In this week's Classic Podcast Episode from 2020, Dr. Jennifer Spector describes how to become a medical editor. Unlike other medical editors who spent years as a paid medical writer, Jennifer parlayed her involvement in a professional society and unpaid writing to land her new editor position.

Jennifer is a Board-Certified Podiatric Physician and Surgeon with 14 years of clinical experience. She spent over 5 years in national leadership positions at the American Association for Women Podiatrists (AAWP). She’s had a long-term interest in education, writing, and consulting. She is passionate about educating others. In June 2019, she became the Associate Editor for Podiatry Today.

She received her DPM degree from the Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine. Then she completed a three-year residency in podiatric medicine at Christian Care Health System.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career you love. To learn more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

For Podcast Listeners

• John hosts a short Weekly Q&A Session on any topic related to physician careers and leadership. Each discussion is posted for you to review and apply. Sometimes all it takes is one insight to take you to the next level of your career. Check out the Weekly Q&A and join us for only $5.00 a month.
• If you want access to dozens of lessons dedicated to nonclinical and unconventional clinical careers, you should join the Nonclinical Career Academy MemberClub. For a small monthly fee, you can access the Weekly Q&A Sessions AND as many lessons and courses as you wish. Click the link to check it out, and use the Coupon Code “FIRSTMONTHFIVE” to get your first month for only $5.00.
• The 2024 Nonclinical Summit is over. But you can access all the fantastic lectures from our nationally recognized speakers, including Dr. Dike Drummond, Dr. Nneka Unachukwu, Dr. Gretchen Green, and Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Go to Nonclinical Summit and enter Coupon Code “30-OFF” for a $30 discount.

How to Become a Medical Editor

Medical writing and editing are great careers. They come in various arrangements: freelancing or employment; working remotely or in an office; technical, journalistic, or educational. And there are positions open to physicians of all backgrounds.

After completing her residency, Jennifer spent several years building her practice. She later volunteered at the American Association for Women Podiatrists. She chaired several committees. Then she held several leadership positions, becoming President of the organization in 2018.

There are so many things that we might have dipped our toes into in clinical practice without realizing how they can apply outside of actual practice. – Dr. Jennifer Spector

While at the AAWP she was responsible for writing and editing the newsletter and other documents. That experience enabled her to land her position as Associate Editor for Podiatry Today.

After working in that position for about 20 months, Jennifer was promoted to Senior Editor followed by Managing Editor at Podiatry Today. In July of 2022, she became one of the Assistant Editorial Directors at HMP Global, the parent company of Podiatry Today and a market leader in international healthcare education and clinician engagement.

Finding Editing Jobs

Today’s conversation with Jennifer clarified her process to become a medical editor for a news journal like Podiatry Today. Jennifer reminds us to develop a portfolio of writing and editing samples to share with prospective employers. She was able to do this while volunteering with the AAWP.

If you’re looking for freelance writing opportunities, you should look at the portfolio of journals published by the parent company of Podiatry Today, HMP Global. There are 12 journals and over 100 Online Digital and Learning Networks under its umbrella.

Summary

In today's interview, we learned what it takes to become a medical editor. This is often a natural step for established writers to pursue.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Dr. Jennifer Spector's LinkedIn Page
• Podiatry Today
• HMP GLOBAL
• AAWP
• Purchase Your All Action Pass Videos and Bonuses from the 2024 Summit (Use Coupon Code 30-OFF)
• The Nonclinical Career Academy

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

The post How to Become a Medical Editor – A PNC Classic from 2020 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In this podcast episode, we learn more on how to publish a book and promote your business, in Part 2 of our interview with Dr. Debra Blaine.

Dr. Blaine, a former physician turned full-time author, continues to share her insights on the writing and self-publishing process.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career you love. To learn more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

For Podcast Listeners

• John hosts a short Weekly Q&A Session on any topic related to physician careers and leadership. Each discussion is posted for you to review and apply. Sometimes all it takes is one insight to take you to the next level of your career. Check out the Weekly Q&A and join us for only $5.00 a month.
• If you want access to dozens of lessons dedicated to nonclinical and unconventional clinical careers, you should join the Nonclinical Career Academy MemberClub. For a small monthly fee, you can access the Weekly Q&A Sessions AND as many lessons and courses as you wish. Click the link to check it out, and use the Coupon Code “FIRSTMONTHFIVE” to get your first month for only $5.00.
• The 2024 Nonclinical Summit is over. But you can access all the fantastic lectures from our nationally recognized speakers, including Dr. Dike Drummond, Dr. Nneka Unachukwu, Dr. Gretchen Green, and Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Go to Nonclinical Summit and enter Coupon Code “30-OFF” for a $30 discount.

Overcoming Writer's Block and Setting Realistic Goals

Dr. Blaine emphasizes the importance of manageable writing goals, suggesting that aspiring authors shouldn't feel pressured to write a 300-page book immediately. She recommends breaking the writing process into smaller, less overwhelming pieces.

Dr. Blaine also shares tips on crafting engaging openings and maintaining reader interest throughout a book, including using “hooks” at the beginning of chapters and “cliffhangers” at the end.

Practical Writing Tips from a Seasoned Author

Dr. Blaine offers practical advice for aspiring writers, including keeping detailed notes on characters and plot points. She discusses her current projects, including a guide on the elements of fiction writing and a new trilogy.

Debra emphasizes the value of consistent writing habits, suggesting that authors find a routine that works for them, whether it's writing every morning or setting aside specific times during the week.

Summary

To learn more or connect with Dr. Blaine, you can visit her website, allthingswriting.com, email her at db@allthingswriting.com, or find her on LinkedIn. Debra's books are available on her website and at Amazon, and she offers a free novella titled Deadly Algorithm through her website, providing an excellent introduction to her writing style and themes.

Links for today's episode:

• Dr. Debra Blaine's Website: All Things Writing
• Debra's book on self-publishing, The WriteR Stuff: Step-by-Step Guide to Self-Publishing and Worldwide Distribution
• Debra's latest book on writing a novel: The WriteR Stuff: Secret Sauce of Writing Fiction
• For an example of Debra's writing download a free copy of Deadly Algorithm
• Vellum, the software Debra uses to write her books (this is an affiliate link)
• Debra's LinkedIn Page
• Part 1 on How to Publish a Book and Promote Your Business
• Purchase Your All Action Pass Videos and Bonuses from the 2024 Summit (Use Coupon Code 30-OFF)
• The Nonclinical Career Academy

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

If you liked today’s episode, please tell your friends about it and SHARE it on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Right click here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

Email Download New Tab

Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 373

Part 2 - More on How to Publish a Book

John: The question is when you're doing the coaching and people need help, you said it was the creative side.

Dr. Debra Blaine: It's the creative side, and feeling overwhelmed. A lot of them thinking I can't write a whole book. And so, the first thing is you don't need to write a whole book. Nobody eats a slice of pizza in one bite. You write a piece of the book and it doesn't have to be a 300 page book. It can be a 100 page book. It could be an 80 page book. You can sort of figure it out so that you don't overwhelm yourself. That and getting organized, helping them to organize.

John: Okay. I'm not going to jump into writing the memoir of my entire family, my nine siblings and all of their families and my parents and aunts and uncles and everything in over a span of 80 years or something. No, I'll remember not to do that for sure.

But I did notice recently, and I don't know if it was, I was reading a book or watching a movie or both was that I need something to get me interested in the first page. Like you said, if there's something happening right now, you just into it, you have no idea who you're reading about, what their motivation is, what's going on, except something is happening. That's a good way to get me at least interested in the book.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Yeah, and that's called the hook. And not only do you want your title to represent the book and be a little bit of a hook, your metadata, the book description, that first line that says what the book is about, that's got to be a hook. But then when you start your first paragraph should be a hook. One of the things that a lot of new authors do, in particular, is they start off the book with it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, which is great, because they had a longer attention span back then. But when I write a book, a lot of times when I consult with my author clients, I have them jump into a scene, it's already happening around you. It doesn't have to be the main character. But what is the emotional stress on this character? And why? And so, immediately, who is the person? What is the conflict? Why do we care?

And so, not everybody's going to love every book, right? But for those who are going to be your readers, they're going to eat that up. And then they're going to keep going. And at the end of every chapter, you don't want to leave the end of the chapter, "Okay, and she went to bed feeling much better." Chapter three. I can put that down and I forgot to pick that up. Oh, three months later. She went to bed, but the question was still in her mind of what happened to whatever, fill in the blank. You always want to end the chapter with a little bit of a hook that makes the reader want, I don't want to see what's happening and turn that page.

John: Isn't that how soap operas do it? There's a cliffhanger at the end of each episode. And so you'll come back next week.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Yeah, exactly. Right.

John: Something like that. Yeah. I don't know, when you get older, it seems like time is going faster. This is totally off the wall, but I just mentioned when I'm reading a book, each chapter towards the end seems to go faster than the ones that were the first half of the book. Is that just my imagination?

Dr. Debra Blaine: Well, it could be. In my books I tend to write short chapters, although this trilogy that I'm writing, I've noticed that the chapters are longer, but it depends. Some authors write shorter chapters. Take a look, look at the old books, the days of your, and if the chapter was 25 pages, and then this one is only five pages, well, then it's not you.

John: I see, they're manipulating me. Okay. I was going to ask you about some lessons you've learned that want to make sure prospective writers or current writers might learn from to make things a little easier for them if they decide to do this kind of thing.

Dr. Debra Blaine: I didn't know anything about really book writing when I started. I had this story to tell and I mixed it in. I had the story to tell about what's happening in healthcare, but I mixed it in with this medical thriller about people hacking into our EMRs and extorting money and killing the patients. I didn't have a sense of... I read a lot when I was a kid. I kind of understood instinctively the arc of a story and that I wanted my characters to be really interesting people and what makes somebody interesting. They learn things about themselves, but there were so many things I didn't understand. And even though I worked with a mentor for a year and he helped me tremendously. I used to say that I got my master's from Rich Cravolin because he used to be a professor at the University of Southern California, but he didn't send me a certificate. But there's so much more, I guess the PhD version. There's so much more.

I love that you're familiar with my books. I wrote Undo Influences and then I wrote Beyond The Pillars of Salt. And then I wrote the Meraki Effect and that was followed by the Meraki Nexus. In trying to put those together, what I didn't know then is that a series sells faster. Now, when I was writing my first book, don't talk to me about series. I got this one book and that's all I can handle, but series sell faster. And since in those three books or four books, I kind of used the same characters. I liked the characters. I had developed the characters. I liked what they stood for. There was one that I didn't like too much. So I knocked them off, which is something you can do when you're an author.

