Joe Sanok 00:00:00 Hey there, practice of the practice community. Are you ready to take your private practice to the next level? Then mark your calendars for September 16th through 19th, 2024, because Level Up week is back and bigger than ever. Insert rocket emoji here. Join us for four days of live webinars, interactive panels, and exclusive resources tailored just for counselors, therapists and private practice owners. Whether you’re looking to fill your caseload, hire your first clinician or scale your group practice. We’ve got you covered. This is your chance to level up while others give up. Don’t miss out on this game changing event. Register now at practice of the practice. Com forward slash level up and get ready to transform your practice. Remember September 16th through 19th level up week your ticket to practice success. Register today and let’s level up together. Practice of the practice. Com forward slash. Level up. This is the practice of the practice podcast with Joe Sana. Session number 1052. I’m Joe Cenac, your host, and welcome to the practice of the Practice podcast. Joe Sanok 00:01:22 I am so excited to be hanging out with you today. We help you build a thriving practice that you absolutely love almost every single day of the week. I think we’re at six episodes a week now. I lose track. The team is doing a great job with just coordinating with our sponsors and keeping the show going. just a reminder, in almost exactly a month, not quite. On September 16th, we kick off level up week. Level up week is something we do twice a year. we’re actually next May going to be doing the group practice boss conference here in Traverse City. So we’re going to be sending more details about that. So we may not be doing Level Up week in spring of 25. But this year’s final level up week is September 16th to 19th. We have panels all about solo practice, about starting a group practice, Mega group practices. We’ve got Steve from the Mental Health Marketing Conference coming in. Steve Cherny is joining us for that. We’ve got a ton of other marketing experts around pay per click advertising on how to just ramp up your practice, so you’re not going to want to miss a single one of those. Joe Sanok 00:02:25 I know we have 16 webinars in a week, and I am assured that you are full with your practice, so pick a day or two that makes sense for you to just dig in. it’s an awesome virtual conference that we put on. you can register over at practice of the practice.com for slash level up. It’s totally free for you. we put this on as a way to gift back to our community a lot of amazing content. And, the series that just ended on August 2nd, that was all of our level up week recordings from the springtime. because some of you couldn’t attend those. And so all those level up week recordings were there for you to dig in and learn. So we’ve got the live one coming up September 16th to 19th. Again, practice to the practice.com/level up. You know it’s really funny how sometimes themes and consulting clients line up. I literally was just talking before this podcast interview with one of my former consulting clients who came back around. We’ve been supporting their podcast for years, and they’re looking at writing a non-fiction book. Joe Sanok 00:03:28 They do some amazing work out there, and I connected her with my agent, and she’s got a book proposal she’s working on. And, you know, that trifecta of public speaking, of writing a book and having a podcast? To me, it just feels from my perspective and what I’m seeing that it’s just a very powerful way for you to level up beyond your private practice. Or maybe in addition to your private practice, I want to I don’t want it to feel like it’s a hierarchy where it’s somehow better. But that’s why I’m so excited to have Stephanie Chandler with me. Stephanie is the author of several books, including the nonfiction book Marketing and Launch Plan and the Nonfiction Book Publishing Plan. She is CEO of the Nonfiction Authors Association, a Vibrant Community for writers, and the Nonfiction Writers Conference, a live event conducted entirely online since 2010. A frequent speaker at business events and on the radio, she’s been featured in entrepreneur, Businessweek, The Writer, Writer’s Digest, and Wired magazine. Stephanie. Welcome to the practice of the practice podcast. Stephanie Chandler 00:04:31 Hey, Joe, appreciate the opportunity to chat with you today. Joe Sanok 00:04:35 Yeah, as I was reading your bio, non-fiction is used a lot in your bio. So if someone doesn’t realize what you do, repetition is going to get them there. That’s great. I want to start with, why do you care about nonfiction? Like, where did that start for you? Was it as a kid? Was it in college? Like, where’s the beginning of your love for nonfiction and non fiction writers? Stephanie Chandler 00:04:59 Are you might regret asking that question, but it goes back to 2003. I left my soul sucking Silicon Valley career behind, and I opened a 2800 square foot brick and mortar bookstore near Sacramento, California, where I live, and I thought I was going to write novels in the back office because I had always wanted to write. And if you want to write, that’s what you’re supposed to do is write novels. And the short story is, I quickly discovered I was a terrible fiction writer, but I have always loved teaching. Stephanie Chandler 00:05:36 In fact, I set out to be an English teacher. And I realized through nonfiction, which is what I often read the most anyway, I had an opportunity to blend my love of writing and teaching and