to do to maximise all the effort.
Personal Promotion
It starts with your personal promotion. In fact, it starts and ends with your personal promotion.
Get onto all of your platforms—and make certain people are aware that your book is for sale, preferably during the prelaunch phase so that they can have already bought it before it goes live (remember, presales are king!).
Having said that, not everybody would have purchased during the presale period—now is the time to make certain momentum is building and awareness is at the highest level possible.
This means—multiple posts. Multiple platforms.
Yes, you’re going to share Facebook Lives, do your Facebook posts, Instagram posts, as communicating on any other platform that you may have.
Doing a countdown is a fantastic way to build momentum and keep awareness at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
It is great to have some infographics done; the countdown with your book and the number of days till it goes on sale is a great way of achieving this.
Telling your friends, family and colleagues is about you being committed to the process and sharing the message far and wide.
When you set this theme—and ask people to share—momentum begins to build in a big way.
Launch Team Activation – Part 2
Now is the time to really ramp up the launch team activity.
If you’re sharing all of your personal posts with your launch team—and they are sharing it with their colleagues and their patients—massive momentum will be building.
The countdown to your launch represents the targeted plans you have put in place.
Once again—communication is the key. Make sure your launch team is active and aware—and are supporting the process.
Paid Advertising
Your personal work and the work of your launch team may be enough to produce some traction—but paid advertising goes a long way to reinforcing these approaches.
Google ad words, paid Facebook advertising and Instagram ads—bringing community awareness to your book launch can be absolutely massive for generating sales.
Whether you manage this process on your own—or outsource it to an agency or somebody you feel confident that can help with your Facebook promotion—the key is to make sure you have for them graphically designed art pieces to go with your Facebook ads and that you know the specific target market for your niche so that you can tailor the advertising demographics and budget.
[Image sourced from: nsights.bookbub.com]
Having planned your book launch—now it’s time to “publish.”
Your Book Launch: Building on Pre-Release and Launch Momentum
Congratulations—you’ve published your book. The work that you have done as part of your pre-release and launch strategy should have resulted in a significant number of sales—but we want to leverage the work already done to maximise the number of sales.
If you have done really well—you may already be number one in one of the categories you have chosen to place your book in. That will depend on the number of presales you’ve achieved—which is a by-product of your pre-release and book launch strategy.
If not, now is the time to maximise the marketing of your book to ensure that bestseller status is inevitable.
The following strategies go a long way to making sure that this happens!
Promoting your Book
In the same way that you promoted your book during the book launch—digging deep and letting everybody know that your book is for sale. Ask people to purchase it—don’t be shy! Do it on as many platforms, as many times and in as many ways as is humanly possible.
Ask your friends, family and launch team, if they have not already, to purchase the book.
Book Purchases and Reviews from your Launch Team
As stated above, make sure that your launch team have all made their purchases—but one other step is essential here—to make sure that they provide genuine reviews for your book.
It is important to note you cannot ask for a five-star review, you cannot make them to write a review that you don’t want them right—and you certainly can’t write the review for them.
However, you can ask “for a genuine review.” And if you wrote a good book and they care about your success—you’re likely to get the reviews that you need to continue to build on your pre-release and launch momentum.
At this stage—ask all of your friends and family for reviews as well.
A significant part of the Amazon algorithm for rating your book as a bestseller is the number of reviews. So, as many sales and five-star reviews as you can get—the greater likelihood of you ranking and achieving bestseller status.
Advanced Promotion Strategies
In addition to your paid advertising—which you should continue to do at this point in time, there are a few additional strategies you can use to promote your book.
Put your book on Goodreads and other reader platforms to make sure people are aware of the book and providing feedback.
Gift your book to a number of influencers and ask them to provide a genuine review—and if they like the book, to share the message.
Have a bookstall within your practice, have signage demonstrating that the book is available at a discounted price for a short period of time. And the emotional connection you have with your patience and the recommendations of your support team should ensure that your patients are purchasing the book and offering a genuine review.
Barter your books! This is an advanced strategy that requires some time, effort, energy and a pre-existing relationship. If your book was written on peak performance with executives—a number of your patients are likely to be executives and appreciate the peak performance that they experience being under your care. Let them know that you will waive your presentation fee if you could come and deliver a keynote presentation to their organisation in place of buying a book for every attendee within the program. The potential of this strategy is that you could deliver a keynote presentation within an organisation with 40 staff—and your patient buying 40 books for each of the attendees in place of your appearance to do the presentation. Not only does this increase the number of sales of your book—you get to do a presentation. And if you do a powerful job, they’re not only going to appreciate the book; some of them will be likely to give reviews—and they can become patients of your practice.
My book, Author Mastery provides a detailed list of additional strategies to promote your book. You can get it here. [insert link to the Amazon page].
Achieving Bestseller Status
Congratulations—if you have implemented and applied everything that was spoken about within this blog post—you will likely achieve bestseller status. Naturally, if you feel like you’d like some help and support with the process—all you have to do is reach out and I will help guide you to becoming a bestselling author and create a flood of new patients coming into your practice, to powerfully and positively impact the health and quality of life of your patients and community.
Now that you have a bestselling book—there is so much more that can be done.
Yes, having a bestselling book is amazing—but it becomes even more amazing when you leverage that status.
How do you leverage it? You repurpose the content of your book so that you can continue to produce new patients and further strengthen your position as an expert with authority who is inherently trustworthy.
How do you do this?
Take your book and repurpose its content through:
To achieve this, you are going to need to plan out your content schedule.
The image above and below demonstrates how I created a content plan for Author Mastery. The process is exactly the same for your own book—and the way that you want to produce material and produce additional content.
This not only builds on the momentum you have as a bestselling author—it continues to reinforce your expertise and authority, and will continue to produce new patients as your presence in the marketplace increases.