But the difference was, is that the first one, Undo Influences is a conspiracy thriller, a government conspiracy political thriller, takes place in 2020. Beyond the Pillars of Salt is sort of a natural progression of what happens to those people and to the world with climate change and dictatorship like government that we seem to be headed for, at least at the time. And so, then that became more of a dystopian. And then like a dystopian is almost by definition, science fiction. And then what did they do? They had to leave planet earth and figured out how to do that, try to make it as realistic as possible. And then they got to planet Meraki. And so, that was a pure science fiction colonization, space opera, whatever.

I tried to put them together. I completely confused the Amazon algorithm. Seriously, it's an algorithm. It learns some things, but it's also kind of stupid. But it's a political, contemporary political thriller, dystopian science fiction, and then pure science fiction. Dystopian fiction, mostly on earth and then science fiction on another planet. And my sales went like through the floor. The things that I didn't realize is, this time I'm writing this trilogy and I'm going to keep it all in one genre and I'm going to write it to market.

The interesting thing is, I know self-published authors. I personally know self-published authors who are five, six, and seven digit authors. And I know of traditionally published authors who are probably five, six, and seven digits or more like James Patterson or somebody who has other people write most of his books now, by the way. But I know these people, I've spoken to these people. They're my coaches. They've told me how to work things. I didn't know this stuff before. And so, it's really helpful.

I've also heard and seen that most writers don't make it big until they've published a number of books. One of our colleagues, Freda McFadden, I'll throw in a plug for her though, not that she needs it. She is a neurologist. She has written, she has completely dominated the top 20 Amazon thrillers for the last six, eight months. She earned so much money from that. I don't know how much exactly, but I can promise you, she's probably in seven digits at this point. But she told me it took her nine years to become an overnight sensation.

John: Right.

Dr. Debra Blaine: She's got like 20 books out. My friend Christina's got 20 books out. A lot of hers are novellas. People do it with novellas too. But the magic number they said is about five or six where you start to see that you really can, because there's so many books out there. And when people buy a book, they want to know if they like it, that the author's written other things because they want to stick with that author.

John: Let me ask you a quick question. In the online world, there's this thing, you've probably heard of it, a thousand true fans. If you have a thousand true fans, whether you're selling photos or you're selling books or whatever, or a podcast or whatever, if you have a thousand true fans, which means they'll buy anything you produce. Have you ever calculated whether that would be sufficient to meet a certain level of success?

Dr. Debra Blaine: Well, you need to sell more than a thousand books.

John: But if you have 10 books out.

Dr. Debra Blaine: If you have 10 books, now you've got 10,000. And if they're true fans and they tell other people. So if you figure the average royalty, if you do it yourself is between... Well, the little guy, it's less because it's a small book. I can charge less because the printing cost, the paper costs and the paper costs has gone up. With an eBook, most of the places, if you self-publish will give you 70% of the profits as opposed to Ingram says they give you 70%, but I never got more than a buck and a half. And whatever their processing fees are.

But let's say you're getting $4 a book and you sell a thousand in a month, then you got $4,000. Once you start selling, that's how my little guy got to be number one and stay there for so long. Because I sold 52 copies in the first week. And when that happens, once it starts selling, then Amazon, the algorithm again, starts saying, "Okay, this book, people like this book", and it starts showing it to random people. Even if they're not the people that heard about it from me from somewhere.

And so, the more popular your book is, this is the way all social media works. When you post something on Instagram, if somebody likes it, that's great. But if they comment on it, then the algorithm thinks, "Oh, people like this", the more people that have commented on it, the more people Instagram will show you or not hate Instagram, I can't really figure it out. But the algorithm part I understand. And it's the same for Facebook, for LinkedIn, for Amazon, for any of these places. The more people are interested, it thinks more people will be interested. And because Amazon wants to sell books, it wants to present the one that seems to be selling so we can make even more money.

John: Right. It behooves us to maybe if we're doing something like that, to get a big bump at the beginning somehow.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Well, that's what I did. Actually when I published this little puppy, I put it up for the first week for 99 cents. And a bunch of people bought it. Now, I don't think 52 people that I presented to bought it. But a lot of other people bought it when it was on sale for 99. So now it's $3.99. But other people bought it. And then it stayed up there for two weeks. It was in the top five.

John: When I want to learn something, it's been a while, but I would just go on to Amazon and look, they have free books and then they have 99 cent books. And so, if I say, well, I want to learn about this, I'm just going to buy the first five of those books for five bucks. And so, there is some motivation there. People are looking for that because they know there's a good chance it's going to have good information. It's not going to usually be garbage or the person wouldn't have taken the time to produce it and get it out.

Dr. Debra Blaine: You'd be surprised. Some things are.

John: But some things are.

Dr. Debra Blaine: The thing with that is Amazon doesn't really want you to put your book up for 99 cents because they don't make any money. What they do is if your eBook is between $2.99 and $9.99, they give you 70% in royalties. There's no printing costs or anything. If it's below $2.99 or if it's above $9.99, they give you 35%. 52 people bought this, but I didn't make any money on it. It was more to get it up there and get it to where it was going to be seen. They each have their and the printing price when you go to put something up when you self-publish it, it's going to tell you as you're in the different stages that you enter it, it's going to tell you, okay, this is your book. This is how many pages it is because it's going to have looked at it before you get to that stage and it'll say the print cost will be, and it can be $2 if it's a tiny book, or it could be $5 or $6, or if it's a hardcover, it's going to be maybe $12 or $14, which is why hardcover books cost more. When you calculate your royalties for a print book, you're going to take the cost of the book. Amazon gets 40% of anything in print. Take the 40% off, then take the cost of printing and subtract that from what's left from your 60% and the rest is yours.

And when you punch it in, you say, okay, I want to charge $8.99 for this book and it'll calculate and say, this is going to be your royalty. I want to charge $12.99. Okay, this is going to be your royalty. I want to charge $4.99 and say, nope, can't do that, it's costing us more to print that. Really, you're not blind to it. You know exactly what you're going to get.

John: All right. Well, I think we're about out of time here. We've covered a lot of things, answered a lot of my questions. All right. Did you already mention what you're working on now?

Dr. Debra Blaine: I'm working on the sister to this guy, which is going to be about how to organize your book. What is a story arc? What is a character arc? How do you develop characters? How do you write convincing dialogue? The basic elements of fiction and applying it. And then I even have one example of taking a story, "Sue found a cat under a bush and took it in." Well, that's a plot, but the whole story arc, I go into this whole thing and what she was feeling when she found it and what happened when she picked it up because it's a scared cat and the vet bill. I created a story arc, but I also use examples from real time, like movies that we know and books that we know. That's that book.

John: I have a question about that.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Yeah.

John: That comes in my head also while you're talking. Do you have to keep a bio on your characters handy, or do you remember everything about how your characters think, what they would do in this situation, that situation, or you just wing it? How do you figure that out?

Dr. Debra Blaine: Great question. No, I can't keep all that on hand. Sometimes I can't even remember the name of what was her husband's name. But what I do is when I write, I have two documents going. I have the book and then I have the notes for the book, kind of like your show notes, maybe. And I list things. First of all, I'll write out the general arc of the story. I'll write out who are the characters and I'll put something about each character. And then when something significant happens, I'll add it. Okay, this woman was actually married to that guy and he did this. And I'll add those things and I save that.

And I do a lot of research when I write my books. Some of it's scientific, some of it medical, some of it physics, whatever. And I'll copy that and put it in too. I have it all so I can go back to it, not just in writing this book, but for the next book. Yeah, I can't remember all that.

John: I would think you'd need some kind of cheat sheet.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Yeah, how do you do that? I don't know anybody who can just sit down and... Maybe Frida can, I don't know.

John: I like to read series. As you mentioned, those are very popular. So I have this Michael Connolly has a series, he's like up to 30 books now. There's no way you could remember the characters, especially when he skips a book or two and then goes back to these old characters.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Right, right. Instead of reading the book again. But the other book I'm working on, which I'm really excited about, because this one it's more of a term paper kind of thing. I just started a trilogy. And did you read? Now I'm not intimidated by the idea of I'm going to write a trilogy because, well, yeah, I've written I've written seven books. Why can't I have a trilogy? So I can write three more. I don't know if you read. I put out a little freebie reader magnet Deadly Algorithm.

John: No, I have not read that. I saw it on your website.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Yeah, I can send you if you're interested. We can put the link in there because it's free if anybody wants it. It does put you on my newsletter, which is something I learned that authors need to have. But in that book, it's a medical thriller and it's got some EMR things and quirks. But what happens in the book is the mother. There's a child, a four year old child that has to be left behind with the dad.

And so, what I'm doing now is it's 12 years later and that child is looking for her mother. And so, this is going to be the quest and the bad guy, the antagonist in in the novella in Deadly Algorithm is basically corporate greed insurance companies, big pharma, they don't want to pay for health care anymore. So there they want people to die. And this particular character, who's the main character of that story, doesn't have any medical problems, but they give her one, a medical problem for which the cure will kill her. And so, why is that happening? And she has to run. Anyway, you can get that in just the blurb about it. So this is not 12 years later.

And now it's going to be where the real bad guy is way bigger than big pharma. And in the first part, the first book is going to be about Jenna searching for her family and what leads her to have to do that. And then ultimately, the population of the earth has been thinning due to climate change and people and too many resources depleted. And where is that going? I don't want to say the end of the book, but it's going to be that she said that that's a cat. She said, No, don't do it. But the bigger antagonist, the bigger evil is going to be way, way bigger. And it's going to have something to do with artificial intelligence. That's all I'm going to say, because that's the big thing these days.

And this time, I've got a lot of detail on that first book. I've got the second book, sort of roughly outlined, but I know where I'm going with it. And the same with the third. And I'm really excited about it, because this time, I'm writing it to market. I'm putting in the things that I didn't know to do before. So, how do you write to market? You find books that are like the book you want to write. And you look at them and compare them. How old is the protagonist? What's the setting? What's the year? Where are they? What are the common? What are the tropes that you find in there? What are the flaws of the characters? Now, that doesn't mean my book is going to be anything like them. But to just make sure that readers who expect those kinds of emotional bounces, we'll get them.

John: Nice, nice.

Dr. Debra Blaine: I'm excited about it.

John: Okay, that's going to be good. That'll be good for another podcast episode then. Okay, where should we find you? allthingswriting.com? Is that the best place to start?

Dr. Debra Blaine: That's my website, allthingswriting.com. And you can also find me on LinkedIn. And you can email me at db@allthingswriting.com. I don't know if you want to put in, there's a Calendly link, which you can find on my website. It's hard to know if I was able to get it into LinkedIn, I don't think I was. I was trying to figure that out.

John: But I always ask authors this, writers this. Probably you've already answered it. But should they go to your website to buy the books? If you go to your website anyway, to check them out, but I do end up just pushing them off to some other site or do you sell from the website?