discovered a whole new career I hadn’t even planned on. So it was a lucky turn of events. And by the way, running a bookstore is not nearly as romantic as it sounds. Joe Sanok 00:06:01 I mean, it seems like the beginning of a hallmark movie where someone’s going to bump into you and they’re visiting home from some big city, and it’s not like that. Stephanie Chandler 00:06:10 No, not at all. Joe Sanok 00:06:14 Well, you know, I think that’s interesting. So. So you wanted to write novels and then how did that start to kind of shift for you into nonfiction? Stephanie Chandler 00:06:23 So my Silicon Valley friends drove up to Sacramento, were two hours away. And because they couldn’t believe that I had quit a six figure job to sell $4 paperbacks, right. And so they’re literally caravanning up to see this store and saying things to me like, I wish I had the courage to do what you did. Stephanie Chandler 00:06:43 I have the golden handcuffs, I can’t, I don’t, I can’t leave. And they really inspired me to want to help them make the leap into entrepreneurship. So my first book was A Business Startup Guide. And with them in mind. And by the way, not one of them ever did quit their jobs, but they did inspire a whole new career for me. And then, I discovered that there were so much I could be doing and teaching. And by the way, I self-published that first book and then landed my first book deal the following year by myself. Joe Sanok 00:07:19 Wow. Now, when you first started doing nonfiction, like, what did you find helpful to think through it? I guess I’d like to kind of start with kind of the structure that you think works, and not that every nonfiction follows the same structure. But what I noticed when I was writing Thursday is the new Friday I went through, like, Malcolm Gladwell had a masterclass on masterclass. Com and Daniel Pink also was someone that I followed a lot around kind of his writing and what I noticed, and I’d love to hear kind of what you would say is a good framework for people to start was similar to the book Talk Like Ted, that chocolate and chocolate, Ted. Joe Sanok 00:07:58 They look at the top 200 Ted talks, and they found that, of those top 200, they break down to about 40% of it is research science, things like that. But 40% is stories, examples, case studies and only about 20% is. Here’s the big takeaway. And it seemed like that model, in at least the nonfiction I’m drawn to was, was very similar. You know, you look at a typical Malcolm Gladwell or Dan Pink book, you know, they’re starting with some each chapter with some interesting story, and then they jump into some research that doesn’t seem connected and like a good improv sketch, it all comes together at the end of each chapter. and so when I was writing, Thursday is the new Friday, I just said to myself, okay, every chapter needs three pieces of research, three pieces of interesting stories, of something. and then for me, it felt like it kind of then came together pretty easily once I had that wireframe for you. When you think about, I mean, you have a huge community of writers. Joe Sanok 00:08:54 I’m sure that there’s a diverse amount of ways that people think through their writing. But what are some starting points for people that are highly educated there? They have their counseling practices. They know trauma, anxiety, whatever, inside and out. What’s a good starting place for them to just start thinking through, organizing their thoughts and their writing? Stephanie Chandler 00:09:14 Yeah. I love your structure, by the way. I think that was great to have a certain number of stories and and statistics. So what I typically recommend and by the way we’re talking about prescriptive nonfiction here. So this means, you know, you’re writing some sort of How-To book not a memoir because it’s a totally different process, but a how to book. What I recommend writers do is write the book description first. So this is the theoretical back cover copy. Right. And the reason you want to write that first is because it helps you get really clear about what the book is going to be about and what are the benefits to the reader. I think so many authors skip this step, and they aren’t thinking about what are the takeaways for the reader? How is the reader’s life going to be improved in some way because of this book? And then after we write the description and by the way, that description can change. Stephanie Chandler 00:10:14 But it’s a it’s a good kind of setting, the foundation for what’s to come. And then the way that I outline a book personally is I use the old storyboard method. So I will take a stack of three by five cards, and I will write down every case study, every real world example, every story I want to tell, every statistic I’m aware of, every point I want to make individually on these three by five cards. And I will spread them out in my living room. And I will do this over a number of days, obviously. And usually I’ve been simmering on a book for at least a year before I start to tackle it anyways, so I’ve got a lot of points jotted down. So those go on to individual cards, and then I start moving them around to put them in some sort of logical order. And this is what ultimately becomes the outline. So I could see that chapter three is way too heavy. I need to split it into two. Chapter six is pretty light. Stephanie Chandler 00:11:09 Can I add more stories or should it be absorbed into another chapter? And I find this to be super effective. I do this with books. I do this with presentations and courses that I create and and I’m