Show Notes

Kayla: Welcome back to The Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host, Kayla Das.

Instead of writing books, many therapists aspire to create self-help workbooks that can be used by clients or fellow therapists in the field. But how do you go about creating one?

Well, in today’s episode, Cheryl Fountain editor, award-winning author, and owner of Raspberry Press shares how to create a self-help workbook.

Hi Cheryl, welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Cheryl: Hi, Kayla. Thank you so much for having me.

Kayla: Cheryl, before we dive into today’s episode, please introduce yourself, where you’re from, and tell us a little bit about your editing and authorship journey, as well as how you started Raspberry Press.

Cheryl: Awesome. Thanks Kayla. So, I’m Cheryl Fountain. I am, as you introduced me, an award-winning author. I edit, and I own Raspberry Press. I grew up in Gravenhurst, Ontario and spent time there and in Toronto in my youth. And then moved to the Arctic for 17 years.

Now I live in Alberta. This is like my absolute favorite place to be on earth in Canada. I love being Canadian. So, I was a writer and have been a writer my entire life, and I knew in grade one this is what I wanted to do with my life. And it wasn’t until my thirties that I really put the confidence into that. And I actually started, publishing my books was more in my early forties.

I didn’t have a lot of self-belief when I was younger, but then as I grew older, I learned about assertiveness and I learned about self-confidence and self-esteem, and all those things led me to understand that my words have worth. So, I wrote my first book, which is an award-winning book Assertiveness: A Life-Changing Communication Skill.

While I was writing the book, I was looking into publishing options and I chose self-publishing and there’s a lot of reasons and that could be a whole other episode. I won’t get into all the reasons right now, but I did pay other people to help me publish that book. And I saw the process and then I learned the process over time through the people, they’re very helpful. And I saw how easy it really was to publish books. Now, it’s still a lot of intricacies and there’s a lot of detail, but I’m a detail-oriented person. And when I saw how easy it was to publish books, I wanted to share it with the world, and I wanted to make it accessible to people.

Again, I was researching different avenues for publishing, and I found, they call them hybrid presses. Could be very, very expensive, like $15,000 to publish. Have your book edited and all the publishing steps. So, I was like, that’s outrageous because a lot of self-published authors don’t sell tens of thousands of books. So, you’re putting in tens of thousands of dollars and you’re not making back your income.

But there’s another point is people want to get their book out there. They want to write a book, they want to give something back to the world, especially with a workbook, like a self-help workbook. People want to share some kind of knowledge or skill that will help other people. And I wanted to help people do those types of things, get what they want to share with others out there. Have their words heard, read, their dreams manifested and raspberry press came out of my own journey of authorship and publishing, and wanting to share that with other people.

I’m really excited about it because we have some really great books that have come through Raspberry Press so far. So, I’m really excited to share whatever I can to help people publish whatever kind of book they’d like to publish.

Kayla: I love this and I want to give a few kind of back things for listeners as well.

First of all, you do have a Bachelor of Social work, which you didn’t mention, but I think that’ll be really interesting to many of our listeners because even though you didn’t necessarily go through the traditional social work realm. You are using your social work background to create award-winning book and I think that that is huge.

And how I actually met Cheryl, and this is funny, this is about a year ago now. My husband and I went to a farmer’s market, and we met you there and you were selling your books and we kind of chatted. And now Cheryl’s actually my book coach, I’m writing, well actually a couple books, but I’m writing one on passive income and I’m writing a couple children’s books as well. And Cheryl is, honestly, if you’re looking for an editor, someone to help you with publishing, Cheryl is fabulous.

And I don’t want to get too ahead of the pitch, but what I want to say is that you know your stuff and you’ve been there and you’re just so helpful.

Cheryl: That’s my goal. And that’s exactly right. That social work education is one of the reasons that I gain the confidence in myself, like even having to do presentations in front of my class, I’d be shaking. And then learning that a lot of people aren’t even noticing you’re shaking and the communication skills, like that’s what social work is communication. It has been a real strong suit toward and guiding my path toward believing in myself, and then also knowing how important it is to give back. I love helping other people, and this is the way that I have chosen to help other people.

Kayla: That’s fabulous. So, what are the steps for creating a self-help workbook specifically?

Cheryl: Okay, so creating a self-help workbook, well, you need to have a topic, so that’s a very important thing because you’re going to be writing this book. And the writing process is probably the most lengthy of the entire part of the publishing journey. So, you need to write something first. Having a strong topic or something that you believe in, something that you’re passionate about, something that while you’re working with your clients or you’re learning constantly as a social worker or as a therapist or a psychotherapist.

