Show Notes

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

Are you an aspiring author with questions about the publishing process?

In today’s episode, Cheryl Fountain, editor, award-winning author and owner of Raspberry Press, will discuss how to publish a book as a therapist.

Hi Cheryl. Welcome back to the show. I’m so glad to have you here again.

Cheryl: Thanks for having me back. I’m excited.

Kayla: Cheryl, it is always a pleasure to have you on the show and for any listener who may not have listened to your last episode, it was in July. It was Episode 126, and it was How to Create a Self-Help Workbook. It was such a great conversation, and it was definitely a unique episode for therapists who are looking to create a workbook someday. So, if you haven’t listened to that episode after you finished this episode, please go back and listen to that one because it was amazing.

Cheryl, just for anyone who hasn’t already listened to the previous 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. Thank you so much, Kayla. So, I am full born Canadian. I grew up in Muskoka and Toronto is where I spent my youth life. And I moved up to Yellowknife in the Arctic for 17 years, and then I moved to Alberta, which I am very proud of call my home. I love living in Alberta, and feel grateful every single day.

I started publishing because I wanted to help other people get their books out there, affordably and accessibly. So, I too am a self-published author. And it started with me publishing my own books. It started with a book, my award-winning book actually, Assertiveness a Life-Changing Communication Skill. The information in that book I wanted to be more accessible to people because it was such a great skill and I could do the classes and the courses, but I could only have so many people at a time in each of these classes.

So, when I wrote the book and I published it, I realized it didn’t have to be so hard, it didn’t have to be so expensive, and I knew what it meant for me to get my book out there. And then I started publishing children’s books because that is the love of my life is children’s books. And again, it didn’t have to be so expensive and hard as it was when you’re looking into different ways of publishing. Basically, there are different types of avenues you can go and some are really expensive.

I want to share the joy of this. How can I make it accessible to people? Well, I learned how to design my own books to save costs for myself. I’ve been editing my entire life through different professions, different hats I’ve worn.

I do have a social work degree, a bachelor of social work. How many essays we’ve written– if you’re a therapist, a psychotherapist, or a social worker. I did not do my Master’s, and I know how many I have written just in the bachelor degree alone. So, it is a lot of writing and editing. And I was like, I want to share this with others. I want to help other people get their work out there. And Raspberry Press was born and it’s very Canadian. The raspberry plant itself grows organically. The books are these juicy berries. And the juicy berries are brought forth from all the attention, the water, the sunlight, the editing, the inputs, the writing, the wonderful words that the author has written. And we work together and build this beautiful book.

Kayla: Amazing. So, first of all, what does it mean to publish a book and how does it differ from the writing process itself?

Cheryl: That is a really good question. Because I went through this as well as a writer, years back when I hadn’t published a book. So, you’ve written the book, you’ve had these great ideas, you’ve written a manuscript, and then you’re like now what?

So, the publishing starts basically, everything after you’ve written the book and you want to get the book out into the world. So publishing is actually creating a physical copy or an electronic copy of your book so other people can purchase and read it. So writing is a completely different journey. You can spend years on it. You could spend months on it, depending on how motivated and how much time you have. That’s the writing of the words section of the whole journey.

So, the publishing is getting the book out there, you also most likely will work with a team for the publishing aspect of the journey, whereas writing you are a lot of the time working solo because it’s mostly just you writing.

Kayla: So, what are the types of publishing that a therapist can go through when publishing their book and what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of each type?

Cheryl: Okay, so there are basically three avenues of publishing. So, there is traditional publishing. That is where you would submit your manuscript to a publisher or work with an agent and they would help connect you with a publisher.

Then there is the hybrid publishing. So, hybrid publishing, you send them the book, you pay for the services, and they keep your book for a period of time that you’re under a contract with them for.

And then there’s self-publishing where you go out and get the individual services or do the work yourself to create the book, and you upload it to distributors or bring it to your local printer and have copies printed.

There are benefits and cons each type of these publishing avenues.

So traditional publishers, it’s really hard to get your book published by them, so they get so many submissions every day. They can’t always answer every submission. Some publishers do answer and say, yes, this is great, or no, this is not meeting our publication plan. And some people just don’t answer you. So with that type of publisher, you follow their submission guidelines, you email it to them or put it into a form. Or you’d have an agent working with them too help you get your foot in the door with this publisher?

Some of the pros with going with a traditional publisher is that they do get the book onto those larger brick and mortar stores, like the physical copy of the book. They will print so many thousand copies. They have good relationships with some of the bigger stores, and they’ll get that book out there. They don’t really market it as much as you think, so they do have that relationship. So that it gets it on the shelf, but the book still has to sell itself. Now, depending on the book or how much they believe in that book, they might market it a little bit more by putting it like on the top of their list or putting it on like, hey, this is like the next best book. You should really buy it to the bookstores. But ultimately, it doesn’t guarantee it’s going to be on that shelf, and it doesn’t guarantee they’re going to market that book.

