[00:00:00] If you're looking to grow your business as a registered dietitian, you've come to the right place. If you're not sure what to do or what steps to take next so that you can create flexibility and freedom in your life, then you're going to learn a lot from tuning into our podcast here at Dietitian Boss.
[00:00:17] I'm Libby Rothschild, the founder of Dietitian Boss, a [00:00:20] fellow registered dietitian and business owner. And in our podcast, I share some The highs and the lows. And I talk all about how to grow your business, get it started. And I interview our clients to date. We've had over 200 interviews from clients who share their journey on our podcast, dietitian boss.[00:00:40]
[00:00:43] I am so excited today to talk to you about the process of launching my very first book. Now, this book has been a long time coming and in today's episode, I want to share with you why I published this book, a little bit about my process [00:01:00] for launching and my launch strategy and my goals. So I'm going to go into the details about the structure of the book.
[00:01:07] So hopefully you can walk away from this episode feeling empowered to maybe publish your own book or at least know a little bit about what to expect when you get to that point in your career. So the title of the book is called [00:01:20] virtual private practice, a guide for dietitians. From what we've seen, there are not many, if any books, uh, specifically for dietitians that are registered on Amazon.
[00:01:31] And so that's why this title is really powerful because it's not just a book for private practitioners. It's not just a book for healthcare practitioners. This is [00:01:40] specifically for registered dietitians with stories of registered dietitians to inspire you and support you. So the interest for this book, like why I decided to publish this book for you is to help dietitians build a business with marketing strategies that work and support our mission here at Dietitian Boss, really [00:02:00] promoting business skills and helping empower you with the tools that you need to create a fulfilling, flexible lifestyle.
[00:02:06] through use of business. And my goal here at Dietitian Boss, which we've been very clear about, we have this published on our website, is to reach more dietitians. Specifically, we want to help 10, 000 dietitians by year 2024. Now [00:02:20] when I say 10, 000 dietitians, I do mean through our paid products and services, but of course being able to help reach more people through our YouTube channel, our email marketing strategies.
[00:02:31] Social media like Instagram and even our talks absolutely are included in terms of reach, right? So both through our free [00:02:40] content and through our paid products and services. So this book is really important for brand awareness, brand building, and to reach more dietitians because if you look up keywords, you know, dietitians and private practice and helping dietitians and virtual private practice, there really isn't that much out there.
[00:02:56] And there was even less when I started over five years ago. So I'm [00:03:00] happy to finally launched the book. book about my story with building this business and then some of the roadblocks that you might face growing your business as a registered dietitian and virtual practice and today in today's economy.
[00:03:12] So in terms of my time to launch, I want to let you in on a little secret. I actually had this book completed [00:03:20] for over a year, actually a couple of years now. But I didn't get a chance to launch it right away because a lot of life stuff came up. Turns out that we had tried some different strategies in the business with promoting our membership.
[00:03:33] And then I got pregnant and I decided I wanted to focus my efforts when I was pregnant on getting a good [00:03:40] strategy to get our content ahead, specifically YouTube, which I've talked about on a different podcast episode here. But I didn't want to be left with. Too much, too many new projects while I was pregnant because I didn't know exactly how I would feel coming back from maternity leave.
[00:03:54] So I didn't want to have too many new things on my plate. So what I did is I had pretty much taken a [00:04:00] lot, I'd say about 50 or 60 percent of content off of my plate because I had pre planned so much while I was pregnant. And I decided to focus more on pre planning while I was pregnant than launching this book.
[00:04:11] So now that I'm back from maternity leave, my son is four months old. The hard part is done. The book is already created. I validated that [00:04:20] the idea is what our clients want. The book is formatted, which we'll get to in a minute. And all we have to do, me and my team, although you could do this on your own, but I do have a team helping is to format the book and publish it on Amazon and then send out an email to our email list.
[00:04:35] So I'm going to share a little bit more about the behind the scenes of what we're doing to launch specifically, but I [00:04:40] want you to know that we've had this idea for a while now. It's just The timing wasn't right. And so the timing is working now. And I really hope that you're able to purchase a copy of this ebook and check it out for yourself because that would be really awesome to spread the word and get more dieticians interested in what this book has to say.
[00:04:59] [00:05:00] So In terms of finding the time and resources, that's why we didn't get to complete the book launch earlier. I had wanted to, but the team just said, you know what, we have too much on our plates right now with making sure that we are supporting our clients and all the other things that the business has to do.
[00:05:18] So that's why this didn't get [00:05:20] published until now. But I don't want you to think I wrote it. right now. I've had it completed for a couple of years now. So this, I started this project years ago. In terms of the structure of the book, I want to walk you through a little bit about how I've structured the book.
[00:05:34] And then I'll share with you a little bit about the outline formatting, some graphics, and I want to walk you through [00:05:40] KDP, which is the Kindle Direct Publishing. And that's how I am putting out this book is through the KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing through Amazon self publishing platform that allows authors such as myself to publish and sell.