So, what are you seeing gaps in what you’re reading and what your clients are needing? You have your tools, you have your scales, you have your checklist. What else might they be needing or some of the things to think about when you’re thinking about your topic?

Also, the most important is what are you passionate about? What do you want to get out in the world? Yes, there are other books on assertiveness out there, but I have my own take on assertiveness. I have my own understanding of how I came to assertiveness. So, your journey is unique. Even if it’s been done before, you can add your own unique flavor, your own unique tool sets your own unique skill sets in that book that you’re writing to support other people. That’s really the first step.

Then the second step is thinking about what tools and what diagrams, or what checklists would support what you’re trying to put out there, what you’re trying to teach other people. What skills you’re trying to help other people’s build. What emotions or what life things that they’re trying to work through. So, a workbook is different than a narrative book in that the reader is engaged. So, they’re doing activities. So, they’re learning something, they’re learning a new skill. They’re learning a new mindset. They’re learning a new idea. But then they’re actively engaging with material that you are creating in that workbook or printable sheets from that workbook. So, it’s a bit different than a narrative book.

So, one of the steps is designing these tools that you’re going to have. Journaling prompt questions. Another thing is considering the design. So, you’ve got your topic. You also need to outline your book. So, what is going to come first? What’s going to be at the end? Every workbook should have a very strong introduction.

Then you have different segments and they could be themed, like you could have different parts. So, the first part is all about emotional awareness, and the second part is taking action. So, you can lay out your book with an outline and making sure there’s balance as you’re writing. So, you have your like different points under each chapter heading, so to speak.

Then you’re going to have your activity in each chapter. So, an outline’s really important. The outline and the design of your tools can overlap. So, it’s like topic first, outline or design your tools, and then add it into the outline. They kind of go together.

So, it’s funny there’s steps, but they’re not always 1, 2, 3, 4. They kind of can overlap as you see fit. So, what’s important about that is your outline will help you guide your writing process too. So, I highly recommend writing that outline early so that it can encourage your writing process. Because as you’re writing, you’re going to be inspired for different parts. But then you’re going to see as your outline grows and as your manuscript grows, where you might need to create a tool for you didn’t even think about it, but as you’re writing something else, you’re like, oh my goodness, it’d be a really cool tool for this. What can I create to support that work?

Kayla: I love that. And even though my passive income book is a narrative book. I totally agree with you that even though sometimes we want those steps, but even when you’re writing the book, depending on who you are and how you frame the book, you might go to this chapter, that chapter, this section, and that section.

And I know for me specifically, because mine is a how to book. I’m all over the place. But it’s easy because I can have these headings and go here and here and here and here, and it works for me because depending on what I’m inspired to talk about that day, I would write there.

So, I can definitely see how self-help books both from an outline perspective and even while you’re creating it, you might be adding things in here and there and everywhere depending on which like category you’re inspired to write that day.

And I just think about the workbooks that I’ve used in my therapy practice and I’m sure many listeners can relate to that. There’s usually themes that are technically chapters, but they’re like themes. Here’s your mindfulness strategies. Here’s your stress management strategies. And they’re all kind of within one quote unquote chapter we’ll say.

Cheryl: Yeah, a narrative book to you have a chapter and you have paragraphs that support the theme of that chapter. Similar thing. However, with a workbook, almost consider it like a counseling session. So, you start with a warming up, getting to know you. Then the meat of it. So, like your chapters after the introduction are going to be the exercises, but you start with lighter exercises or the beginning stages of knowing something. And then you go peak where you’re at your higher point and you’re in the more meat of it. Maybe after you’ve practiced through three or four chapters of different activities, now you’re doing some more challenging activities.

So, after they’ve done all this work, you got to bring it down and settle, make sure they’re good, checking in. The emotional, making sure they’re ready to go back out into the world with this new skill or whatever that they’ve learned through the counseling session. So, I like to think of a workbook, especially a workbook for therapists. That it’s like a counseling session as you’re outlining your chapters. And making sure you come down to that conclusion, you’ve brought them through that whole wonderful journey of learning this new skill.

And then of course, if you’re using it to get clients to come see you or take some of your workshops, you can always put a little call to action at the end, which is a neat little thing to do. But I like to think of it that way, that whole curve of the counseling session.