Dr. Debra Blaine: I haven't started selling from the website because it's complicated. But Amazon is a great place to go. You can just do just do a Google search Debra Blaine books. And you'll come up with my books. And the nice thing is that the more even though I would get more money if I sold them myself, the more people buy it from Amazon, that algorithm kicks up. So it helps.

John: Right, right. Okay, well, I'm going to let you go now here in a second. You have a minute or two, if you have any bit of last minute advice for the listeners, maybe try to convince them to become a writer or not become a writer or a novelist.

Dr. Debra Blaine: I had a note about that, but I can't find it. My advice is write. If you have a story in your head, we call it a word dump. Just start writing it. Don't edit it while you're writing it. It's a first draft. It's a rough draft. It's not even your first draft. Because you can get so bogged down. And you don't have to figure "I'm going to write 80,000 words." You don't even think in terms of words. Put the word ticker on later but if you don't start writing, nothing will get down there. I used to have a mantra when I was writing Code Blue. And it was, "It's not going to write itself." Because I was one of those people who wanted to have written as opposed to wanting to write. But it doesn't happen like that.

John: Are you disciplined now? Can you black out so many so much time where you're going to write? Or do you kind of wing it now when you feel real productive to do more and then other days...?

Dr. Debra Blaine: I try to write every morning. My brain is crisper in the morning. And that's still that whole COVID thing. And I schedule clients usually in the afternoons and evenings. And even if I feel like I'm waning, I don't want to say sundowning. But if I'm waning, once I'm talking to someone, that energy that we bounce off each other, that ignites me and that's really helpful. It's a different part of my brain, but to sit and to write and to do the research and go back and forth. I try to do that in the mornings. And I try to write every morning.

John: Nice. That's good. That's good. Sounds like something that we should emulate if we're going to try and do that.

Dr. Debra Blaine: You don't have to do it every morning. As long as you put aside whatever time it is for you. And let's say it's only three times a week. Three evenings a week I'm going to tell my family, please just give me an hour. And it's the inertia I think of, you need to get started. Sometimes I'll say I can only write for 20 minutes and it'll end up being an hour and a half because it's getting started.

John: Once you get going, it's like a lot of things. I might have to split this into two episodes, Debra, but it's okay. Because then I don't have to do another episode. I'll just spread this out. Nobody wants to listen for an hour and they can break it up themselves, but I tend to go. I'll think about that after we hang up here.

All right. But with that, I'm going to say goodbye officially from the podcast and thank you for spending all this time with us today.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Thank you. Thank you so much. I always love talking to you.

John: You should read the books guys, because they're entertaining. It's an escape. Reading, relaxing, walking.

Dr. Debra Blaine: And you write the best reviews for me too. Well, that's the other thing. Please write review. The reviews are the hardest thing to get. It's really hard.

John: I'm going to put that in the show notes too. I'm going to say, here's the link. If you want to look for the books or you can go to Amazon here and always write a review if you do that, because the author definitely needs that. All right, then, you take care.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Okay. Thank you so much, John.

Scroll back to top

Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.

powered by

Disclaimers:

Many of the links that I refer you to, and that you’ll find in the show notes, are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you, that I have personally used or am very familiar with.

The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career. 

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

The post More on How to Publish a Book appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In this podcast episode, John interviews Dr. Debra Blaine, a returning guest from 2022, for Part 1 of a discussion on how to publish a book and promote your business.

Dr. Blaine, a family physician turned full-time author, shares her experiences transitioning from medical practice to writing and self-publishing seven books since 2017.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career you love. To learn more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

For Podcast Listeners

• John hosts a short Weekly Q&A Session on any topic related to physician careers and leadership. Each discussion is posted for you to review and apply. Sometimes all it takes is one insight to take you to the next level of your career. Check out the Weekly Q&A and join us for only $5.00 a month.
• If you want access to dozens of lessons dedicated to nonclinical and unconventional clinical careers, you should join the Nonclinical Career Academy MemberClub. For a small monthly fee, you can access the Weekly Q&A Sessions AND as many lessons and courses as you wish. Click the link to check it out, and use the Coupon Code “FIRSTMONTHFIVE” to get your first month for only $5.00.
• The 2024 Nonclinical Summit is over. But you can access all the fantastic lectures from our nationally recognized speakers, including Dr. Dike Drummond, Dr. Nneka Unachukwu, Dr. Gretchen Green, and Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Go to Nonclinical Summit and enter Coupon Code “30-OFF” for a $30 discount.

The Power of Self-Publishing

Dr. Debra Blaine shares her journey from medical practice to full-time author, having published seven books since 2017. She discusses the advantages of self-publishing, including greater control over the publishing process, faster turnaround times, and significantly higher royalties.

Self-publishing allows authors to maintain ownership of their work and make decisions about cover design, titles, and content without interference from traditional publishers.

Crafting Compelling Fiction

Drawing from her experience as an author and coach, Dr. Blaine offers insights into creating engaging fiction. She stresses the importance of a strong story arc, believable characters, and natural dialogue. The post discusses techniques for hooking readers from the first pages and creating emotional connections with characters.

Summary

In Part 1 of this 2-part episode, returning guest Deborah Blaine discusses her transition from physician to full-time author. She explains the benefits of self-publishing. She also shares insights on self-publishing, including tools, techniques, and the importance of effective book design and metadata. Finally, she offers her advice on crafting compelling fiction, focusing on the creative aspects of writing.

Links for today's episode:

• Dr. Debra Blaine's Website: All Things Writing
• Debra's book on self-publishing, The WriteR Stuff: Step-by-Step Guide to Self-Publishing and Worldwide Distribution
• Debra's latest book on writing a novel: The WriteR Stuff: Secret Sauce of Writing Fiction
• For an example of Debra's writing download a free copy of Deadly Algorithm
• Vellum, the software Debra uses to write her books (this is an affiliate link)
• Debra's LinkedIn Page
• Purchase Your All Action Pass Videos and Bonuses from the 2024 Summit (Use Coupon Code 30-OFF)
• The Nonclinical Career Academy

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

If you liked today’s episode, please tell your friends about it and SHARE it on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Right click here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

Email Download New Tab

Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 372

How to Publish a Book and Promote Your Business - Part 1

John: I really enjoy reading novels. I've slowed down recently, but I probably read 10 or 15 novels when I was really in the mood to read some years. But that's in addition to all the business and self-help books, things like that over the years. And I've always been impressed by the combination of creativity and discipline that successful novelists have. So, I think of people that are creative as being creative. But to be creative and disciplined, that's something a little bit different.

Anyway, I invited Dr. Debra Blaine back to the podcast now because she's a novelist. She's been writing for years. She's been on the podcast two or three times before. And she just recently self-published a book on self-publishing. That was very Meta. So welcome back, Debra, to the podcast.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Thank you so much, John. Thanks for having me.

John: It's always fun when we get together. We have a lot to talk about, but you've been very busy. I don't talk to too many writers that can say that you've written how many books in how many years now?

Dr. Debra Blaine: Well, I started just writing a first draft in 2017, but I have now published seven books.

John: Okay.

Dr. Debra Blaine: And I'm working on some more.

John: That's quite a lot of productivity there from the writing standpoint. So if you can keep that up, then you'll have a lot of books out there over the years. And the other thing, of course, the listeners should remember that one of the things that makes you unique, I've had other writers on, but they're mostly medical writers, but you made a commitment. You decided, "You know what? I'm going to stop practicing and I am going to try to grow this writing thing to be sort of my new vocation." Is that what I recall correctly?

Dr. Debra Blaine: Correctly.

John: Okay. And you're actually the only one I've ever interviewed that has written a novel or six. And I had one poet once that wrote a book of poetry. I don't know if that that doesn't quite count. I don't think so. Anyway, let's get into what's new with you. Fill us in since you know what's been going on since we talked. Oh, it's been about almost two years ago.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Great. It's interesting. You said I decided. I was writing as kind of a side gig. Sometimes life comes along and kicks you in the butt and says, okay, you're really miserable practicing medicine and you're not going to do this anymore, even though you think that maybe you should or whatever reason. I got Covid about 18 months ago and it completely changed my life. I'm a very special person. I'm one of the seven percent who got long Covid. And I still even now, I cannot focus for 12 hours straight. I don't have the stamina to go from room to room, to room, to room and spend every moment of those 12 hours concentrating or treating patients thinking I need to take breaks. And what they told me was when I asked them and I said, "Listen, I'll come back to work, but I'm going to need to take a 10 minute break every three or four hours." And they actually wrote it in a text. "Unfortunately, there are no breaks in urgent care."

And so that being said, I resigned. I was on disability for six months and then that ran out. And then life kicked in and kicked me in the butt and said, okay, you have the side gig. And I think that even if that hadn't happened, I feel like a lot of my life and a lot of perhaps other people's lives is constantly redefining where we're going. It's like if we're headed in one direction, sometimes it's not quite due north. Maybe it's northeast a little bit. Or maybe I need to take a detour over here. It's kind of a zigzag finding my way. It has been for me to find my way into what I really enjoy doing and to be able to throw myself into it.

I started writing in 2017, a few words scribbled on a couple of pages. I published that book in 2019. And since then, I've put out six more books. And this summer I put out two books. One of them is really short. The self-publishing book is pretty short. And I'm working on I'm working on two books now. And one of them is also a nonfiction, it's going to be a guide. And I'm going to come up with a better name for it, but a guide to fiction writers, the elements of fiction. What do you need to put in? How do you how do you determine a story arc? How do you develop characters so that it's more of a how to without having to get a master's degree in writing. Just in a short little book bum, bum, bum. These are the things to put in. This is why. And these are tips. I'm going to hopefully have that out in a couple of weeks.

John: But I have a question since you mentioned writing two books. The most writers, this is how I would think of it, would I would keep I would try and work on one till it was pretty much done and then go to the next as opposed to going to write two or three or four all simultaneously. I assume different authors, writers just do it differently.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Yeah. I thought I was absolutely out of my mind. But to me, they're different sides of the brain. Writing a guide about how to write fiction is kind of like writing a term paper, but making it interesting and fun. Whereas the trilogy I just started is a complete my right side of the brain. And it's a whole different kind of thinking. So they don't really clash. But the one of our colleagues who said she kindly said she would take a look at it when it's finished to tell me if I forgot anything. She said she's working on two books right now. And so she would get to a couple of weeks. I said, oh, I'm not the only one.

John: Yeah.

Dr. Debra Blaine: So I guess not. But yes, I think common sense. And certainly if you're a beginning writer, I would focus on one.

John: Yeah, that makes sense. I can imagine, though, the great writers that we all have our favorites. I could imagine if that was their full time occupation and they were really putting 40, 50 hours a week in it, that they might have three or four things going on at once, because I know there's certain times of the day, certain days of the week. And just the way your mind works, sometimes it's more focused on certain things than other things.

Dr. Debra Blaine: And some of them have ghostwriters for them, too.