[00:05:52] My books directly to readers through their Kindle store and the KDP also called the Kindle store does offer a pretty straightforward way to [00:06:00] publish eBooks and paperbacks. So you have tools and resources to help you with formatting, cover design and marketing. And then authors like me can reach a wider audience and even earn royalties on the sales from this book with greater control over publishing process compared to traditional publishing routes.
[00:06:17] So today's episode. It's not to compare self [00:06:20] publishing versus traditional publishing routes. But if you are interested in that being a topic of a future episode, let us know, send us a message. We have a contact form at dietitianboss. com. Um, let us know. And we'll absolutely consider that as a topic for another day.
[00:06:32] So I want to talk to you a little bit about this outline of the book. What I had broken down, like I had a lot of title options. I came down [00:06:40] to this particular title because it was SEO friendly search engine optimization, and I want to have a title that is really unique to dietitians, even though there's not a lot of people searching for dietitians.
[00:06:51] In Amazon in the format of a, um, an ebook, I wanted to hopefully be the first one that pops up and one of the only ones out there, because [00:07:00] that's why it's so important for me to produce this content is that there's not enough content specifically for virtual private practice dietitians. So in terms of the table of contents, I formatted this book with first sectioning and outline.
[00:07:13] And this is, I think about the end in mind. Okay, what do I want this book to do and say? How do I want this book to help dieticians? Do I want this to [00:07:20] be a fairly easy read? I decided to add some photos, which are graphics. were made in Canva and my team formatted them to support some of the texts and make it easier to read and break up.
[00:07:31] So this is a pretty easy read. So in terms of the table of contents, the first section is, uh, what is the problem that we're solving? And that's talking more [00:07:40] about how dietitians are not visible enough and how we want to be seen and heard in the healthcare system. And of course, on the internet, I talk about my story as a clinical dietitian making 55, 000 a year.
[00:07:51] I talk about creating my methodology, the dietitian boss method, and my work as a full time dietitian and a private practice consultant, [00:08:00] and even my background as a personal trainer. Now this section outlines about 3 percent of the total books, a pretty small percentage. The next session talks about the mission of dietitian boss, and it talks about how we want to create more entrepreneurs in the dietetic space, and how helping our field become visible and get paid more is important.
[00:08:19] And [00:08:20] that also makes up about 3 percent of the book. Now, the next section is going to make up a larger percent of the book. And this is why start and what are the benefits and statistics of starting your private practice. Now, this section talks about the benefits of business benefits of virtual private practice stories about clients and statistics of clinical [00:08:40] dietitians and private practice owners.
[00:08:42] Additionally, the section talks about gaps in education, and COVID and the need for telehealth to become leveraged in a post COVID world. This section with that I just described to you makes up about 14 percent of the total book. The next section of the outline, this is numbered section four, there's [00:09:00] only five sections, so bear with me, we're almost done, makes up larger percent, and that would be the nine steps, the actual steps that you can take to start your practice.
[00:09:10] And that makes up 70 percent of the book. So that's going to be a majority of the book is really action oriented about what you can specifically do to get your private practice off the ground and running. [00:09:20] Now, the last section of this book includes roadblocks, right? Because I want to make sure I'm really clear and honest with some of the struggles that it's going to take.
[00:09:29] To get your practice off the ground and that's perfectionism, not ever starting, right? Thinking about it, but not doing it and then giving up. And so some of you might relate because you might have started your practice, [00:09:40] but not really completed the process. Or you might feel like you're struggling with perfectionism, right?
[00:09:46] So if you can relate, this will be really helpful. You can identify some of your roadblocks and that makes up 10 percent of the book. So with that, I hope that helps you see my process of thinking about how to structure the [00:10:00] book. So first we had the outline and then the formatting was my team format the book for what the recommendations are for Amazon.
[00:10:10] So if you register with KDP, which again, Kindle Direct Publishing, there are some pretty clear rules about how you need the cover page and designed just the [00:10:20] format. Of the dimensions as well as the pages and the graphics. So I went ahead and have my team alter those dimensions, but you can usually do that yourself as well.
[00:10:29] And then from there, I did design the cover of this book. Normally I wouldn't, but I did this time and I I'm very pleased with it. I think it turned out really good and simple. We used [00:10:40] our brand colors and kept the. Cover very simple at first. This again is our first book. So maybe for the second book that we'll come out with, we can take a different approach and take some lessons we've learned from this first time launching and make some improvements.
[00:10:54] And then after that, so we talked about the outline, the formatting just has to be. to match up to the dimensions and [00:11:00] specifications of Amazon KDP. And the graphics have changed with time. So I had former graphics a couple of years ago that fit with our former branding, which is a little bit more feminine and more pink, which I still like, but as we've evolved and want to appeal to a wider, more diversity in dietetics, I've decided to [00:11:20] make.
[00:11:20] To focus more on taking some of our colors that were accent colors and moving those more in the forefront. So we used to have blue as an accent color and now blue is a primary color blue and yellow. So I've redone some of the graphics matured them a bit and that took some time. And then the dimensions had to be changed.