Kayla: I love that, and I know people can’t see your hands while you’re doing that, but basically, you’re creating a bell curve and it makes complete sense. It’s like those icebreakers at the beginning, then we get into the meat and probably the more challenging and heavy stuff within the book. And then we end off in more of like a positive or easy or kind of debriefing type way so that the person using the workbook doesn’t necessarily feel all the heaviness that happened before it.

Cheryl: And at the end they know what to do next. So maybe they want more, maybe they need something else. So, what resources do you have to offer or other little tips or tricks or maybe. Even saying, if you’re feeling this at the end of this awesome book, go back to chapter two and try this again and see what happens next.

That’s another thing with a workbook. So, although it has that lovely structure of the bell curve and the counseling session, you also got to think that people might want to go back and do activities, or they might want to skip a chapter. So, make the chapters. On their own usable. So, I mean, you can have it so that you can do the whole thing. But also, it’s important, especially in today’s age, where people just want bites of things instead of full meals. Everyone’s so busy. Just think as each section as a standalone thing as well. So, it’s something to think about while you’re designing and thinking about writing your workbook.

Kayla: Those are such great tips. So, what are some of the design considerations for creating a self-help workbook? In other words, knowing that self-help workbooks often have worksheets or other do it yourself activities. Are there special considerations that therapists should think about during the creation stage?

Cheryl: Yeah, so. A workbook can be pretty much whatever you want it to be, which is awesome. You can have it very wordy. You can have few words. Lots of big pictures. They can be as small as 20 pages or as big as 150 pages.

That’s kind of the average breadth or length of a workbook, so it doesn’t have to be huge. So, you can have 150-page workbook that might only have 50 words on a page, and there’s lots of diagrams. So, the design most likely won’t be done by you unless you are choosing to do all the work yourself in the publishing process. So after you’ve written the book. There’s another step, the publishing process.

While you’re thinking about writing your book, think about, okay. Is it going to be wordy or is there going to be more pictures? Are there going to be more diagrams? Is this an art therapy book where I give prompts and then they’re going to have space to do art? I mean, every part of your workbook, you should be educating them about why you’re asking them to do the thing. Because everyone learns on different ways. A lot of people like to know why they’re doing something, which can be motivating. Some people don’t need that, but some people need that, so that’s important to put that in.

It’s up to you about how big this book is. How big is your material? Is it a new scale that you’ve developed and you just want to teach the scale? And then you have different ways of using the scale with different examples, like you could have a hypothetical client situation, and this is how you use the scale in this one. And then the next chapter is this type of situation. This is how use the scale in this one.

You also want to think that workbooks have really a lot of space. You need space in them. Although it might be a lot of words in your workbook, you chose a more narrative type structure with an activity at the end of the chapter or a section. You still want to consider space. Again, someone else is going to design it, but your word count might be different if you don’t want it to be 400 pages. It might be too much. You could, I mean, it’s your book, but space, your headings are going to be really large. You’re going to have lots of pictures. You’re going to have different colors. Just thinking about those things as you’re writing and you can even look at other people’s workbooks to get an idea of what’s been done before. You don’t want to be them. You want to be you. However, it can inspire you of like, oh, this fits what I’m thinking more. And then you can start.

So, I encourage you to go to a bookstore, look at the workbook section. Look at a few workbooks. You can even go to different platforms like Amazon and look at the read more. And just see what’s standing out for you and it might inspire you and also help you figure out how much are you actually going to write for each of these sections on each of these topics?

Then the different sheets is a whole other thing, like the worksheets, the scales, the checklists. Again, just thinking about what’s going to support the material that you’re writing. So, you might have writing this workbook because you came up with an awesome survey or a checklist or something, and you’re like, so inspired. Graphics too. Showing people. So, when you’re writing a workbook, there’s lots of pictures involved or diagrams involved to help people understand concepts. So, thinking about those things as you’re writing. Again, someone else is going to put it in place for you unless you’re designing your own book, but just considering what will support the words, and how the words are going to support your scales and your diagrams and the actual work part of it.

Kayla: You know, I love that you highlighted that for most people, you aren’t creating a the visuals and I know from talking to people who want to create workbooks, that kind of the perfectionist side of like, I know exactly in my head what I want, but I can’t physically create it myself, actually stops people from creating the workbook because they know strategically what needs to go on that page. They know the words is going to go on that page. They just don’t know how to create the diagram.

So, you’ll likely be getting someone else to do this for you whether you are using some sort of software or whether you’re getting a human to do this. But you don’t necessarily have to feel like you need to do it all yourself.

