Hello and welcome to Podiatry practice Mastery.
My name is Don felt. Oh and I have Nancy Erickson
here and Nancy. We're going to be talking a
little bit to you about your passion with helping people
getting their ideas on in books. So welcome, great.
Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here.
Yeah, you're welcome. So Nancy.
I can see from behind you. Look at all those books.
So tell me that's just one wall. So tell me a little bit about
your backstory kind of how you got into it.
Helping people write books is, you're interested in writing, is
it marketing? Kind of which what's your
interest? Well, I'm passionate about
books, but I got into this kind of sideways.
My actual original career was in high tech.
I was a systems engineer for IBM and then I work for Oracle
Corporation and I mean, serious high tech jobs, you know, and so
on sales team selling to Fortune 100 companies and making a lot
of money. I mean that's a Good income, but
I really didn't like it at all. It's just a lot of pressure,
just ridiculous, quotas and all sorts of things.
But like, most people, I had a pivotal moment in my life and
that was when my father was diagnosed with a terminal brain
tumor. And so we knew that he would
only live about 7 months and it was pretty textbook.
So during that time, I quit my job, I quit doing everything
that I had been doing and I went to back and forth to Florida
where my parents It's were living to be with them, you
know, to help manage things and until he passed away.
And then I came home and I was like, okay, now what am I going
to do? You know, I quit my job, you
know, I had my kids really young and my kids were already out of
college at that point and so I thought, you know, I always
loved to write, I really love that.
I had things published when I was younger.
I thought I'm just going to learn more about the craft,
you're right. So I went back to school and got
a master's degree in masters of Fine Arts in writing and was
then asked to join the faculty at the University to teach
writing. So at the same time that I
joined the faculty to teach, I also started Stonebrook
publishing which is a nonfiction publishing house and so and that
was about 14 years ago and so it was pretty cool.
The things that happen course I enjoy A teaching.
But in the publishing side, I had a couple of really what I
considered to be big hits right off.
And the first was we published a book by a holocaust Survivor who
had gone to school with Anne Frank.
And so the book was amazing. And we ended up doing the book
release at their school in Amsterdam.
And so it was so amazing and then I got a call from another
set of authors. Who were looking to be published
and we publish their book as well and we got back cover
endorsements for that book from to pretty high-profile people,
Sir Paul McCartney and Cindy Crawford.
And so I thought, oh my gosh, I I must know what I'm doing, you
know, this is going really well, this is really fun but at the
same time we were getting manuscripts from writers who had
a seed of what we were looking for in our material of armor.
Material is intended to do, one of three things, either change
lives, save lives, or transform society.
And so it would have a seat of that in there, but it was so
poorly written that we couldn't do anything with it.
We couldn't edit our way out of it.
So I had, I guess it was kind of a spiritual God moment when I
was in my office one day and I all of a sudden, just felt this
Rush of heard felt something that just sits.
Stop. You know.
Take a step back and teach people how to write creative
nonfiction. High-impact non-fiction books.
And so it was kind of cool because I could combine my
knowledge from teaching at the University with publishing.
So what I did is I did take a step back and I wrote a
step-by-step process that takes authors to from their original
July Dia. All you have to have is an idea
to get started all the way through to the end, where the
book is published and distributed worldwide on Amazon
Barnes & Noble, you know, libraries, Etc.
So it was sideways, you know, as all came from that pivotal
moment. When you know, we had the the
issue with my dad and since then, you know, we published,
you know, hundreds of books and, you know, have award-winning.
It's where an award-winning Publishing House.
So, I'm really proud of it, but I'm mostly proud of the authors
that we work with. Because what they are is,
they're they're normally, they're professionals their
doctors attorneys Business Leaders and, you know, nobody
quits their job to write a book. I hope not anyway.
And they're using their book material to augment their
business practice and that, that might be what would appeal.
Eel to podiatrist at that are in your circle, that what a
wonderful, you know, story Nancy of kind of.
And I think just what you did there is what I appreciate about
good written books and it's that format of kind of telling the
background story and that leaving as a podiatrist.
You know, we can talk about plantar, fasciitis, everything
else but what they really like what my patients really like is
my background story, kind of how I got into it.
What's the story behind it? Why am I passionate Finn is what
I what area Podiatry. I'm passionate about.
And why that is because they like the emotions.
They like the stories. That's so true.