[00:11:38] So that was really the [00:11:40] structure of the book. Now, I hope that helps you if you're thinking about, okay, what do I need to do if I want to publish a book, or even if you just want to learn behind the scenes of what we did. Now, when it comes to the launch strategy, right, that's all the preparation process.
[00:11:52] Of course, after the outline had to actually Write the book and that if you wanted to hear that more in depth, I could cover that in another [00:12:00] podcast. The book is about 48 pages long on Google Docs, which I'm not sure how long that'll translate into Kindle because I'd have to look and see how many pages that formats to.
[00:12:10] And I don't have that off the top of my head, but it's an easy enough read and it's. It's actionable with the graphics that break it up so that you feel like it's an enjoyable [00:12:20] process. It's something that you could read if you're a student, um, on the side. If you are working clinical, definitely something you can read on your lunch break.
[00:12:26] And if you're, if you want to take direct action and you're in private practice, this will also work. So it's not a book that's going to take you months to read, right? It could take you a week or less. It's an easier read, which was what I wanted. That was on, [00:12:40] on purpose. So in terms of the launch strategy, we're taking a really simple approach and using our email list.
[00:12:47] So that means we're sending out an email to those on our email list. We're sending, we've created an email sequence to let people know about this book, share with them what they can learn and get out of the book, and let them know that they have first [00:13:00] access to buy our book. Which is exciting. And so if you're not already on our email list, you can join our email list by going on our website, downloading one of our free guides, and then you'll automatically be added onto our email list unless if you unsubscribe, which you're able to do at any point.
[00:13:16] We also will have this available after we send out to our email list. [00:13:20] So only folks that are on our email list will have access to it. To the link to purchase will then have it available on our website. So right now we're always going to have it available on our website after we launch it, but we could decide to take it off and only have the book available at certain times of year.
[00:13:35] But right now we're going to have it available for a while until we change that strategy. [00:13:40] And then we will have a link for our membership within the book. So that's going to support our larger goal of reaching 10, 000 dieticians by year 2024, because we want people to read the book, get inspired and want to join our membership if they want more support.
[00:13:56] So our membership called the library has access to a [00:14:00] roadmap. Curriculum, live calls with me, coaching opportunities, network of other dietitians, templates, guides, tutorials, you know, tech tutorials. And it really helps you work through the roadblocks that you have at different stages. So whether you're new when you're just starting, or you're actually growing your business, you can benefit from joining the library.
[00:14:19] So that [00:14:20] is what we're promoting from the book. So it'll be interesting to see how many people click and buy the membership through that link that we'll have in the book. But the focus of this book is really thinking about branding and how we can build our brand and have more people know about us.
[00:14:36] Hopefully we'll be able to use this book as a tool. And with sharing my story [00:14:40] and the story of Dietitian Boss and the action steps about starting your practice, we're hoping that this book can be something that's used in internships and that is used. Perhaps in the teachings and curriculum for dietitians, and that can be used for dietitians that come into the field and want to know what to do as a tutorial.
[00:14:59] Of course, we have [00:15:00] my, we've got our free and paid trainings online, but in the book format can be something that people are really excited to dive into. At this exact moment, we do only have this in an ebook form, but we are thinking about having a hard, hardback as well, like having it. Be printed, but, uh, more updates on that later.
[00:15:19] So I [00:15:20] hope this helps inspire you to think about how a book can be used as a tool. And the questions I want you to think after today's episode would be if you wrote a book, what would that book help you do? Right? Because the book here is going to link to our membership so that we can see if people buy our membership from the book.
[00:15:37] And we also want to use this book to build our brand. [00:15:40] So that means we'll be tracking how many books are sold. Do we rank high on the keywords we're using in terms of dieticians and virtual practice? We also want to see that this book can be something that people tell us that they've read and they enjoy.
[00:15:52] We want to look at the reviews and see if we get honest reviews that people, uh, Right? That they feel inspired from. And then we want to [00:16:00] know and gather that information and maybe think about writing another book on another particular topic, maybe specifically about marketing, specifically about social media.
[00:16:08] And so we'll learn that from debriefing on the results from this first book. So I hope that you feel inspired from today's episode. Again, the book is called for virtual private [00:16:20] practice, a guide for dietitians. We'll see you next time. Looking for support to grow your dietitian business. Or even get started, I invite you to join the library, our monthly affordable membership that shows you exactly what to do every step of the way so that you can create the business of your dreams.
[00:16:37] Not sure if it's the right time. The [00:16:40] membership gives you an option to. go at your own pace. We have modules, a roadmap to show you exactly what to do and monthly live calls as well as new content that we release every single month based on requests. Inside of the library, we have four stages of business.
[00:16:55] So whether you come in getting started or you want to enter the membership and grow or [00:17:00] scale your business, we have the appropriate resources for you and our team, including myself available to answer your questions. Head on over to dietitianboss. com and check out the library today. We'd love to see you there.