And I know we can talk about all types of books, but there’s always things that prevent us from getting our book out in the world. And if the visual aspect is a thing that is preventing you. Then maybe thinking about getting someone else to do the visuals can be helpful.

Cheryl: Absolutely. So, you can get a graphic designer to help you with visuals. There are so many intelligent people who know how to do these things that we can’t do, and that’s the beauty of publishing a book is it’s a team effort. So, writing the book is usually a very lone effort. But after that, I mean, you can have help with your writing. You can ask for feedback, you can ask for support from your friends, family, colleagues. But the publishing part is a team effort. No matter if you’re doing it alone or not, if you do all the steps by yourself. You still need to count on other people, so don’t stop just because you can’t draw a diagram or you don’t know how to put your scale nice and pretty on a page. There’s software out there. There are designers out there. There’s different places: lucid charts. Canva can do some of these things. There’s some free resources, but there’s also paid resources to help you.

And absolutely. Again, that’s like what we love to do is help people navigate these things so that they can build what they want to do and they can do what they want to do. They want to write this book, let’s get that book out there. Don’t let the little details stop you. Because they will all come together.

Kayla: I love that, and I kind of mentioned this, but I know that most authors, whether it’s workbooks or narrative books, that finding the time to write or create is a huge barrier. And I actually know, for me, that is actually one of the things that prevented me from getting my book out in the world.

So, do you have any tips or strategies for aspiring authors in managing their time so that their book actually does get out in the world?

Cheryl: Yeah, it’s actually simple, but I know it might not sound simple. Schedule writing time. It is as simple as that. You treat it like an exercise class or self-care thing that we really should be building into our practice, especially as a therapist or a counselor. Self-care is crucial. Exercise routine. So think of your writing as that thing. It’s for you. This is something you want to do, so you need to schedule the time for it.

Now that can look like half an hour, three times a week. It can look like honestly an hour, once a week, whatever fits your schedule. We’re all busy. You have your practice, you have your clients, you’ve got time to write your notes, your family, other things. If you schedule time for it, you will write.

So, there’s a bit of discipline involved, but it’s a healthy form of discipline. Because you’re doing this for you. You want to do this, you want to bring this out for your clients. You want to help people more in a different way, in an accessible way that maybe they aren’t ready to come for counseling for. And you’re also wanting to get your word out about what you do for people. You are awesome. What you’re doing is amazing. So, invest in yourself by scheduling time to write.

Once you have that schedule, it is flexible. It is your own book. It is on your own time. You’re self-publishing your workbook, so give yourself grace. If you can’t do that half hour chunk on that day that you scheduled it, allow that and then just move it to another day and just put it in your calendar. I guarantee you, you will write and you will get it done.

Kayla: You know, there’s something you said in– it might have even been our very first book coaching session. You asked me, what are the distractions that are showing up for you? And I believe for every listener, I mean, we’re going to all have different distractions. And is really being honest about what that distraction or distractions are for you. Because when you know what they are, then you can create strategies for managing that particular distraction.

For me, one of the reasons I hired you was because accountability. It’s easy to not be accountable to yourself. And even though I will always say I don’t have time. It’s, I don’t have time for things I’m not prioritizing. And when there doesn’t feel like there’s any accountability, there isn’t kind of that motivation as much you’ve been, both the accountability as well as the motivation to help me continue to move forward.

And I think that that’s why it’s important to understand your distractions. I also want to highlight, I think, at least for me, it was knowing my personality. I’m a competitive person and not competitive against anyone else, but competitive against my own goals and what I want to achieve. So, I actually bought a software that tracked how many days in a row I was writing. And it helped me go, I think the last one was might’ve been, I think it might’ve been 22 straight days. Because I like to compete with myself.

Now, some listeners are probably going to be like, oh, that does not sound interesting at all. But I think that that’s why it’s important to understand your personality. Something else that was really beneficial for me was one, setting the time to write, but also making manageable and realistic goals.

So, for instance, when I started writing this book, like over two years ago, I had a goal of 500 words, five days a week. It seemed like a lot of the time I didn’t have the accountability, and once I stopped. I stopped for like over a year until I started working with you again. But then I realized I even have less time. So, what I did is I was like, okay, maybe I need to do 300 words a day, five days a week. And that seemed realistic. Even when I didn’t have that creative mindset, I was able to get 300 words out because it’s kind of hard not to get 300 words out. I mean, that takes, what, 10 minutes, 15 minutes? So, creating those realistic and manageable goals was really helpful for me. And it does not have to be 500, a thousand words a day. Mine is 300 a day, and it works.