always trying to balance out stories as well. I think storytelling is a huge part of making a nonfiction book interesting. Joe Sanok 00:11:31 Yeah, I want to dig into that. What makes a good story? Stephanie Chandler 00:11:35 I think something that the reader can relate to. So this gets back to it’s all about your reader. What do they care about? What are their struggles? What are their challenges? Those are the things that you want to focus on within your book, within your marketing, within everything that you do and in the stories that you tell. So I love to use real world stories, but maybe you don’t have one that’s quite appropriate. You can always say, for example, and give an example that the reader can relate to and make it interesting, you know, put some color into it and texture, because that is what makes really good writing. Stephanie Chandler 00:12:15 If we look at the books we’ve enjoyed, you mentioned Malcolm Gladwell. I mean, he’s a wonderful writer. Look to writers like that for inspiration on how to craft a really interesting story. Speaker 3 00:12:28 Yeah. Joe Sanok 00:12:29 And how much do you think it’s important to have when you’re especially for your first book to have kind of a basic wireframe that works. like for example, it seems like most New York Times national nonfiction books usually have two, 3 or 4 parts to them. Those parts have some sort of story arc. within those they usually have, you know, anywhere from 5 to 7 chapters in each section. How important is it to kind of wireframe what has worked versus to just get started writing or capturing ideas, like where should people start in regards to just starting to think through beyond kind of the main hook of the book? Stephanie Chandler 00:13:09 So, I mean, I always worry when writers are trying to write to a specific word count. So I would rather see you write what needs to be said. And maybe that’s in 30,000 words. Stephanie Chandler 00:13:22 Maybe it’s in 60,000. If it’s a 90,000, we probably need to trim it back a little bit. But, the point is, trying to model the sections after any other book is not something I would necessarily recommend. But with that said, Joe, we are in a short attention span society, right? So we don’t want chapters that go on for pages and pages and pages. We really want to do a good job of breaking up the text using subheadings and bullets and things that make it feel like it’s a quick read, even if it’s a longer book. 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Now let’s imagine someone’s here. That’s a coaching client of mine. and so I have a lady in New York who’s starting a podcast. she’s focusing on chronic illness. let’s take her as an example. So she’s an amazing psychologist. She does chronic illness, work with people. she’s starting a podcast around chronic illness, and she, she, at some point may want to start a book. If you were coaching her, what would you say this month she should do to start brainstorming that book? Stephanie Chandler 00:15:42 I love this, so I would say go find all the other books in that category. And and if you don’t want to read them. Stephanie Chandler 00:15:50 So I personally, when I’m getting ready to write, I don’t want to be in reading mode because I don’t want to accidentally take ideas from someone else. But you want to get what people like about those books. What’s missing from those books? Look at the table of contents. Read the reviews. Right, because that’s going to tell you what how people benefited because we don’t want to go write another book that has hundreds or thousands of competing titles. Chronic illness is a great niche. So I would imagine there aren’t thousands of competing titles, but certainly there are going to be some. So it’s important to figure out how your book is going to be different or better than what’s already out there. And the best way to do that is to understand what’s already out there. And by the way, agents are going to want to know that, too. They want competitive analysis. Speaker 3 00:16:41 Yeah, yeah. Joe Sanok 00:16:42 I think that’s one thing that I didn’t even understand the power of until I started working with a writing coach to say, like, where would this book sit in in a bookstore, you know, is this going to be in self-help? Is it going to be in the business section? Is it going to be a memoir, like just even thinking through like, what other books would be next to this book? and then by doing that, it helped me kind of think through, okay, that type of audience, like, what are they looking for? If they’re in this section compared to other sections, and what can make it stand out? What needs to be kind of the same? when they start to look at other titles. Joe Sanok 00:17:14 I love that idea of especially reading reviews and looking at what was lacking in other books. one thing another author said to me, and I would love your take on this, is to just start capturing maybe the seven or so questions that you keep answering all the time and therapy and like, are those things that are an opportunity to have each be a chapter, each be a book to just, you know, if you’re a therapist that helps with anxiety and you keep getting the question over food and sleep’s interaction with, mental health diagnoses. Capture that. How do you say that? How do you think about it? What what else would you say people should do? Or first, I guess, do you agree with that? I heard you say yes, but like, would you expand on that idea and how people can kind of dig into the work they’re already doing and, and use that in a book