That is exactly true. And that you know, it's
interesting because when I'm working with professional people
particularly doctors they tend to want to give the their
clinical front. No, not their personal story but
and I think that used to work and maybe in the 90s, you know,
early 2000s, it I work anymore. People are craving connection
whether it's with their, their doctor, or their, you know,
anybody that certainly, if they're reading a book, they
want to know the person behind the book.
And so, we spend a lot of time, crafting, your personal story so
that you ingratiate yourself with your readers and, you know,
you can't, I mean, you can't even do this in teaching
anymore. Nobody At the front of the room
and tells you what to do or what you should do, that big should
word, you know, is kind of out of Vogue right now, but you
invite people to come along with you to learn what you've learned
and particularly, when you're in a field of medicine, there are a
lot of things that people need to your feet are really
important and when when your feet start hurting you're in
trouble, you know, it affects everything in your life and
there's so many things that are associated with Good Foot Care.
Care that we don't think about because we just cover them up
and go walk somewhere, right? Yeah.
And but when you in, you have to, you know, invite the readers
into your world a little bit so that they can learn from you.
Otherwise, they don't trust you. Yeah, you know.
I think what you're saying is you know it seems like this can
be used for book writing but let's just kind of look back
pull back a little bit. Like if people are doing
newsletters, people are doing Blog post people are doing like
this whole idea of like telling a little get to know me story or
sharing get to know me pictures and then maybe going into
something about ingrown toenails, but what people really
like is the story partial, that's what I've read some
different books about storytelling and things and and
I love listening to stories and people and you sharing your
stories. So what how do people do you
have any good tips of? Let's let's say people want,
let's say they're not ready. Nancy to use you.
Let's say they want to do it on their own.
What are some tips of gathering stories organizing?
Writing things like that. Great question because stories
of the most important thing, the only reason people are going to
remember, anything is through Stark storytelling.
And so, like you said before, you have to engage the emotions
and stuff. So I have a little formula, I
have, if I could share with you about how to tell your own
story, okay? And I did this when I told you,
what happened with me and the formula is three-part, it's like
what it used to be like, Remember, I told you, I work for
Oracle and for IBM and I made a lot of money but I was happy.
Okay, the what happened part is that pivotal moment?
My dad was diagnosed with a terminal, brain tumor and I quit
my job and went to help my folks, and then kind of the what
it's, but there's many parts to the what happened, right?
So your pivotal moment isn't necessarily moment, it's kind of
like turning the Titanic, you know, you got to go, you know,
until you're going in a different direction.
Ian and for me, what was that part of that pivotal moment?
Was, I went back to school, I got a master's degree, I started
teaching at the University, I started a Publishing House,
started publishing books. And then the final part of that
third, part of that formula is what it's like.
Now now I'm able to coach and guide Everyday People to write,
high-impact non-fiction books, that really do change lives and
save lives. And Transform Society.
So that formula for telling your own story, is really something
worth thinking about because it's just like what you just
said. People want to know that the
backstory but they also want to know where you are now to know
that you're the authority, that they can rely upon in order to
get the services that they are seeking.
That's that's wonderful. So when you do this with people,
do you do it? I know some people like Of you
people and to get it this way. So a lot of us work better with
interviews or do you have the actual doctors right?
Entry of us you can do it on your own or you can do it with
you, right? So probably the on here.
Yeah, it's kind of its, there's a couple of ways to do it.
The first way that I work with people is one on one and it, let
me just say if we're not ghostwriters, we're not writing
your book. You're writing it.
I want to tell you why? Because let's talk about ghost
writing for a minute. Ghostwriting is somebody who
interviewed you. They have set questions.
And they gather the information for the interview and then they
write the book. Now, you'll see many famous
people use ghost writers and it'll say by Laura Bush with
somebody that whiff person wrote the book.
Okay. The problem with that is they
can only go as deep as the questions are and they're not
necessarily Gathering the essence of the person and their
knowledge because they haven't invested.
They'll spend a lot of time in the interviews but they still
aren't Digging where? They're only digging where their
questions lead them. So in our process what we do is
we it's a step-by-step process. We start off with this series of
foundational questions. That's really helps you to
crystallize your message and it's things like, you know, why
are you even doing this you know which motivation who's your
audience, specifically? How's the audience going to be
changed as a result of taking in?
Your material. And there's 12 of these
questions. What we end up doing, is taking
your answers to those and Distilling them down into a
purpose statement for the book that says, the purpose of this
book is to do this particular thing for this specific audience
period and then your job becomes to deliver the audience to the
purpose of the book. So you can't put everything, you
know. And one book you have to Target
it to your audience into that purpose.