Cheryl: Yeah. And another thing you might find is when you do just schedule 15 minutes or half an hour day, you might exceed your writing goals as well. Because there are days you will just feel super inspired to keep going and allow that to go through. And you might actually meet your target earlier, like completing your manuscript earlier than you originally thought, just by allowing yourself that time.

And there might be days where it’s really, really hard. And you’re like, oh, this is not working. Sometimes you listen to that and you can try writing, and if it really isn’t working for you, it means just to put it aside for that day. Go for a walk. Take that self-care time that we never seem to do for ourselves. Try that instead, and it will support. It’s not about being pushy on yourself. Some people are motivated by being pushy on yourself, but it’s also being really kind to yourself because you’re doing a great thing and it’s meant to be a great thing.

Kayla: I love that. So, Cheryl, I know you have a free resource that you’d like to share. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is and how it can help listeners?

Cheryl: Yeah, so I have developed a workbook outline specifically for this podcast and for the listeners here. Just in the spirit of let’s help people get out their workbooks so they can help other people out.

Again, an outline is a really great place to start for the inspiration. It’s really clear and easy to use, so that will be available.

Kayla: Amazing. And I also want to highlight that you’re an author, so can you tell us a little bit about your authorship journey and some of the books that you have out there?

Cheryl: Yeah. So, again, as I said at the beginning, I’ve been writing my entire life with not a lot of self-belief in myself. And I think that’s probably every single writer’s journey, and I really believe so. I mean, some people just are born with the confidence and they go with it, but I think the majority of writers have that self-confidence thing where they are just like, I’m not sure if anyone else is going to think my work is valuable.

Well, it started with me doing assertiveness training and I saw how valuable it was, and how people were changing it. Just like one or two workshops. So, it would be like a 10-week course. So, they come to a class and then by the next week you could just see even their postures were changed. They’re glowing. Like it was so awesome. And I wanted to get that information out to more people to make it more accessible.

Because a 10-week course you have to go once a week for an hour. So, when I wrote my first book and I found out how easy it was to publish it through the self-publishing journey with the support of a really great designer at Alberta Printers here in Edmonton area. So, Crispin was really helpful in showing me how easy this really was.

Then, my secret wish was being a children’s book author my entire life, I want to be known as a Canadian children’s book author. This is my dream. I want to be 80 and people are buying my books. And I’m a classic book, kind of like Robert Munch. That’s my dream. And I started publishing children’s books because it’s what I want to do.

And they’re beautiful, they’re fun. It’s light. I love it. I just love bringing joy to people. It’s actually helping others too. So why I write children’s books is because I remember as a child reading a book and being transported into another world.

So, no matter how crappy my home life was, no matter how crappy things were around me. I could forget it and I could be a kid. Also, I could see wonder and imagination and all the things a kid should experience in my opinion. I know we’re not supposed to use shoulds, but I love children. My childhood was different. I also used to be homeless, which is kind of crazy. So, I have a poetry book that I wrote when I was a Squeegy kid in Toronto.

So, I write to give back. So, everything I do, even though it’s a children’s book, and that’s my favorite thing, is to give back. To show people that you can transform your life. Also to transport people into either a different world or a different mindset or getting skills, especially with the assertiveness stuff on, like how to help build their own self-confidence, how to stand up for themselves, how to speak clearly.

I love it. I love putting my stuff out there. I feel blessed every day to finally have allowed myself and gave myself the permission to publish my work. And it’s just been great. I love it and I’m going to keep writing more and mostly children’s books, but I do have another book coming out, an assertive book for teens. So, at a critical age, as I know, I was a very troubled teenager, being on the streets, how important those skills would’ve been for me if I knew how to speak up for myself, how to ask for help. How to navigate all these pressures that you’re just thrown in with no support from your family.

So, I really believe that age is important to continue supporting your teenagers and still be a parent and, because they’re still kids.

So, I just want to give back, and that’s what I do with all my books, and I’m really grateful for being able to be an author and then help other people get their wonderful things out to help people.

Kayla: That is so fabulous. So, check out Raspberry Press you can head to raspberrypress.ca or to check out Cheryl’s books, head to cherylfountain.com.

Also, you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the links.

Cheryl, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how to create a self-help workbook.

Cheryl: It’s been awesome. Thank you so much, Kayla. This has been a lot of fun.

Kayla: And thank you everyone for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on The Designer Practice Podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.

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