With the traditional publisher also, they’ll have a contract and they’ll pay you upfront for a certain amount, and then once they’ve sold that amount of books, whatever the agreement, then they’ll start paying your royalties after that. So, you might get money upfront with them, which is a bonus. But you might not make money with them right away until after that amount that you’ve agreed were sold, and then you get royalties after that.

So, with hybrid publishing, it is usually a subsidiary of a larger publisher, or sometimes they’re standalone. They are a hybrid publishing company. They are usually very, very expensive, like astronomically expensive. I’ve done my research because I was considering going that route myself as an author. And I chose self-publishing because I didn’t want to wait for a traditional publisher and I didn’t want to pay the price of a hybrid publisher. So, they’ll do the services for you, but they keep your book, they distribute that book for you. They promise you they’ll put it on the brick-and-mortar stores, but the physical copy doesn’t go there. You can actually use the same distribution companies that they use to get your book out there. You’ll have it in Barnes and Nobles. You’ll have it in chapters and things like that. But you pay them to distribute it and manage that for you. But they also own your book for the period of time that you’ve signed up for. There are clauses out of the contract. The benefits is you don’t have to worry about it. You give it to them, they create it, they’ll come back and you have to make decisions, but they’ll do the work for you. You’re paying a heavy price, but they’ll do it for you. Again though, they don’t really market your book. You could pay for them to market your book extra, which is also very costly. But they still don’t really market your book.

So even traditional publishers, hybrid publishers and self-publishers, you have to market your book the same.

Self-publishing on the other hand. I guess it could be a pro or con, depending on how you look at it. You manage the entire creation of your book. You are the decision maker in the entire creation of the book. You own all rights to the book. You own all royalties to the book. That means also you own any sequels or the series or things like that. So, you seek out different contractors to do the different parts of the publishing process. We’ll get into a bit of a timeline in a bit to tell you what the different steps are.

So, you go out and you get different services. So, one of the cons is not knowing who to trust or who to go to because there’s different avenues and different ways to find an editor, or a book designer, or a cover designer or an artist or a graphics designer. And so, you’re kind of on your own in that regard, but you’re also building your own team.

And if you’re in a practice already, I’m sure you’ve worked with a team in some aspect, like having a receptionist or having somebody. So, you’re still having a team like publication is really about teamwork in the end, and working together to get this beautiful book out there.

So, some of the cons to self-publishing is not knowing where to go, and it’s still an investment. It’s an upfront investment, which is a con to some people. But I’ve always loved it myself because you can choose what level you’re willing to invest, so you have more choice. You own the entire rights of the book. You don’t have a contract with anybody who owns it. You can do what you want with it. You also have freedom, like if every book has a typo. Every book, pick up any book. You will find one. I find them because I edit all the time. I cannot not see typos anymore when I’m reading a book.

But you can go fix it really quickly. Because it’s your own or you can get your book designer to fix it kind of thing. There’s different choices and everyone has their reasons for why they want to do, they might not want to do any of it.

So that’s where you would hire a hybrid publisher. They want to wait and have that label of being like a traditionally published author, which I think secretly every author really wants. But there’s only so many seats at that table. So, it’s about what you want and what direction you want to go. I find self-publishing is the most affordable and accessible to people.

And that’s also why Raspberry Press was born, is we help people self-publish to help guide them and do the services for them. It is sort of like hybrid publishing, but we do not own your book. We do not distribute your book. We support you on how to do that. And what we teach you, you can actually take with you for the next time if you want to do it on your own.

Kayla: I love that. And just being an aspiring author myself, I kind of did my research over the years and I think traditional publishing used to be the go-to. It was like the number one. But I would say over the last six, seven years. You’re seeing more and more people opting for self-publishing for all of the benefits that you highlighted, right? You own the copyright. You own the royalties. Like you get to keep it a hundred percent to yourself.

Of course, one of the cons is that you have to do a little bit more work with that, but that’s why there’s Raspberry Press like to help guide you through that process, and I just know from my perspective. I know I mentioned this in the last episode, but Cheryl is my coach and editor for my book as well. And honestly, you have been so amazing in the whole process that you make it easy, right? Like you’re really not alone. And I think that that’s the big piece. You can do it a hundred percent your own if you want to, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But having someone who’s been there, having someone who knows the process can be so helpful and you still get to keep all of your copyright, which is amazing.

Cheryl: Yeah, and that’s actually a lot of the feedback I’ve received from my clients is it feels like you’re getting your handheld, but not like in a parental child way. It’s like a supportive hand through the process of publishing, of self-publishing. We’re kind of walking alongside you and celebrating your wins with you. I’m a big believer in celebrating your wins, and just really excited to see the book come out into the world too, like your number one cheerleader.