John: Well, I got some questions for you today. We'll just kind of go wherever you want to go, but tell us about the self-publishing book. Why did you write it? And then you can tell us, some of the advantages to self-publishing while you're talking about that.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Okay. Just as a caveat to that, I'm going to say or a segue into that is that I think I've spent as much time studying, learning, going to webinars, reading about the authorship process, including publishing, as I did in basic sciences. And so, I learned to self-publish. And when I did that, everything changed for me. I could put books out so much faster. I could do it on my timeline. And I wanted to share that. I wanted other people to know that there's other options. If you want to go the traditional publishing road, you have to query an agent and the agent has to find a publisher. And the process can take forever and literally because you may not ever find someone. Agents, I think they get like 200 queries a week and they have to go through. And most of the time, traditional publishers will not entertain your submission without it coming through an agent. And then there's hybrid publishers, but I wanted to be able to offer people how do you do it yourself because you can use a hybrid, which is a whole other thing.

Hybrids are pretty pricey. They go anywhere from like $5,000 to $7,000 to $15,000 to $17,000. I know one of our colleagues spent $17,000 on a done for you that was not really done for you. And I was like, wow, I did all that for a client and I didn't charge nearly that much. And I couldn't. I wouldn't ever do that like in in good conscience. I couldn't do that. But just to be able to show people that it's not hard.

I'm a technology challenged individual. If it's a software, I'm leaving. Until a couple of years ago, I didn't think I could handle anything like that. But when I spoke to, actually, it's the same person who's going to look at my book coming up and tell me if I'm missing anything. And she's published like twenty five books now. She's a successful author. I only knew her from the women physician writers group and Facebook group. But I remember I messaged her that I was thinking about using this self-publishing company and she messaged me back immediately "Stay away from this company." I was like, whoa. And then we got on the phone a few days later and she spent 45 minutes with me just telling me, "Okay, this is what you do. You do this, this, this and this. You know all the parts that go in the book because you already published two books with the hybrid. And I recommend that you set up accounts with each distributor."

It's a pain in the butt, but for her it was worth it because of the control she had and the visibility that she had and the ability to get paid quickly with royalties. I ended up doing that. That first book that I self-published was Beyond the Pillars of Salt. And from the time that I finished my final draft, which is when I would have sent it back to the hybrid because they were willing to publish another one for some another exorbitant fee. I think it would have been $9,000. From that day to the starting from there. I sent it to an editor. I got a cover designer. I got my ISBNs. I filled in everything I needed to do. I set up the accounts to the time that it was released and available everywhere around the world was 67 days.

The first two books, first they said six months and it came out in eight months. The second one, they told me six months. It came out in 11 months. And then for this third book, I was like, "Well, how much can you promise me? Because I want to wait a year with this." And they said, "Well, we can promise to a year", which could be 18 months. And so, that's when I said, okay, I'm going to try this. And I kind of very gingerly stepped into it.

And you can't tell that it's self-published. It's printed. The people who print it are the same people who print the traditionally published books. And as long as you have the software that I use, I use Vellum software, and it gives you all this. It creates the beginning of your copyright page. It creates your table of contents. It offers you a dedication page and an acknowledgement page and all the things that you want to put in. And now it's come up with things where if you add back matter, we can talk about back matter in a bit. It'll save that and add it to all your other books. If you want to say here's how to get in touch with me, you don't have to put it in every single time.

And the price, you can't beat the price because you pay once. First of all, you don't even pay right away. This was what helped me because they said I can download the software. I can play with it. I can put my stuff in. If it looks like I like it and I want to generate a book, then I pay them. I can hold on to it for six months and never use it. Whereas there's another one called Vellum is only good for a MacBook, Apple. But there's another one, Atticus, which is very popular, which is you can use on either PC or a Mac. They make you pay up front, but you have a 30 day where you can return it. I would guess, and I don't know this for sure, but I would guess that if you use it to generate books, you can no longer return it. But with either of these, you get unlimited books, eBooks or print books. When I generate files, I have separate files for Kindle, Nook, a generic EPUB, Apple Books, and a print. And it breaks it down for me. So when I go to upload those books, I just choose the correct file and there it goes.

John: All right. So let me ask a question here because I'm thinking some of our listeners are like me, like total novices. And what I know a little bit about is, there's a lot put out there about how to make money on the internet, writing books and that. But the whole gist I got from that was that if you put something together and it's done well, and it's helpful to people and you put it out there, someone's going to buy it. And if you can cut out the middleman, you can make more money selling it. But it never occurred to me, if you have this software, whatever it might be, Vellum, you mentioned, once you're using the software, you can write the book in Vellum, right? Isn't that how that works?

Dr. Debra Blaine: You can.

John: Do you do it like in Word or something else?

Dr. Debra Blaine: I do it in Word and then I upload the file. You can do it in Vellum. It's a different screen and I like the features that I have in Word better.

John: Okay. But it converts that easily, right?

Dr. Debra Blaine: Oh, yeah. It's got to be a DocX file.

John: Yeah.

Dr. Debra Blaine: Or a Word file or a Scrivener file.

John: But I'd never thought about that. Well, once you've done that, as you said, I never thought that, "Wow, if I write another book and then load that, everything else is already in there from the first book."

Dr. Debra Blaine: Yeah. You have to set it up for that.

John: Yeah. Awesome. Well, that's cool. Anyway, go on. Let's see, where were we? We're talking about, you learned all this and you've been using it. What are the other advantages besides the time component and the fact that it's really not that costly, but the other advantages to self-publishing?

Dr. Debra Blaine: Okay. I want to just add on, did you ask me why I started doing it? One of the things that I do for clients, for authors, is I help them self-publish their own book, which is often about their side gig. Because when you have a side gig, if you have either an eBook up on your website or a book on Amazon, and by the way, it can be available anywhere. You can have it go through IngramSpark and be distributed wherever you want. It's an unconscious assumption. If they have a book, they must know what they're talking about.

John: Right. That's right.

Dr. Debra Blaine: I had encouraged a lot of people and worked with people to write a book about their side gig and I hadn't done one myself and I thought, "Well, that's really stupid." That's why I started that. But the advantages are, there's two major advantages. One is the control that you have in terms of your timeline and the fact that you own your book. And the other big one is the money, the royalties.

When I took my books back from the hybrid and put them up myself, my royalties increased four times. And not only that, but when someone else is publishing your book it takes six months for them to tell you, "Okay, this is what you earned." Your earnings are a pittance and you don't see what's happening in between unless you bug them and ask them. And if they're in a good mood, they might tell you.

But when you self-publish, with Ingram, it's still the same. You can see what's happening, but you don't get paid for six months. But for example, on Amazon or Kobo or Apple or Barnes & Noble, you see day by day, how many people are buying your book and you get paid every 30 days. I think Barnes & Noble won't pay you unless you've got at least $10 in royalties, but hopefully you will. And they'll pay you direct deposit to your account. You set up your own accounts. Nobody else is putting their fingers in the middle. And it takes that whole part of when you're wanting to write a book and then you finish the book and you think, oh, great. And it's like, oh, I got to publish it now. That means you got to write a query letter and you got to find an agent and every agent wants a different kind of query letter.

So you can't just make one letter and send it to a bunch of people. You have to tailor it to each person. It just takes so much of that stress out of it. And then you have the control. If a traditional publisher picks up your book, they'll pay for everything, but they'll also tell you you're using this cover. We don't like your title. We're using this title. And you know what? This chapter doesn't fit. We want to get rid of it. We want you to write a chapter like that.

One of our colleagues has done well in terms of getting her books published.    I think on the third book, she's with a traditional publisher. She wanted to write about a male main character, a male hero, instead of a female. And they said, no, we won't publish that because we have you in the female lead and we don't need you as a male lead. So you lose a lot and you don't own your book. And this way I own my books.

John: Okay. Now I was going to ask you to go over at the high level, the process of writing a book, but we might as well stop right here and just tell us about your book about self-publishing because bottom line is they're not going to remember everything that we talk about today, unless you're really taking great notes. And what they need to do is just get your book on self-publishing. So why don't you give us that information right now?

Dr. Debra Blaine: Okay. What I have in the book, actually I didn't want to miss anything. I wrote it somewhere so that I could take a look. I talk about the different kinds of publishing. I talk about how to get an editor. I'm an editor too, by the way. I learned to do that. How to get a cover design, what you want from your cover design. People do judge a book by their covers and how to figure out what's going to be effective because there are strategies to this.

See, I didn't know any of this before. The hybrid completely got the cover wrong for one of my books, Undo Influences. And I was told by someone that it looked like a psychology self-help book and it's a political thriller.

John: Yeah. I think the original has a picture of a brain on the front.

Dr. Debra Blaine: It does. You changed it.

John: You changed that. You got rid of that.

Dr. Debra Blaine: I got rid of that. I got rid of it. And now it looks like a thriller. And the sales went up and my royalties went up because for every sale, my royalties went up. I talk about how to format, setting up accounts, metadata and back matter. Once you have a couple of books, you may want to put in the back of the book, "Hey, see my other book? If you liked this book, go to this book, join my newsletter." I talk about how to do that and where to do that, because there are certain places where it's like the classic book, you think of once upon a time and then the end. The moment you write the end, Amazon, for example, if you're on a Kindle, we'll stop showing you the rest. You can go to it, but it'll immediately flip you to something else to buy because the book is over. So how do you get your messages, your links in before the end? Well, for one thing, you need to write the end and you don't end the chapter. When you finish the story, you put an ornamental break in there. And then if you like this, Amazon thinks it's still part of the algorithm, thinks it's still part of the meat of the book. Your reader will know that it's not part of the reader. If you wrote a good ending.

So, there's so many things that I've learned about, and I try to put a little bit of everything into that book I just published. I didn't want to put everything in, all the detail. Because it is overwhelming and I don't want to overwhelm anyone. That book is really for people who have written what they want to write and they're ready to publish and they know a little bit about it. They know my book needs, I want to put a dedication in it. I want to put an acknowledgement in it. I want the different things that they want to add about the author. They want to know where can I put a link to something else? Where do I put my other books? And that's what the purpose of that book and how to format and how to use software.

I also talk a little bit about how to write metadata. Metadata is your book description. I think it's official that human beings have the attention span of a goldfish. Have more attention than we do. We're just bombarded with so much information and people scan, but to get them to stop and read, you have about three seconds or less. You got to hit them with a hook, something that immediately makes them say, "Oh, I want to read about that." And so, you want to target that hook to the people who would be interested in your book. You don't want to hook someone who wants a great cooking recipe and then talk about a cozy mystery. You want to be appropriate.

I talk a little bit about writing metadata, the keywords, where you find your keywords. I didn't know anything about keywords and categories. And when I was getting it published by the hybrid, and certainly if a trad publisher, did they choose all that for you? Sometimes they're not working so well.