Naturally, you will need to continue to develop your writing and produce more content—as well as develop confidence in front of the camera. Doing this, however, gives you the opportunity to dominate your niche because of the expertise and authority you’ve established.
The writing process that we described above is the same method that you would use here to produce this content.
That’s how you do it! Of course, as easy as it is—not everyone takes action.
Why? Let’s discuss.
Okay, if you’ve got this far—one of three things has happened:
Let me start by saying—you can write a book. You need to write a book. Your patients and your community wants you to write a book—and by doing so, you will not only increase the status as an expert and your position as an authority—you will become more trustworthy and your practice will grow as a result.
If doubt, fear or uncertainty is robbing you of the opportunity of becoming a bestselling author—please, reach out. Have a conversation with me and let me show you that you can achieve bestseller status and have the success you desire—and deserve. Click on the link to set up a call with me: https://calendly.com/drmarcuschacos/45-minute-meeting.
Another reason that people don’t write a book is that they do not think that they are an expert. They have doubt that they know enough or have enough expertise to write a book. This is complete nonsense. You are an expert. Being a Doctor of Chiropractic makes you one by definition—so, write a book, evidence your expertise and share your message.
Another reason people may not have taken action—they haven’t got a system for writing a book. That is exactly what this blog outlines for you—and what my book, Author Mastery: The Chiropractors Blueprint for Writing, Publishing and Selling Life-Changing Books to Rapidly Grow their Practice while Transforming the Health and Lives of their Patients and Community! provides. If this is not enough—perhaps you need my book to go a little bit deeper. [insert link to book].
Alternatively, the next reason, the final reason why people are unlikely to have written a book may also be that you don’t have a writing coach or mentor to help move you in the direction of the success you desire.
Now you do!
Sometimes people just need a little help—and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Having a mentor guide you through the writing, publishing and launch process can help tremendously. That’s why I created the author mastery program—to help chiropractors write and publish their bestseller.
My motivation is simple: I want to see 1000 chiropractors write 1000 bestselling books to generate 100,000 new patients and over $10 million for the chiropractic profession in the next five years. Being a mental to chiropractors wanting to write their book will make that possible.
If there is anything I can do to assist you—please reach out. Throughout this blog post, there are many ways to get in contact with me. Simply reach out and I will help you do what you want to do: become a bestselling author and impact the health and lives of your patients and community in a profound and powerful way.
Honestly, I’m here for you.
It seems like a massive claim—but it’s not really. It’s achievable.
If I can do it—and I can help multiple practitioners, some of whom are not confident speaking or writing—I can help you do it too.
I honestly want you to become a bestselling author—not only because it will help you improve your status and position, making you more money—but because it will serve the chiropractic profession.
Chiropractic needs its status enhanced and improved. Chiropractic needs to have society recognise its authority, impact and value. Chiropractic needs bestselling authors to share the chiropractic message—chiropractic needs you.
Join the Author Mastery Masterclass and contact us to help you write your best-selling book—I look forward to seeing you on the other side: https://www.chiroauthormastery.com/master-class.
Yes, absolutely! There is a difference between writing a book and publishing a book; between being a self-published author and a publishing house published author. Every chiropractor can write and publish their own book using a format that will help us successfully get the genius out of their brain and onto the page. Not everyone will become a published author via a publishing house—but you don’t need to, to be a successful author and to grow your audience. The beauty of platforms like Amazon means that anyone can write a book—even if they don’t think they can or haven’t written one before.
Absolutely! It not only gives you credibility—it gives you authority and an expertise position making you the go-to practitioner in your region. It will rapidly grow your practice and give you a method for communicating your practice’s message in a far more compelling and powerful way. We have seen practices grow by hundreds of new patients and hundreds and thousands of dollars through the process of writing a book. I believe it is the number one practice growth strategy available to chiropractors!
Yes and no! It can definitely be hard, if you haven’t written a book before and you don’t know how to write a book—and then you get no support. On the other hand, it is far easier than you would imagine with the right support and guidance—having a book-writing mentor. The process I use makes writing a book almost effortless—as though you’re having a conversation with a patient. That means it is really easy to write a book and you already know everything you need to know in order to get the book done!
While there are many answers to this question—I believe the best answer is: What do you love doing in practice? If you have a specific patient that you love working with, if you have hundreds or thousands of these patients then you will be fulfilled as a practitioner. This is your area of interest—your niche! When you write to an audience of your favourite patients, when you write in an area of your interest and passion and have a desire to serve people within this area of interest—then writing your book in that area is your best option. Of course, you can write on any specific topic area, including back pain, headaches and migraine, stress and a whole range of other topics—but the best books are the ones that are passionately written by a chiropractor to an audience they want to serve, impact and add value to. Of course, you already have these patients in your practice—so you already know that there is an interest in and a desire for the message that you have to share.
There are three answers to this question: my preferred length is the short book, approximately 100 pages in length. This is about the length of a three-hour conversation. Of course, you can write a 300-page book, similar to the books that you would see in bookstores by bestselling authors. The only problem is, these take a lot longer to write, edit and develop—and are not read to completion as much as shorter books are. Leaving the third answer, any length in between a short book and a long book is acceptable. The real answer is how long is it going to take you to write out your message in a compelling and powerful way? Once again, I suggest a short book as a starting point principally because it is more likely to be read—and a book that is read is going to be acted upon. It is going to be more valuable and useful. So, my recommendation is to start with a book of approximately a hundred pages and get that message out as quickly as possible. You can then build it from there.
All of the above questions are answered more fully in my blogs and if you have any more questions in relation to how you can become a bestselling author, feel free to reach out to us and visit our Author Mastery webpage www.chiroauthormastery.com.
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