Kayla: I think a big piece too is you have been my book coach, so it doesn’t really matter where you are, whether you’re in the writing process, or whether you’re in the publishing process. Like Cheryl, you’ve been helping me and you’ve been helping me remain accountable. You’ve been helping guide my thoughts and my process and even just helping me problem solve through, whether it’s distractions that I have or whether it’s like I feel like I’m missing something in my book. You help me problem solve what it is.

I think that that’s a big thing for listeners to know that publishing is different than writing. But you can still have the help before you get to the publishing process. And one of the biggest aha moments that I had with you was in our very first book coaching where we broke down the timelines, which we’re going to actually talk about next. And that timeline was like, oh, there’s so much more after I create it. That I didn’t even consider. It’s almost like you just think that I’m going to write the book. And then that’s it. Like it’s done. But it’s not, and that’s where you come in, not only helping you with the timeline, but also then helping you go through the timeline and the process with that.

Cheryl: Yeah, I find when you’re doing anything for yourself, it’s hard. When you’re writing a book, you’re doing it for yourself. And for others, you’re helping others, but ultimately, you’re doing something you’re passionate about you want to get this out there. You want to help others with it, but ultimately, you’re also investing in yourself. You’re investing in your dream and you’re investing in your book.

When you’re doing it on your own, it’s fine. Some of us are really self-motivated, but it’s really nice to have somebody alongside of you just supporting you and cheerleading you, and when you are stuck or you’re down, or you feel like you’re not good enough or. Those types of things, you have somebody to just to balance it off of and to give you a bit of perspective, an outside perspective, and to encourage you. It does help the process. And like you said, the writing itself is one thing and I consider the writing the longest part of the process because you are juggling different things unless you’re a full-time writer, which is still lengthy. But when it comes time to publishing it, you don’t know because you’ve never done it before.

So, you start with editing this big word editing. And I really encourage when people are writing, try not to self-edit, just let it flow through. But editing is a stage in the publishing process, so that’s really the first stage in the publishing process. So, you could self-edit your work, but I highly recommend getting somebody else to edit your work. It can be a family member. The first book I wrote was edited by my mother, who has a master’s degree in medieval English of all things. Because I wanted to save money because editors are probably the most expensive part of a book, but you could have like a coworker or a colleague, somebody you know who’s really good at the English language to help you edit.

There are editing programs out there that you can use as well. I don’t recommend it though, for the final edit because it is AI based. It doesn’t understand humans, no matter how wonderful AI can be, humans understand humans. They understand nuances, they understand tone, they understand all the things you’re going to want, like your voice to come through. So, I highly recommend working with somebody else to edit your book if it’s a professional editor or somebody who you very much trust because of their writing style, their grammar, their understanding of the English language, or whatever language you’re choosing to write your book in.

The second step is after it’s edited and editing. Oh, by the way, there are different types of editing. You can have your book edited while you’re writing it as well. It’s developmental editing, so you might get feedback on the first couple chapters from an editor to help you write the rest of your book so that you’re shortening your time in a sense, because you can incorporate the feedback that the editor’s giving you so that you can incorporate it as you’re writing.

But there’s also like line editing, there’s copy editing, there’s different kinds of editing. And I could write a whole article on this. But you might have it edited a couple times is basically, the point I’m trying to get to. So, you might have it edited once you take those comments back. Then you implement the comments. And then you might need it to edit it again. You always will need a proof edit, and that comes after. The editing process depends on the editor you choose. If you choose a family member, it could be a year because they’re going to fit it in on their time. If you’re paying a professional editor, it could be depending on their schedule a lot of professional editors are busy, so I usually say about six weeks, but some editors can turn it around thinner than that, and depending on what editor you go with, it might be longer than that. So, it’s about a six weeks’ timeline for an editor. So, after the book is fully edited and you’ve got a very solid draft. Remembering, you will have it edited one more time before it goes to print, but you’ve got this nice solid draft editing and it is edited.

Ready to go to design. So that’s the interior of the book. Now, you could also have the cover started, just the front cover for marketing purposes. So, if you want your book out there sooner than later, you could also get the front cover designed while you’re working on the interior design of your book. You could also have the front cover design as you’re getting the book edited as well. By the way, because the cover, this is a little bit of a tangent, but it’s important. It’s ideal to market your book six months before it goes out into print. So, if you have that cover, that’s basically your marketing. It’s the face of your book. It’s the marketing element of your book. You can also share different snippets of like your editing process or your writing snippets, or you sitting there with coffee looking exhausted about how hard it’s been to write this book.

But marketing can happen as you’re writing. It’s not really part of the publishing process, but it’s something to think about while you’re in the publishing process.