When you do it yourself, you can go right back in and change your keywords. You can change your categories and you can test it and say, "Okay, let's see if that works better." And I talk about how to calculate royalties. Just down to the nitty gritty, down to the penny. How do you calculate the royalties? What happens when you have so many fingers in the pie and where the money goes? Or in the case of Ingram, sometimes we don't really know where the money goes. It just disappears. And some of the common mistakes that authors make.

And then I have a checklist at the end for do it yourself. Bum, bum, bum, you're going to do this, this, this. While your book's being edited, you're going to get your cover designer. You're going to set up your account. I try to put it in a really simple format.

John: Nice. It sounds pretty comprehensive, but not overwhelming. Now you mentioned that you help others do this personally. And I think you have training as a coach.

Dr. Debra Blaine: I'm certified as a coach and a master trainer coach as well.

John: Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. You have all the skills already to facilitate people on whatever it is they're doing whether it's life skills or writing a book. So what is the typical person come to you for now in terms of helping them? Is it the software? Is it more of the creative process, all the above?

Dr. Debra Blaine: I have more clients for the creative process, which is why I'm going to release another self-help book. My books are called the "Writer Stuff. And this is going to be the second one. And it's going to be just outlining what is the story arc and why is it important? How do you create dialogue that doesn't sound like he said, she said? How do you develop your characters so that they're believable and they're deep in there and people can get emotionally connected with them?

Characters drive your story always, and you have to care about your character. There's a book that was written called Save The Cat. I'm just going to work from the title because I'm not working from the whole book, but the idea that if you have a villain who you start the book, because you always want to start your book with something that draws the reader in. If the reader is not interested in the first two pages goldfish mentality, they're going to look inside, they're going to be like, "Yeah, I'll look for another book."

So you had to draw the reader in. So you got this guy, he's running because he just killed three people and he's slashed another one and he's running away. And then the police are after him. And as he goes into an alley, he hears a cat stuck on a fire escape and he stops and he brings the cat and he gets the cat to the ground and then runs off. Now, the police are even closer to him. So now it's like, okay, this is some evil dude. He's a murderer, but wait, he saved that little cat. So that idea, to make people care about this guy who's not just a murderer. We don't know why he murdered them yet, but we do know that there's something in him that's a good person.

That kind of stuff that gets a reader just interested enough to keep reading and want to keep reading. People when they read novels, they want to feel emotions. If they're reading a textbook, they want information. If they're reading a novel, they want to feel things. And especially in our day and age when there's not a lot of time spent on our feelings. I think when people read, they get into that. There's been studies shown that people who read fiction have a much reduced incidence of dementia later on.

John: Oh, really?

Dr. Debra Blaine: Not nonfiction, fiction. And I'm thinking it's because there's so many subplots that they're following along and it's a different part of the brain.

Scroll back to top

Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.

powered by

Disclaimers:

Many of the links that I refer you to, and that you’ll find in the show notes, are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you, that I have personally used or am very familiar with.

The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career. 

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

The post How to Publish a Book and Promote Your Business appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

The post How to Be Happy Writing, Teaching and Limiting Clinical – A PNC Classic from 2018 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In today's podcast, Dr. Claire Unis describes how creative writing restores vitality.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Balance, Pedal, Breath: A Journey Through Medical School

The urge to hold on to that motivation for being a doctor and that earlier self (a fairly innocent and naive person who applied to medical school and wrote lovely, glowing entrance essays about how this was the most important profession in the world) led Dr. Unis to write the book.

Writing about her experiences during medical training helped her make sense of those experiences. It also helped her reconnect with her purpose.

The goals of her book are to help the general public understand what physicians in training go through and to provide those considering a career in medicine to develop a deeper understanding of the profession.

Narrative Medicine

The medical humanities discipline of narrative medicine is a way to connect doctors with their non-medical side. And it assists them in overcoming burnout by enabling them to define meaning in their lives.

Dr. Unis uses her abilities as a creative writer in other ways:

1. Literary Inspiration For Expression (LIFE)
   
   Dr. Unis designed her first lesson to be a true reminder that we are more than our professions. We have life experiences that may be influenced by our work but are not entirely defined by them.

2. Book Club
   
   Those who wish to write but don't feel comfortable doing so can share their writing in a safe nonjudgmental environment. The primary objective is to improve clinicians' well-being by expressing themselves through writing.
   
   

3. Medical Group's Weekly Blog

   Claire writes a brief reflection essay about anything that is happening in the world or in her life every week. People appreciate being reminded that others are going through these very human situations.

Summary

Dr. Unis' book can be found on her website. Additionally, it is offered directly at Warren Publishing, and at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Kindle. You can contact her through her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Dr. Claire Unis' Website
• Buy Balance, Pedal, Breath: A Journey Through Medical School [this is an Amazon affiliate link]
• How to Become a Marvelous Medical Mystery Author – 231
• Add Discipline to Creativity to Be a Successful Medical Writer – 179
• How to Influence the World by Writing a Medical Thriller – 116
• NewScr!pt

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

Email Download New Tab

Transcription PNC Podcast Episode 259

How Creative Writing Prevents Burnout and Restores Vitality

John: I have a great respect for physicians who write and especially those who also get paid to do so. I was very pleased to meet today's guest and convince her to tell us about how she has integrated writing into her career while she's still doing clinical medicine. So, with that, I will say hello and welcome Dr. Claire Unis.

Dr. Claire Unis: Hi John. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

John: Yeah. I kind of feel like I need to support writers, whether they're writing some fiction or even a technical writer or whatever, because I think a lot of physicians think that writing is not really an option in terms of either part-time or full-time replacement for medicine, but some have made a great living doing it as well enjoy doing it. So, that's why I thought it'd be great to talk to you today.

Dr. Claire Unis: Thank you. I'm really grateful to be on your show.

John: Let's see, we do have some things to talk about, including a memoir that you've written, but why don't you tell us a little bit about your background, your education, where the writing came in and then we'll go from there?

Dr. Claire Unis: Sure. I actually went to Dartmouth for undergrad and although I entered college knowing that I wanted to become a doctor, I was delighted to find out that you don't actually have to major in a basic science to become a doctor. And once that avenue was open for me, I tried all kinds of different things, but landed on something I've always loved, which is writing. I was actually a writing and literature major in undergrad, and then was fortunate to be accepted to UCSF for medical school. And I went down that road for a little while and part way through, looked up and said, "Wait a second. I need to write about this."

Before I graduated from medical school, I enrolled at USF, university of San Francisco in a master of fine arts program in writing. I was able to spread out my UCSF education by a little extra six months at the edge. So, I graduated in December 2000 from there and with my MFA in creative writing in May of 2021. So, I was able to get both degrees before starting residency that same June at children's hospital Oakland where I started residency in pediatrics.

John: Okay. Now you've been practicing since you finished your residency, correct?

Dr. Claire Unis: That is correct. I went right on into it like I think most of us do when we look up and realize that we need to make some money. Yeah.

John: And do you still enjoy pediatrics to a large extent?

Dr. Claire Unis: I really do. I really do. And I think partially I can say that was so much enthusiasm because I've been able to bring writing back into my life. I think like many of us, once we get to a certain point in our careers, we have a certain level of mastery of what we're doing most days. You start to look around and say, "Okay, what else? What else can we do?"

John: That's true. For me, as a family physician, it became pretty mundane after a couple of years. And most of what I was seeing was trivia anyway. All right. So, tell me, why is writing so important to you? Obviously, you've been interested for most of your life, but what is the draw of writing, particularly non-technical writing, which I don't think you're doing at this point?

Dr. Claire Unis: You're correct. I'm not doing technical writing. I thought about it very early on and realized that if I wrote for a career, if I wrote things I wasn't excited about, it was not going to have the same resonance that writing has for me now. I probably started writing very young. I found a journal at home where I wrote a song/poem when I was in like first grade. Not super sophisticated stuff, but clearly, I always have had this impulse to write things down. I think in adolescence is when it became something that was really part of my life. It was how I made sense of things, how I made sense of that burgeoning understanding of mortality and just all of those changes. So, I started writing regularly then.

And then in college when I returned to it, it's really because of that musicality, it's the way that the right words, the right description of an experience that you relate to really resonates and really kind of gives you that moment of "Yes, someone understands me" or "Yes, we share this experience." That resonance is what has kept it so important to me and has made it so hard for me to give up that creative writing.

John: Well, I think I can relate to that. Not so much as a writer, but as a reader. And we have each our own preferences, but boy, when I read something that communicates well, that it creates a story in my head, in my mind, I can visualize it. There's just something about it that is beyond watching a TV show or playing a video game or something like that, which tries to bring it into reality, but it's better when you're imagining it, I think.

Dr. Claire Unis: Absolutely. Absolutely. And being able to bring that experience back out to something you can share with someone else and have someone read it and say, "Wow, I really felt that" or "Wow, that really meant something to me" is just an amazing feeling.

John: Well, this is a good point to segue then, because as I was reading something this past week, which was your memoir, I could visualize what you were doing, what you were describing. And there's a lot of active things going on in some of the writing list of chapters I was looking at. So, why don't we go ahead and talk about that. It seems like you used that even maybe through medical school to get through medical schools. Tell me how that whole idea of white writing a memoir and then later publishing it, how that came about.

Dr. Claire Unis: Boy, that's a great question. One of the wonderful programs that I was able to participate in at UCSF was called The Healers Art. It was a program put on by Rachel Naomi Remen. And as I understood it, it was designed to see if we could prevent doctors from burning out in the future by putting first year medical students in touch with the reason that they came to medical school to begin with.

And this was fantastic for me. I had taken a year off to be a ski bum between college and medical school. And so, I really came in probably little prepared for the rigors of study that was in front of me. And so, this was a great course that allowed me to use creativity. I think we were drawing pictures and writing little things just to reconnect, be like, "Okay, is this worth it? This is painful. Do I really want to do this?" I think it first got ratified in some way or I first felt like it was going to be okay to pursue some creative pursuit in addition to medical school with that course. And then as you go through medical school, you can feel yourself changing. You can feel how transient those experiences are and how some of them you really just want to forget. And others of them, you realize that, "Wow, I really hope I can remember what I learned from this situation."

I think the impetus to write the memoir really came from the desire to hold on to that reason for becoming a doctor and hold on to that before self, a rather innocent and naive person who applied to medical school and wrote wonderful, glowing admissions essays about how this was the most important work in the world.

So, writing about it really put me back in touch with my purpose and also helped me make sense of some of those experiences as I was going through it. That's kind of a long wordy answer but as I look back at my journals, which I journaled like an inch of text maybe every day. I had a little tiny daily calendar. So, I would just write down some little thing about every day.

