6 Parallels Between Private Practice and Self-Publishing Books

My grandma recently asked me why I self-publish my books instead of going the traditional publishing route.

As I talked with her about it, I was surprised by how my reasons to self-publish parallel my reasons to be in private practice as a therapist:

• I get to decide. Self-publishing allows you to make all of the design, content, pricing, and marketing decisions. Starting a private practice also allows you to make all of the decisions around the layout of your office, your policies, how you do therapy, who you see, how you market, and more.

• I get to determine the publication schedule. When you self-publish, you decide when you want to publish the book and the deadlines along the way. The same goes for private practice, you get to decide your first day and what milestones you want to hit as you get closer to that day.

• I can ensure the content of the book adheres to my values. Sometimes authors have to compromise the content of their book due to the decisions of editors. In a private practice, you get to design all of your policies, procedures, systems, and therapeutic work based on what aligns with your values and what you know is best for your clients.

• I have more options once it is published. When you self-publish, you can decide how many copies to print or to print-on-demand. You can also decide who to give author copies to, when to offer discounts, and more. This is similar to private practice - you can remain flexible and let your business evolve over time.

• I will make more $. The royalty amount I receive through self-publishing is higher than any royalties I would receive through traditional publishing. This is the same with private practice. You get to keep all of the money you make. No one else is taking a cut

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• I do most of the work anyways. This may seem like an odd one, but it’s an immense amount of effort to create a book. It did not seem like that much more work to self-publish. That is how I also view private practice. We do an immense amount of work as therapists. It’s not that much more to have the business be under your name. Yes, it’s a lot more work upfront, but once you have the systems in place it is easy to maintain.

I was originally very scared to self-publish. I didn’t know what I was doing. Starting a private practice was the same, but I figured it out. And for all the treasons I was scared, it turns out there were far more unforeseen ways that it would benefit me. That was exactly the same with self-publishing, it led to many opportunities that I would never could have predicted.

Thank you for reading. If you'd like to explore creating a private practice,

I provide business consultation for that very thing.