form, obviously without without, you know, having confidentiality be part of it. You don’t want to do that. Joe Sanok 00:18:04 But but what else would you suggest? What would you say about that. Stephanie Chandler 00:18:09 So this is something that I recommend to authors as well, is to start taking note of the questions that you ask that you’re asked, especially those ones you’re repeatedly asked. But truly, any question you’re asked, start taking note of it. And my personal motto is that if I can’t answer a question with a piece of content, it goes on the list and becomes an article, a podcast episode. Part of a report. It could be part of my next book. So I capture every question because if one person in my audience has that question, certainly others do as well. And so those questions can absolutely give you great insight into what your readers are thinking about, but also you. When you’re writing for your reader, they don’t even know what they don’t know. Right. So you really want to take that a step further and figure out, okay, so what are some of their challenges and how can you help them through those challenges? So I will sit down and make an exercise of, you know, what are the challenges for my readers? My readers are nonfiction writers. Stephanie Chandler 00:19:21 write how to sell more books, how to get the book done, how to stop when you know, know when to stop editing the book, how to go get a book deal, or how to decide if you should self-publish. So these are all the things that I know my audience, struggles with, and these are all things that I can send you a piece of content about. Or it goes on the list, becomes a piece of content, and potentially ends up in a future book. Speaker 3 00:19:46 Yeah, I love that. how. Joe Sanok 00:19:49 When you’re talking to these communities, how are people keeping track of all those ideas? I mean, I’m sure that there’s lots of ways they do it, but what are some of the ways that you really like that people capture those ideas as they have them. Stephanie Chandler 00:20:02 You know, I’m I’m kind of old school with my spiral notebooks and pens, so I’ve tried to digitize my ideas and I just I still want to feel it and look at it. but I see people using boards like Trello. Stephanie Chandler 00:20:18 I actually helped a client outline a book using Trello. Trello is a really cool visual, place to capture ideas. So tools like that. and then there’s Scrivener is a writing tool a lot of writers rave about. So it helps you keep your research organized and really get your framework going for your book. Joe Sanok 00:20:41 Yeah, I know for me, I really liked using Trello. because what I did is I had my Trello board and each of the lists was the chapter because I knew, you know, from the book proposal, you know, what each chapter was going to be on. And then I also had a couple lists that were just for research or just for stories that I didn’t know where they might go. And whenever I saw like a news article on my on my Apple News feed that somehow connected to a chapter, maybe I didn’t even know. Maybe I just thought it sounded like a funny story that could be woven in somewhere. I would put it in the story or the research section, and then I would look each week before I was writing the next chapter, I would say, okay, so is this full enough? Like, do I have enough research or do I have enough stories? Or do I need to look at what I already have that I could pepper in there and then would kind of start with new eyes of, okay, like what? Like if I were just entering into this, this chapter, say the curiosity chapter. Joe Sanok 00:21:34 I say like, what would I want to know? And it was like, well, curiosity killed the cat. Like, where the heck did that come from? Well, it actually came from a cat that got stuck in a chimney in Washington, DC in 1911. And it was a slow news week and the whole world was learning about this cat, and curiosity killed the cat. And I just thought that was like a really interesting story to include in there as to like, what does that tell us? It tells us, if you’re curious, you might die. And is that what we want to pass on to our kids? So I think that having a way to capture that so important, I’m sure the market changes every year. Every month. What are you at this time in 2024? What are you seeing as shifts in the nonfiction market? Stephanie Chandler 00:22:16 Prescriptive memoir seems to be a hot item right now. One of the members of our community did a bunch of agent pitches with the memoir, and they kept coming back saying, make this prescriptive. Stephanie Chandler 00:22:30 So that means that your memoir also has some sort of lessons built into it, and it could be as simple as some prompts at the end of each chapter, that kind of thing. So we’re seeing that as a trend. We can thank Seth Godin for smaller books because he started writing smaller books a number of years ago, and that has become a trend. So, you know, used to be a business book needed to be 60 to 80,000 words, which is a massive undertaking. But, you know, now it can be 40 to 60 or even 30 and still be quite valuable. So it gets back to right what needs to be said. And and there’s a market if you can carve that out for yourself. I’m a big believer in a niche, so don’t write another general leadership book. Write a leadership book for tech company executives or women in finance. Write. So narrow it down if you can. Joe Sanok 00:23:32 And what’s the value of really niching. Stephanie Chandler 00:23:34 And you know I am such a fan of the, of the niche because you know my first book