But when I go back and look at that, the idea about writing about it came to me pretty early in third year. And I approached the admissions office at UCSF and spoke to somebody in that department. And being told that I could do this, being told that I could be accepted and could write just opened everything up for me because suddenly there was somewhere to put all these experiences as I was going through them. And it wasn't just something I had to hold onto and endure.

John: Okay. That's one of the questions I had as I was reading some of the book. You were journaling at the time. And is there a difference between journaling and writing a memoir or is that two separate things? Did you just happen to use some of the journal entries in the memoir or were you actually writing the memoir as you were journaling?

Dr. Claire Unis: That's a great question. I started out with just the journaling. As most of your audience, if you're in medicine knows there was just no time to write very much as I went through medical school. But because I could feel that change happening and because I really wanted to be able to remember this later in order to write about it, I wrote those little tiny journal entries as I went through.

During my fourth year, I spread my fourth year out over that extra six months. My fourth year was actually like an 18-month year. I was simultaneously in classes at UCSF. And so, then I was actively writing while I was going through fourth year. But as we all know, the fourth year is a little less rigorous than all the years that have come before. So, it was possible to really focus on my writing for a month and then be in my clinical rotation for a month and then focus on my writing for a month. A little bit of both, but I was aware that I needed to synthesize these journal entries and really write while it was still fresh.

John: Then at some point, there's something called "Balance, Pedal, Breathe" came into existence, but it wasn't at that point. How do you feel having published it and what made you decide "Okay, I actually want to put this in a way that can be out there for other people?"

Dr. Claire Unis: Yeah. I had to finish some version of it to graduate from UCSF, which I did. And I knew it wasn't finished even at that time. As a new graduate, you don't really have that much confidence in what you know or how you're going to use these experiences. And I think part of me was really very nervous about getting this into final published form had I really been able to do at that time. And I did have an agent interested and there was some back and forth, and I think I kind of just panicked and then I started residency and there was no time.

But what got me back to this, and then of course, over the years I actually wrote the chapter on my OB rotation during my pediatrics residency when I was working and taking care of the babies. Some of these chapters came later. Most of them were at least initially conceived during the end of medical school. But I came back to this when the pandemic hit. It was kind of like being handed this little gift of time. And I think many of us were like, "What am I going to do with this sudden gift of time?" And there wasn't any question in my mind, I really needed to come back to this. I was facing symptoms of burnout and feeling like something had to change and pulling this out and rereading it really kind of got my heart all flutter. It was like, "Oh my gosh. This is what I felt when I went into this." And this is what I experienced. I think writing the memoir at that point or getting back into it sort of put me back in touch with my purpose, but it also, and this is the uncomfortable part, it made me face things I wasn't very proud of either. It's been many years since I graduated from medical school.

And during that time, there were things that I did that were selfish, that at the time, I didn't know how else to get through. And then when you look back, you go, "Okay, that doesn't actually create a human that I can be proud of being." Some of going back to this later inspired me and some of it forced me to evolve a little bit more yet than I've even evolved over the years as we all do. But getting it published is literally a dream come true because I always wanted to. At the same time, it's a little bit like walking around naked sometimes because people are reading some of your inner thoughts and I definitely had some feelings of panic as it was being released of, "Oh my gosh, maybe I shouldn't do this." But it was too late.

John: That's not a trivial thing. I thought if I were to write some kind of book, sort of a fiction book, and I wanted to make it interesting, I'm afraid I had to put things in there that I had done or experienced to make it sound real. But then I wouldn't want people to read it because I'd be embarrassed by what was in there.

Okay. Now I'm going to put you on the spot. We knew you knew we were going to talk about the book. So, sell me on the book. Who should buy this book? It's out there, it's available. Tell us where you can get it and who would it resonate the most with? Because there's got to be an audience for it, right?

Dr. Claire Unis: Absolutely. And I've been really fortunate that anyone who has read it has come back to me with glowing reviews. "Oh, my goodness. I didn't know you could write like this." And while this really resonated with me and I had no idea what medical school was like, or those who have read it would have gone to medical school. Actually, it's really funny. I guess I shouldn't say who it was, but somebody I knew well in medical school got in touch with me and said, "I now have a clearer memory of your medical school experience than my own." And I say, "Well, that's a fascinating thing to say." I think it's absolutely relevant for anyone who's thinking about going to medical school, anyone who has gone to medical school, the nurses who I'm friends with who have read it have really resonated with it as well.

But ideally, I think this is a book that could do very well with book clubs. I don't think you need to be in medicine. And my whole goal in writing it, was to help someone who's not in medicine, understand what your doctor has gone through to get to that point. And I think that's really important and that is part of what drove me back to it during the pandemic as well. There was this huge disconnect between the general public and the people who are trying to take care of them. And I just have always felt understanding is the key. If people could understand each other's experiences, it would take us so much closer to being able to communicate well and bridge those differences. So, I really wrote this book to have universal appeal and to be relevant to anyone who's interested in what someone going into medicine has experienced.

To answer your second question, it's available on Amazon, it's available on Barnes & Noble. You can buy it from the publisher, which is Warren Publishing, and they were fantastic to work with, but I will tell you that you can get a lot faster through Amazon. And it is available also on Kindle.

John: Okay. Two comments. One, Warren, because I don't want to get into too much detail, but everyone always asks, "Well, how did you publish it? Was it traditional? Was it self-published?" And Warren is one of those that's in between, right?

Dr. Claire Unis: Yes. Warren is a hybrid publisher. So, what that means is that there's some shared expense in terms of what goes into publishing the book. They help with curating the editors that you work with. So, I know you've previously interviewed Deborah Blaine who is a friend and a wonderful writer of medical thrillers or medical mystery. So, she's a great example of someone. And she actually turned me on to Warren Publishing. And then once you sign on with them, there's a developmental editor, there's a copy editor, there's a proofreader. There's a lot of rounds of editing that they help and then making sure that everything is in line as it should be so that it can be presented as well as a traditionally published book. And it can be sold in bookstores, which is something that most bookstores won't carry self-published books. So, for me, it was a faster process than going through a traditional publisher and it allowed me to put out a product I can be extremely proud of.

John: Yes, it's very professionally done, obviously. The second comment I was going to make, and I hadn't thought about this before, but when you said it would be something that someone who was thinking of going to med school or was starting med school would read, I think back, I could have really used that darn book because I had no one in my family that was in medical school. The first rotation that I did in my third year of medical school, I had no idea what was happening. I just showed up. It's like, "Okay, what's going to happen now? I'm in the surgical rotation with some Vietnamese doctor who was at the VA and I got to be here every third night and stay here?" Oh my gosh, it was a total culture shock.

Dr. Claire Unis: Absolutely. Nothing really prepares you for that. Your first two years don't prepare you for that. We had one panel where the upperclassmen told us a few things to make sure that you had with you and then off you go. So, thank you.

John: Yeah, that's really good. And you know what? I'm the only one that has mentioned the title of the book. So, tell us the title, the complete title. And then we'll move on to my next question.

Dr. Claire Unis: Sounds good. The title is "Balance, Pedal, Breathe: A Journey Through Medical School." And the reason for the title is that this book is every bit as much about my other outdoor pursuits or outside medicine pursuits as it is about medical school. And I think that's also part of the universal appeal.

For example, when I talk about my pediatrics rotation, I'm also talking about paragliding and traveling and learning a new language. And when I'm talking about the surgery rotation, I'm also talking about swing dancing, which was something I did quite during medical school.

Balance also has to do with rock climbing. There's a chapter that is called "Unsure Footing" that's about a multi pitch long climb that I went on. And I interweave that with stories of uncertainty in medicine. Pedal was mountain biking. Biking absolutely saved my soul, I think during the second year as we approached boards. And then breathe because so much of this book revolves around images of breath. And breath drives everything. It's how we deal ourselves, to deal with whatever we have to deal with. It's how we recover from something that's difficult. It's how we center ourselves. And it has so much to do with any active outdoor pursuit.

The title very much harkens to all the other experiences that are interwoven with the medical experiences here. And then the subtitle "A Journey Through Medical School" because it very much was a journey both emotionally and physically.

John: Very nice. Yeah. There's a lot to talk about here but this is a thing that impressed me and what we're going to talk about for at least the next 10 minutes or so. So, you published a book like, "Okay, that's your writing and how it's manifest in your life now?" No, you're doing like three or four other things in which you've incorporated and integrated writing into your daily, I guess, life. So, explain what you're doing from that aspect. The teaching, the coaching, whatever you want to talk about. We only have so much time, but I want to hear about those things. I think the listeners will too. And some of those things, I think you're actually getting paid for as part of a program at the university.

Dr. Claire Unis: Yes. Thank you. When I looked up and realized I needed to do something more than just clinical practice, that was actually before the pandemic. And at the time I had recently learned about narrative medicine, which is a field of medical humanities that came into being right around the time I graduated with my MFA, feeling like I was the only person in the world who wanted to merge the humanities with medicine. It turns out I was not.

There was a team of doctors and other writers and all kinds of collaboration was going on at Columbia university to create narrative medicine, which is basically the use of texts, which could be pictures, photographs, any kind of example of the humanities to connect doctors with the other side of themselves, the nonmedical side of themselves and give them something to talk about that will also get in touch with basically geared against burnout by allowing people to talk about something nonmedical and get at the meaning behind what is going on in their lives. Because we doctors learn very early on that we don't share what's going on emotionally with our patients, that we are supposed to be quite stoic in the face of all kinds of trials. And obviously over a lifetime of that, that's a recipe for burnout. And I think of creativity as an antidote to burnout.

So, I'd come across this narrative medicine program. And I was thinking about enrolling, although having two children and a practice on the west coast, it was terribly practical to go to the east coast for a program. And in talking to someone who I would consider a mentor at my work, he said "Wait a second, you have an MFA in writing. Do you really need another master's degree?" And I thought about it and I was like, "Wow, you're right." It was already in the works before the pandemic. I was creating a program involving writing and literature appreciation for other doctors, modeled loosely on what they're doing with narrative medicine at Columbia and then the pandemic hit. So rather than be able to meet with people in person, suddenly everything went virtual. And it was honestly perfect timing because suddenly everybody had a little bit more time to spend, checking out something new.

So, the first class I put together was something that I called LIFE - Literary Inspiration For Expression. And in this class, I would provide a short story to people ahead of time and they would read it and then we would get together and discuss it for a little while. And then I would give a writing prompt to which people could free write and they didn't have to share their writing with anybody. It was just a chance to a little bit of personal reflection based on the discussion that we've had.

I deliberately chose stories that had nothing to do with medicine. This was really intended to be true enrichment and a true reminder that we are much more than our professions and that we have life experiences that are perhaps informed by our jobs, but certainly not completely circumscribed by our jobs. And that class was very popular.

