How I wrote my book
How do people come up with ideas and how are they turned into an actual book? Now that Doctoring Your Life is launched and published, and my newest book, Dr. Barbie, is nearing completion, I wanted to talk about how my book was inspired, written, and published. Also, because I am AI-curious, I don’t want to forgo all AI tools. I think it’s fair to use new tools as they become available, but the creativity must be all mine. So at the end of each book, I’ll fully disclose all that I can.
Doctoring Your Life was born out of desperation. I had three children in three years and was working full time to build a medical practice from the ground up. I was also taking my oral board exams and was pregnant during both of them. I wished I had a book to tell me how to get everything done. Instead, I had friends and colleagues who were generous with wisdom and advice and I kept track of these tips over the years to eventually share with younger doctors. I also saw a problem with access to care. There was no increase in doctors being trained, but our population was growing, getting older, and getting sicker. Our food supply and environment weren’t improving our health. Our medical professionals were working more and making less, and paying more for their education. We went from being guaranteed a job, plus adding to our supply with foreign grads, to exporting our doctors to other countries. The remaining doctors are strapped for time, have less control, less power, and more constraints on their ability to provide care. Women especially, are suffering from this and it is shortening their careers. This was my way to help.
I took an email writing course by Joshua Sprague called the 30 day book writing challenge. Joshua broke down the process of writing a first draft with daily email assignments, accountability, and writing tips. It was the best $99 I ever spent and those emails are saved in my inbox forever. I wrote the book in 25 minute Pomodoro method increments, and my writing music was the score for the Incredibles.
Once my book was as good as I could get it, I sent it to a copy editor and formatter on Fiverr. This cost me about $500 total for both services. My cover design and web design were by a talented young graphic designer Kara Hovelson, who was a high school friend of my daughters. Her services were about $1000.
I uploaded my book to Amazon and launched it with a launching service from Paul Brodie Consulting Services. I found him through a free self-publishing seminar which taught me how to write a blurb, set up my Amazon author profile, buy my ISBNs, and copyright my book. The launch was my biggest expense, at $4000. It got me to number one in 3 categories!
The only AI used in this book was Grammerly software for pre-editing. I am currently using a software program to generate keywords called Publisher Rocket for advertising. I downloaded a video course called Audiobooks Made Easy by Derek Doepker which I am using to create my upcoming audiobook version of Doctoring Your Life. That course cost me about $300 and the equipment was about $100. People can tell I wrote the book. Those that know me often said, “It sounds just like you talking.” My verbal tics, word choices, and accent are all in there.
I would be interested to see if AI could be effectively used to translate my book into other languages. Right now, I have my doubts. But for a self-published author without heavy sales, this may be the best and most cost-effective way to get this book accessible in other countries. For my next book, I would consider using programs such as Scrivener to organize my book and Pro-writing Aid for copy-editing. While I plan to hire a cover designer and book editor for this book, which is fiction, I would be interested in exploring Mid-journey to create art for ads and promotional materials. It actually sounds like a fun tool. What I am NOT doing is using AI to do the writing craft or the ideas. I don’t need that. I also freely ignore many grammer suggestions. People don’t speak with perfect grammer and my characters’ dialog would sound stilted and boring with it. Anyway, when that book comes out, I’ll let you know what I used and how I did it.