was a business startup guide for example, now back in 2004 or 5. Stephanie Chandler 00:23:48 There wasn’t as much competition as there is today, so I could get away with it and I was able to sell some copies. I had built an online following and things like that, but today if I wrote that book, it would get buried at the bottom of Amazon no matter what my following is. So you really need to carve it out so that you’re going to stand out against all that major competition out there, especially if you don’t already have a large following. Right? So I chose to to specialize in nonfiction because I saw a need in the market. Nobody was doing it. And I couldn’t believe I still can’t believe it. They that those domains were available, that there was this huge opportunity. So and certainly in the therapy space, there’s all kinds of specialties, right? There’s trauma, there’s death doula, there’s those who specialize in children or working with teens or couples. So there’s lots of niches to be carved out of that specific conditions. Right. So borderline personality disorder. I just finished reading the book Sociopath by Patrick, and I’m going to forget her last name, but it was a fascinating memoir about being a sociopath. Stephanie Chandler 00:25:05 And and I went to look, there’s like no other books like it out there. So if you can niche it down and that gets back to looking to see what’s already out there. And if there’s a hole you can fill that will elevate your success exponentially. Joe Sanok 00:25:23 Well, the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know. Stephanie Chandler 00:25:31 A book will change your practice. It really will. It’s so impressive. It will land you speaking engagements. It will impress prospective clients. I love to share the example of, you know, if you go higher, a personal trainer and they kind of give you the same spiel, right? I’m going to get you a great workout. You’re going to feel great, you’re going to lose weight, and then you go to the next one. I’m going to get you a great work out. You’re going to feel better. You’re going to lose weight. And by the way, here’s my book, right. Stephanie Chandler 00:25:57 What a difference that impression makes on a potential client and on corporations that might hire you to do groups on, you know, just endless benefits and credibility and authoring a book. So that’s where I would leave that, Joe. Joe Sanok 00:26:14 So awesome. And I almost never comment after someone does that final thing, but I have to jump in and just echo what you said. When I had mental wellness counseling, I took a bunch of our blog posts, a bunch of the kind of talking points from being on radio and put it together in a book I called Mental Wellness. Parenting cost me $1.70 per book to print on Amazon and at the end of every intake, I would give it to parents and say, hey, check out like, you know, chapter four. I think that’s going to really be applicable to what we’re talking about. And they look at it, and then they wouldn’t even notice that my name was on the cover. And inevitably, like the next week, they’d be like, I, you wrote a book about parenting. Joe Sanok 00:26:51 Oh my gosh, in my private practice, just it was the best business card that I ever could have had, even just in a small counseling practice when I wasn’t even doing the podcast. So I just I have to say, you are spot on with that. A book will change your life. Stephanie. If people want to connect with you, if they want to follow your work, if they want to learn more about nonfiction, where should we send them? Stephanie Chandler 00:27:12 check us out. Nonfiction authors association. Com and a great way to connect with me is through LinkedIn. I’m Stephanie Chandler, author over on LinkedIn and would love to to hear from some of you. Joe Sanok 00:27:24 so awesome. Thank you so much for being on the practice of the Practice podcast. My pleasure. Yeah. If you want to write a book, now is the time. I feel like there’s so many, whether it’s podcasts or, social media, people that are just armchair experts, that they’ve lived some life. And I don’t want to diminish what they’ve gone through. Joe Sanok 00:27:48 but so many of you have masters, double masters, PhD is multiple PhDs, life experience. You are experts in research and clinical practice as so many ways the world needs more of you out there. So if you are thinking about a book, now is the time to do it. also, don’t forget next month we have Level Up week. We are going to be helping you take your practice to the next level. It’s time for you to level up while other people give up. You can register and look at all the different live webinars we are going to have over at practice of the practice.com/level up. Also, we couldn’t do this show without our amazing sponsors and I’ve had a ton of my consulting clients start working with well received. Well received is an amazing 24 over seven receptionist service that is going to make your practice explode. Also, they can do appointment scheduling. They can do it in both English and Spanish. You can make a great impression from the very first. Hello, and make sure you never miss an opportunity to grow your practice. Joe Sanok 00:28:45 You’re going to get 50% off your first three months if you head on over to well received. Dot com forward slash Jo again that’s well received.com forward slash. Jo. Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silences Sexy for that intro music. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers or guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.