And so, from there, I went on to develop some writing workshops. I found that there were a number of clinicians who were trying to write on their own and really could benefit from having people to bounce their ideas and their writing off of. I created a book club. I worked with one of our patient family advisors to develop a writing class. So, people who didn't feel comfortable with their writing, but wanted to write, could learn some techniques. And then ultimately after taking several narrative medicine workshops, I did feel comfortable working with someone else who was in that program to offer some narrative medicine classes also.

So, I've been very busy offering classes to clinicians with the main goal being to improve clinician wellbeing. And I was fortunate also that some of this work was funded by a grant. I worked for Sutter medical group. And Sutter Health had a joy of work committee formed that received a grant to support work that would help or kind of augment clinician wellbeing.

And so, I was a recipient of some of that money that funded some of my time to put into program development. And that was a real boom because like many of us, it's hard to take time out from other things that we're not getting paid for, or take time away from things that we are getting paid for to really develop something like this. And so, it gave me the permission to say, "Okay, this is part of my job. I have to create something." That seems like that was a lot of talking on my part, but that's a summary of what I've done with the writing. And one more thing, I've been able to write a weekly blog for our medical group. So each week I just write some short reflective piece about something that's going on in the world or in my life that I consistently get nice feedback on. I think people like to hear just a reminder of other people are having these very human experiences alongside the medical obligations.

John: Now, the one thing I think that I remember from discussing before we got on the call was some kind of communication coaching. Is that encompassed in what you've already described or is that something different?

Dr. Claire Unis: No. Fantastic. That's a great reminder. Actually, even before I started all these writing programs, I have held the title of clinician communication coach. And in that role, I would sometimes shadow other doctors and just help with techniques that would help with communication with patients.

And the goal of this is really to make the day a little easier. Many people struggle with how do you get out of the room, for example, after you've finished a visit? How do you avoid, "Oh, doctor, one more thing" and not feel like a jerk if you say "We can't handle that today?" How do you make sure that patients know you care, even though you also have a time constraint?

So, we have some classes actually that we teach through that department and I really enjoy that as well. Honestly, I've found that working to help clinicians enjoy their work and help them manage symptoms of burnout, if not get rid of them somehow, have been all things that I've really enjoyed. So yes, clinician communication coaching is something that I've been doing for several years. Now, I'm going to say we're probably getting close to five but I did start that long, long before. And that wasn't my idea. I was fortunate to be hired into that role. And it's part of our patient experience.

John: Well, it sounds like you have an array of things that you're doing that aren't strictly practice and you've cut the hours and the practice down I guess significantly, but you're still seeing kids and doing that. So, you've got that going. And I take it. I don't hear a lot of burnout right now coming from you or at least evidence of it. But I don't know, I haven't given you a questionnaire to complete or anything. So how do you feel right now doing everything that you're doing?

Dr. Claire Unis: For me, this is a great balance. I'm working 50% clinical time in medicine, and honestly, I was doing that long before. And even with that, there were days that I was feeling like it was too much because there's so much nonclinical extra work that we do every time we set foot into the office and it starts to feel less appreciated. I think doing the clinician communication work has helped me also be a little bit more efficient in my interactions with patients and feeling good about them. That's really what it's about. If you get out of that room feeling good about the interaction, you feel a lot better about your workday also. So, I've been able to really enjoy that. But having time to create and help others create has done wonders for my ability to feel like I have a great balance. And I look forward to my clinical days. I look forward to seeing patients. I really enjoy my time. I do not think there's any way on this planet that I could do it full time. So, I'll be fully honest about that. The time away is essential for being able to be fully present.

John: Yeah. And I think that's common and probably underrecognized by most people. I think we forget when we're in it that medicine is very intense. And not that these other things don't take a lot of time and energy to do, but the intensity of taking care of patients, having the responsibility, the threat of a lawsuit, plus all the paperwork piled on top. I really personally can't see how someone can practice more than 20, 25 years without kind of segueing into something a lot simpler. But it sounds like you've got a great balance that could go on for quite a while, as long as you're enjoying all of it.

Dr. Claire Unis: Absolutely. I want to add one more thing to that. And I think this is something that most of us are feeling is that more and more we're being told what we need to achieve in an office visit. That's not necessarily the goals that we need to set out there, right? There are all these metrics that we're supposed to meet and these extra things we're supposed to be doing. And the more we're told to just toe the line and do something that does not involve our own creativity, the more important it is that we have some creative pursuit outside of it. So, it's soul sucking not to have that self-determination. And so, I think it's just extremely important and it doesn't have to be writing, obviously. It's not everybody's jam. But it is essential to honor that creative side of ourselves. Everybody has a creative side, and it really deserves to be expressed in some way.

John: All right. That was very inspirational to me and probably to the listeners as well. I hope you enjoyed that people. But before we go, a couple questions. First, tell us what's the best way to get ahold of you or just to find what you're doing? Do you have a website and other ways on social media we could track you down?

Dr. Claire Unis: Absolutely. My website is www.claireunis.net. And on there, there is a "Contact me" little section. So please feel free to drop me an email, especially if you're interested in classes. I'm not sure once this grant runs out, exactly what my next move is going to be, but I've certainly had some people outside my medical group ask about classes. So, I'd love to know if you're interested. I can also be found on doctorsonsocialmedia.com. You can look at my name, and my book is also on there. On Facebook or Instagram, basically, most of the socials I'm at Literary Art in Medicine. And the book I think I mentioned can be found on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or there's a link through my website also.

John: Excellent. All right. I will put all those in the show notes too so people don't have to hurriedly write down right now or if they're in their car or something. Before I let you go, though, I'm going to just basically ask you what advice you might have for my listeners. I think you have a pretty good idea. It's basically physicians, some of whom are burnt out, maybe a high percentage are thinking about doing something else. And so, maybe you just have some pithy answer to their problems. But just tell us what advice you would give them right now.

Dr. Claire Unis: I guess my best advice is just that you need to honor your creative side. If there's something that you really wish you could do more of in your free time, maybe look into that, look for classes, look for ways to develop yourself further in a totally different avenue. It will make you a better doctor. It will make you more present when you are in the office.

For many of us financially, the thought of pivoting to something else is really daunting. And I know John, you are way more an expert in that than I am. But speaking for the sole satisfaction side, the more happy you are, the more you tend to your own needs on the outside, the more present you are on the inside. So, hopefully that's helpful to people, whether it's writing or something else.

John: I think it's very helpful. And some of the principles that we follow here that really as a physician you should have a life that's joyful and fulfilling, that you wake up to in the morning not dreading. And whether that means adding something to it or doing something different, what you've told us about today can be very helpful in that regard. I really appreciate that. So, I think we are out of time now. I guess all I can do now is say goodbye and thank you again for coming on the show today.

Dr. Claire Unis: Sure. My pleasure, John. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Scroll back to top

Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.

powered by

Disclaimers:

Many of the links that I refer you to are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you.

The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career. 

The post How Creative Writing Restores Vitality and Prevents Burnout – 259 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Dr. Debra Blain is a marvelous medical mystery author. She was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island, New York. 

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Novel Writing

Her newest book, Undue Influences, was released in October 2021. It continues her campaign against greed and argues for the practice of integrity.

But don't be misled. It is as suspenseful and engaging as any thriller. During the interview, Debra explains why she enjoys writing, and the approach she followed to complete two books in a relatively short period of time. 

Coaching

Debra is also a Certified Professional Coach, Master Trainer, and Certified Group Leader. She works with clients who are struggling to navigate the corporate world. She also coaches clients who wish to write and publish. And she continues to write herself.

Publishing for the Medical Mystery Author 

Dr. Blaine described in detail the options for publishing a book. She explained that the three major approaches are self-publishing, traditional publishing, and hybrid publishing.

With self-publishing, the author maintains complete control over the process. She also receives essentially 100% of the royalties. However, it is more work and can be costly to hire editors and pay for marketing and printing.  

Using a traditional publisher takes longer. It requires that an agent be hired, and produces a much lower royalty payment. Furthermore, the traditional publisher makes all final decisions. It owns the rights to your book and pays for all of the expenses of getting the book published.

Finally, the hybrid publisher provides some of the support of the traditional publisher. But more control and a higher royalty percentage remain with the author. This publisher may provide its own editors and will help get your book into major bookstores.

Summary

Debra is an awesome writer. In today's interview, she describes her writing journey. She explains the inspiration for her two books. And presents how to go about publishing a novel as a medical mystery author.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Dr. Debra Blaine's Website
• Buy Code Blue and Undue Influences
• Debra's LinkedIn Profile Page
• How to Influence the World by Writing a Medical Thriller – 116
• How to Be an Author and Nonclinical Career Expert with Dr. Heidi Moawad – 063
• How to Become an Author, Consultant and Online Authority with Dr. Tom Davis – 047
• NewScr!pt the BEST place to find career mentors and experts at your fingertips

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

Email Download New Tab

Coming soon

Scroll back to top

Sign up to receive email reminders, news, and free stuff every week!

Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you reminders each podcast episode, notices about nonclinical jobs, information about free and paid courses, and other curated information just for you.

powered by

Disclaimers:

Many of the links that I refer you to are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you.

The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career. 

The post How to Become a Marvelous Medical Mystery Author – 231 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Today I present my thoughts on how to become a successful medical writer.

I am presenting an excerpt from my course on the Nonclinical Career Academy called Introduction to Careers as a Medical Writer. It should answer some of the questions you have about this popular career.

I’ll explain more at the end of the podcast today. But in addition to the video lesson, there are several downloadable audio interviews with physicians who became writers.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Types of Medical Writing

Medical writing is a broad field that is commonly assigned to one of the following categories:

• Technical
• Journalistic
• Medical Education, including CME
• Patient Education
• Copywriting, including marketing and advertising

Further, medical writers can work as freelancers or as employees. Freelancers will usually require a business structure such as an LLC.

Become a Successful Medical Writer

To become a successful medical writer, you will need to do the following:

• Decide whether you want to be a freelancer, building your clients over time, or an employed writer. Freelancers have more freedom but require more discipline. Employed writers usually have a greater structure to their jobs and more options for advancing their careers. Both types will probably have the opportunity to work from home.
• Select a field of writing. You might be a technical writer for a CRO (Contract Research Organization), a freelance writer for a CME Company, or an employed writer for a health education company. 
• If employed, you may be able to step into a role as an editor, or as a senior medical writer or manager of a writing department.

Summary

Medical writing is a career that often provides the ability to work from home, or while traveling. Your skills can be applied in a variety of ways, for a variety of audiences, and advancement opportunities to supervisory roles are often available.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Nonclinical Career Academy's Introduction to Careers as a Medical Writer
• American Medical Writers Association (AMWA)

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, share it on Twitter and Facebook, and leave a review on iTunes.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Disclaimers:

Many of the links that I refer you to, and that you’ll find in the show notes, are affiliate links. That means that I receive a payment from the seller if you purchase the affiliate item using my link. Doing so has no effect on the price you are charged. And I only promote products and services that I believe are of high quality and will be useful to you, that I have personally used or am very familiar with.