And so, once we have that purpose statement, then we
create a book map which is a visual representation of
everything that's going to be in your book.
And the book math is constructed your, we construct your chapters
in problem solution sets. What's the problem?
Your audience is likely to have and then back to Our stories
through a very story driven methodology, you present your
Solutions. That's that, that's awesome,
that's it. So to take it further and this
is all part of this, this process.
That's a, you know, proprietary process when your book is
finished. You have, you can take that
material and repurpose it across multiple, venues?
Some of them even revenue-producing, you can
because you have their each container.
So chapter is a container of information blog, First, they
could be a podcast. They can be a, exactly, exactly
seminars, workshops video training anything.
Because you have the material all there and so awesome.
When people we talked about, your book is being a great,
great Foundation of for your business so that you can
concentrate on the problems that you like to treat.
I mean, I think that I don't think everybody likes to do
everything in Podiatry. I mean, I saw that Skytree show
about the that one. It has these terrible problems
with these gross feet. I couldn't stop.
I mean I couldn't watch anymore because it was so hard to watch
but I don't think I mean I know doctors and other Specialties
there's certain things I really like to do.
So let's Elevate those things so that you can attract patients to
you for the Specialties that you really excel in.
I love that Nancy, how you can. So repurposing your content then
as and I think even just the whole process of we don't think
enough or analyze enough why we do what we do and what we really
like to do. So pick out two or three of
those things that you really like, not not talking about what
you don't like. Because what you talk about is
what you attract. Now I'm going to I'm going to
talk about the elephant in the room.
I think our patients and people in general are very lazy and we
don't read or very few okay. People that I know very You
reading books, they prefer Tick-Tock they prefer a little
short videos. They prefer you know all these
other things in this day and age.
I'm sure there are other reasons to have a book.
They might get your book. They might download your free
PDF and not even read it, but there's a benefits you having a
book talk a little bit to that? Well, okay, first, I'm going to
you're bringing up a question that you didn't ask and that,
that's kind of like it has to do with attention span.
Okay. So how long should your book be
people always have to, how have you survived?
Book be and I have a standard answer and it's this not one
word longer than it needs to be because we have short attention
spans. And I need, I will teach you to
write in a concise manner that is targeted into the point,
nobody wants fluff and all that stuff.
So your chapters can be short and concise and targeted and
still accomplish your message. Now you think that people aren't
going to want to read the book but when their feet are hurting
and when they have neuropathy and their feet are burning, Rain
or whatever. Is it anything?
What they're gonna do anything to figure out how to get relief?
And so often doctors will use their book as a you know,
they'll give it away to their patients you know and they'll or
prospective patients or if they're trying to attract, you
know, Partners or even, you know, maybe referral Partners in
the industry. You know, other like primary
care, doctors or things like that.
Exactly. And so, your book should do
three things for you, it should establish you as an expert in
your field. It should increase your
credibility and it should help you attract a following, but it
will only do those things if it's well-written.
And I want to talk a little bit about that because that is so
key. And so people often give me
their self published. And they're really proud of.
Look, I wrote a book and it's amazing that they wrote a book,
but when I open it, I often think, oh, my gosh, don't give
this to anybody else. I mean, it's like the fonts huge
because I tried to make it longer.
Or they did wasn't edited and it's grammar errors, and it's
just not, well done. And so, we really when we are
clients that we work for and we're like, okay, look, we're an
award-winning Publishing House. Your book is Is going to stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with anything else out there on the
market that's good. And you'll be published, you
know, professionally published through by a publishing house
but it doesn't need that. You don't need to bulk it up and
try to make it longer than it is just get to the point.
Establish your credibility by sharing something of yourself
and telling stories and showing your expertise through the work
that you present in your book. That's awesome.
And I think you, you alluded to some of the other ways of using
your book because one thing is getting the book published and
just for those that are listening, it's more going to
be. I think, probably, I don't think
we're going to be like an Amazon bestseller New York Times
bestseller, but it's more for our circle of influence, in kind
of writing our book. Is that correct Nancy?
Yeah most of the time. That's right.
I mean most people you know podiatrists are local right.
I mean you don't care about someone in you know, estate.
States over, you know, coming to you because they usually won't,
you know, so you want to penetrate your local audience
and you know, the other thing I want to talk about too is that
the opportunities that your book can open for you as a
professional are vast? For example, I mean, you know,
there's a lot of Podiatry conferences and they're always
needing speakers and those who have books are the ones who are
most preferred. Because if, you know, No.