The opinions expressed here are mine and my guest’s. While the information provided on the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there is no express or implied guarantee that using the methods discussed here will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

The information presented on this blog and related podcast is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. I do not provide medical, legal, tax, or emotional advice. If you take action on the information provided on the blog or podcast, it is at your own risk. Always consult an attorney, accountant, career counselor, or other professional before making any major decisions about your career. 

The post Add Discipline to Creativity to Be a Successful Medical Writer – 179 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In this week's Podcast episode, Dr. Jennifer Spector describes how she became a medical editor for a popular online medical journal.

She is is a Board-Certified Podiatric Physician and Surgeon with 14 years of clinical experience. She also spent over 5 years in national leadership positions at the American Association for Women Podiatrists. She’s had a long-term interest in education, writing, and consulting. She is passionate about educating others. As of June 2019, she has been the Associate Editor for Podiatry Today.

She received her DPM degree from the Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine. Then she completed a three-year residency in podiatric medicine at Christian Care Health System.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country, with over 650 graduates. And, unlike other programs, which typically run 1 – 1/2 to 2 years, this program only takes a year to complete. Recently, Economist Magazine ranked the business school #1 in the world for the Most Relevant Executive MBA.

While in the program, you'll participate in a company project, thereby contributing to your organization. As a result, the University of Tennessee PEMBA students bring exceptional value to their organizations.

Graduates have taken leadership positions at major healthcare organizations. And they've become entrepreneurs and business owners.

By joining the University of Tennessee physician executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills needed to find a career that you really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office by calling (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Preparing to Be a Medical Editor

Medical writing and editing are great careers. They consist of a variety of potential jobs that include freelancing or employment; working from home or in an office; technical, journalistic, or educational. And there are positions open to physicians of all backgrounds.

After completing her residency, Jennifer spent several years building her practice. She later volunteered at the American Association for Women Podiatrists. She chaired several committees. Then she held several leadership positions, becoming President of the organization in 2018.

There are so many things that we might have dipped our toes into in clinical practice without realizing how they can apply  outside of actual practice. – Dr. Jennifer Spector

While at the AAWP she was responsible for writing and editing the newsletter and other documents. That experience enabled her to land her position as Associate Editor for Podiatry Today.

Finding Editing Jobs

Today’s conversation with Jennifer clarified the process of becoming the editor for a medical news journal, like Podiatry Today. Jennifer reminds us to develop a portfolio of writing and editing samples to share with prospective employers. She was able to do this while working with the AAWP.

And if you’re looking for freelance writing opportunities, you should look at the portfolio of journals published by the parent company of Podiatry Today, HMP Global. There are 12 journals and 18 Online Digital and Learning Networks under its umbrella.

Summary

In today's interview, we learned what it takes to become a medical editor. This is often a natural step for established writers to pursue.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Dr. Jennifer Spector's LinkedIn Page
• Podiatry Today
• HMP GLOBAL

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

The post What Is It Like to Be a Medical Editor? – 160 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

In this week's PNC Podcast episode, I have a wonderful conversation with Dr. Robert Adams as he provides highlights from his long military and clinical careers and offers advice for finding nonclinical opportunities in retirement.

Bob Adams may be the most accomplished guest I’ve ever met. Coming from a military family, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy. Then, he continued his naval career and after serving as Navigator and First Lieutenant on the USS Hamner, he followed his dream to become a Navy SEAL.

He served 14 years in the Navy and was a Navy Commander when he changed services. However, he did so to become a physician on an Army scholarship at Wake Forest University Medical School.

As an Army physician, he commanded various clinics providing full-service inpatient and outpatient obstetric, pediatric, medical, surgical, and gynecologic services to a diverse population. He served four years as the Command Surgeon for the US Army DELTA Force providing combat medical services worldwide, and he was deployed to Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division.

Along the way, he obtained an MBA from James Madison University. After retiring from the Army Medical Corps as a Colonel, he founded and practiced in a full-service medical clinic, “Knightdale Family Medicine,” in Knightdale, NC. He ultimately left the practice but was able to find several nonclinical opportunities in retirement to keep him busy.

He is the author of two books that he released this year: Six Days of Impossible – Navy SEAL Hell Week: a Doctor Looks Back – and Swords and Saints: a Doctor’s Journey.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country, with over 650 graduates. And, unlike other programs, which typically run 1 – 1/2 to 2 years, this program only takes a year to complete. Recently, Economist Magazine ranked the business school #1 in the world for the Most Relevant Executive MBA.

While in the program, you'll participate in a company project, thereby contributing to your organization. As a result, the University of Tennessee PEMBA students bring exceptional value to their organizations.

Graduates have taken leadership positions at major healthcare organizations. And they've become entrepreneurs and business owners.

By joining the University of Tennessee physician executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills needed to find a career that you really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office by calling (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

Adventurous Journey To Retirement

Bob is a fifth-generation career military and became a Navy Seal. After getting his MBA he worked in Washington. But he hated it. So he decided to go to medical school.

“I don't want to be a businessman. There's no morals. There's no ethics. I want to go to medical school.”

Searching for scholarships through the military, he found that Army scholarships were the best. So he switched branches, attended medical school and residency, and spent 18 years in the military. During that time, he deployed to Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division. And for four years he was command sergeant for the Army's Delta Force. Later, he retired as a Colonel from the Army Medical Corps.

After retiring he started a private practice. He went to a bank and asked for a $4 million loan. Fortunately, they liked his business plan, so he built a 14,000 square foot multi-specialty clinic. When corporate got unpleasant to deal with, he looked for the next adventure and entered “retirement.”

Publishing Two Books

The first of Bob's nonclinical opportunities in retirement was writing two books. His first book describes his experiences during Navy Seals Hell Week. The story is about a doctor trying to figure out why he and the 10 others in his group made it through that challenging process. The second book is called Swords and Saints: A Doctor's Journey. In it, Bob describes the experiences that led him to, and carried him through, his military and medical careers.

Bob looked for publishing options and found that traditional publishers required too much control over the contents of his books.  And that didn't appeal to him. So he self-published, using a corporate group in Canada called FriesenPress. They provided editors that taught him to grab the audience and keep their interest. He found a military-friendly publisher for his second book.

Other Nonclinical Opportunities In Retirement

Pharma Sentinel, a London-based company reached out to him. They are building a medical app that monitors and reports news alerts about medications to those prescribing and taking them. 

MedicorHealth is a company that discovered a money-making opportunity for primary care doctors treating Medicare patients. The company provides turn-key tools that enable physicians to generate income through remote monitoring of their patients.

Summary

In this episode, Dr. Robert Adams describes his long career, his book publishing, and the nonclinical opportunities in retirement that he discovered. And he believes there are many more such opportunities.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Swords and Seals Website
• Dr. Adams' LinkedIn Profile
• Bob's Email Address: buds81@aol.com
• Medicor Health
• Pharma Sentinel
• FriesenPress Publishing
• Heroes Media Group

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

The post How to Find Nonclinical Opportunities in Retirement – 159 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Interview with Sarah Campbell

In this episode of the PNC podcast, Sarah Campbell offers her expert advice to become a strong CME writer.

NetCE is a continuing education company that produced online education for health care professions. Sarah has spent much of her career working there. She is the Director of Development. In that role, she works with planners and authors to develop the materials that NetCE produces.

Our Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country, with over 650 graduates. And, unlike other programs, which typically run 1 – 1/2 to 2 years, this program only takes a year to complete. Recently, Economist Magazine ranked the business school #1 in the world for the Most Relevant Executive MBA.

While in the program, you'll participate in a company project, thereby contributing to your organization. As a result, the University of Tennessee PEMBA students bring exceptional value to their organizations.

Graduates have taken leadership positions at major healthcare organizations. And they've become entrepreneurs and business owners.

By joining the University of Tennessee physician executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills needed to find a career that you really love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office by calling (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

What is Continuing Medical Education?

Continuing Medical Education materials are a major component of NetCE's products. As such, it is constantly looking for new content. And it regularly engages a CME writer to produce it.

The topics should timely and widely applicable. The writing should be evidence-based and well-supported by references. And NetCE must expand its offerings to topics not covered before. It helps if the CME writer has a genuine interest and expertise in the subject matter.

“If you're writing about something that's actually interesting to you or that you have been impacted by, then it can be really valuable to the learners.” – Sarah Campbell

For example, NetCE worked quickly to develop a course on COVID-19 recently. An established CME writer for NetCE worked on an expedited schedule to meet the need. In most cases, however, Sarah can predict new course requirements and plan for them in advance.

The Medical Writing Process

Sarah outlined the process of medical writing during our conversation.

1. Before writing a manuscript, authors submit a formal proposal. It includes a brief abstract and a big-picture overview of what the final product will look like.
2. The proposal goes to the Development Committee, which reviews and provides feedback on it.
3. The company issues a contract, and the author writes the manuscript.
4. When the first draft is submitted, the CME writer receives her honorarium.
5. NetCE completes editing, graphics, and publishing. This process can take up to a year to finish.
6. After three years, the company reevaluates the course based on need and new scientific developments. If it is still valuable, the author will complete revisions and receive an additional honorarium.

Summary

In the episode, Sarah also provided advice for CME writers for maintaining a good relationship with CME Communication Companies. And she describes ways to optimize compensation for your medical writing.

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

The Clinicians Career Cooperative Official Launch Began on June 1, 2020.

This is the ONLINE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS for nonclinical, and unconventional clinical, jobs and side gigs. We have started with some of the most influential names in clinical career transition, including:

• Maiysha Clairborne
• Michelle Mudge-Riley
• Tom Davis
• Marjorie Stiegler
• Andrew Wilner
• Phil Boucher
• Mike Woo-Ming
• Jarret Patton
• Jill Wener
• Christopher Loo
• Lisa Jenks
• Mandy Armitage

There is an automatic 7-day Free Trial. So, this is a no-risk opportunity to connect with experts and begin your career transition today.

To check it out, head to the Clinicians Career Cooperative.

Follow 4 Easy Steps:

After clicking the link and heading to the Cooperative and watching the Welcome Video…

1. click the Teal Colored JOIN NOW button, then,
2. select the annual or monthly membership by clicking the Sign-Up Link, then
3. add your registration information, and,
4. click REGISTER HERE to join the Cooperative.

It's that simple.

Imagine what it will be like 6 to 12 months from now to start a fulfilling career, and leave behind the headaches, long hours, and constant threat of a lawsuit. Joining the Cooperative is the first step on that journey!

So head over to the Clinicians Career Cooperative.

The post Here Are the Keys to Being a Strong CME Writer – 146 appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.