It's kind of getting a college degree, you know, maybe, you
know, you went through the process to do something and to
do it well and that's a, you know, it's an advantage over
others who don't have that it builds credibility, right?
Yeah. That's part of what I said, is
help you to build your credibility.
You know, as long as it's well done, you can Trash your
credibility in an instant. I mean it's you know, II think
that's key because II, you know, I'm as entrepreneurs we're
always looking for. What's the next best thing,
right? And so there's a couple of
things that came out. One was called designer with two
r's and basically it's a, it's an app that you, you recorded,
it takes. It can take an actual YouTube
video transfer. Take the transcription make it
into a book but it's not edited at all, you know?
It's like freeform and I've seen some people's books there.
Freeform them talking transcribed into a book and it
just it hurts to read it hurts. Yeah.
Right. And the other question, why
physical book versus pdf? Tell me, explain to me why
physical book versus pdf download.
Let's go back to the credibility point.
You were making a PDF is nothing, you know, I mean,
seriously, my grandkids, I was telling you about earlier, my
six-year-old can produce a PDF, they're doing that stuff in
school now, you know, so it's nothing to attach a PDF and, you
know, usually that's like a report or, you know, it's just
not something and sometimes, people call things books that
are Yep, five-page PDFs. You know that's that's not a
book. Well, it's not a book.
It's they should be embarrassed to be using that word, you know,
cuz it's like, it's like bait-and-switch kind of thing.
You know. Not honest is what I think I'm
trying to say. Yeah, you have a professionally
published book Again, The credibility piece is
immeasurable. Yeah, that's good.
And I'm gonna, if I can, before you send it to tell us any other
final Tips. You have a tip for if someone
that wants to learn to be a writer whether it be a blogger
book, writer things like that I found.
There's it Steven pressfield, he talks about resistance to
creating content, and I think sometimes, you know, sitting
down is you Advocate like an hour every day or 30 minutes
every day, just to kind of free flow writing or do you recommend
just a whole day to write or go somewhere else?
How do you what's the best habits?
That, that is a great question. It's really pretty.
Digital, I know another podiatrist dr.
Peter wish knee new, who advocates for these having a day
for doing non practice stuff and he's done a couple of books with
me. And so he's you know he uses
that data right? Part of what we do when I'm
working with clients is remember, I told you about that
book map so you're going to have everything that you're going to
put in your book on that mat. So you know what that Means that
means no writer's block ever. Writer's block is you're just
sitting there thinking, right? You know what?
You're going to do, you know what you're going to do and so
we can we really guide our clients to do some time,
blocking on their calendar block off time and what a lot of
people have found is if they do it in an hour, a day that gets
them into the Rhythm but then, Times they'll switch later and
think well I just got into my material and then my hour was
up, you know. So they'll think, okay, I need
two hours on an afternoon or something like that, but all
you're doing is writing the things that are down your book
nap. And so, then we polish it all up
in another module where we edit it.
And then of course, the final thing that st.
Stands between you writing your book and US publishing, it is us
doing a professional edit of your book so that it's more.
Market ready? Okay.
Getting rid of all my passive voice that I'm really good at.
Oh I can't believe you just said that that is exactly what we do.
I know it's all kids because I was so history, I was a history
major. Yeah.
And the reason I chose history is because I wasn't very good at
writing and I wanted to learn to write better and that and that's
why I did history medicine and I went into medicine and it was my
backup Gig. If I wouldn't even have that
story there. Yeah, it would have gone into
the actually. I wanted to be a magician even
before that, but That's a different story, but thank you
Nancy. I think we've learned a lot.
Any tips? Like, do you recommend?
I think it's called Glam grammarly.
Do you recommend anything? Everly is really good because it
does help you with your grammar and gives you word suggestions
and things like that. So I have grammarly installed on
my computer and I'm always irritated when it Flags
something because I think I should have known better.
The gravel is great and there's a free version of it.
That people there is there is but you said one of the most
important things Is learning to use active language, so I don't
know. It's it's, you know, the more
you write the better, you get. I think that's true.
And if people want to learn more Nancy, I do you have any free
downloads courses, anything like that?
How can they learn more about you?
Well, I have a book, I have a website.
It's the book professor.com, and if you're interested in kind of
exploring something about writing your own book, I'd love
to chat with, you can just email me at Nancy at the book,
Professor.com great. Well, this is very fun.
Thank you so much, pleasure meeting you.
Yeah, you too, thank you so much.