Okay, so back to the timeline and back to the publishing process. You’re getting your interior of your book designed. So that is how the book is formatted on the inside. With a workbook, there’s a lot more formatting than with a narrative book. You’re going to have diagrams, you’re going to have colors, you’re going to have to choose your fonts. So, you’re working with your interior book designer. A good designer will give you options that you don’t have to think about it too much because trust me, finding a font that fits can take hours so they know what fits your type of book. They know what fits your type of voice. If they’re a skilled designer, that can take about three weeks. It can be shorter. Again, it depends where you’re getting the services. It depends on their schedule. Depends on what you’ve agreed to with this person, but I say about three weeks for the interior of a book to be designed.

If you’re doing a workbook though, you also have to consider the design elements of your surveys, your checklists, your diagram. So that might take longer than three weeks because digital artists or illustrators. They are very busy, and so it might take actually three or four months to get those different diagrams and things created for you. So that’s something also to consider. It depends on what level of illustration you need, things like that. So that interior part of the book, just laying it out is about three weeks. But designing all the diagrams and stuff is a completely separate pocket of things with a workbook specifically, that you’d want done before you do the interior design part, because you’d want it ready for your designer so you’re not wasting their time. Oh, I’m waiting on that diagram. You’re going to have to wait three more weeks because my digital illustrator is not ready yet, or there’s been a delay, and this is a huge important point in the publishing process. Definitely there will be a delay. If not, that’s great, but just count on a delay. Build the delay into your proposed schedule for the publishing process, just because life happens to everybody. Your illustrator, your designer, your editor. One of those people may or may not deliver it on the timeline promise. Usually they do, but just in publishing, oftentimes there’s a delay of something.

So, after the interior is designed, so it’s all laid out, all your diagrams are put in there, then the cover is finalized. So, you might have started the cover already or you might not have had the front cover done. You need to wait until the interior design is completed for the cover because of the spine. That beautiful thing that holds all the pages together with the binding. So that spine size is critical. It also can shift actually where your cover is centered the front cover too, so your designer might need to make adjustments to the front cover if you had it done previously. So, I always recommend doing the cover after the page count is finalized.

Once your book has a cover and it’s interiorly designed. Then you’re going to want to proof, because that’s the printed proof edit. It’s crucial to do an edit in a printed copy form. It is amazing what our eyes don’t see on a screen and what we see in print, you see a lot more in print that you don’t see. On a screen, also, the font looks different. It’s your eyes. There’s more stimulation coming into your eyes, so you do miss more things. So, when it’s in paper, you catch more of the errors.

Printed proof is reviewed. You send it back to your designer or your cover designer if there was a typo on the cover. You get it finalized, get all the changes implemented, and then have your finalized ready to print files for publication.

You can send it to a local printer; you can upload it to different online distributors. There’s different methods of getting the physical books ready and available. If it’s an electronic book, there’s different electronic book platforms that you upload these files to, and then you decide on a date that you want to publish your book. You probably decided it previously, but then you work towards that date and actually have it live.

The cover design, it could be usually, again, around three weeks because you’re going to be picking the fonts, you’re going to be picking the colors, the artwork and stuff. You want to finalize that. Again, some graphic designers take a lot longer than three weeks, and sometimes they take less time than three weeks.

The printed proof can be, its. As simple as a day. If you go with a local printer, if they have time in their schedule, or it could be a few weeks if you upload to online distributors and have them printed that way, like print on demand distributors. It’s usually about 10 days to get your proof copy back, and then usually it’s about a week to finalize the changes after you’ve edited the proof and then you’re ready to go.

So, if you don’t have all those diagrams, I’d say it’s about a 16-to-18-week process. But with those diagrams and those illustrations’ part. It could be quite a few months.

Kayla: I appreciate you breaking that down, because again, it’s not something we really think about when we write the book or create the book. It’s like, I think I’m going to have it created or written and then boom, it’s going to be out in the world. Even though logically we know that there’s a little bit of a process there. It’s not until at least you shared it with me, I was like, oh.

Cheryl: Yeah, no. That’s also why being patient with yourself in the publishing process and allowing the delays to happen. So, I always try to schedule well in advance. So, if I want to put my book out there, and I think it’s only going to be 16 weeks, I like to give myself 20 weeks just to be prepared for all the things that can come up. Say you did have a launch date out there. You’ve been publishing it all over your social media.

My book’s going to be out on January 31st, 2026. And it isn’t ready. It happens all the time. Oh, there’s been a delay. That’s okay. We have a new date coming. It can be a very emotional process because you’re getting out what you really want to share with people and there’s meticulousness and there’s so much like perfection in publishing. And I know a lot of people struggle with perfectionism, so I just want to put that out there that it’s okay if it doesn’t actually get done when you think or say it was going to get done, it happens all the time.

It’s okay to say, oh no, January 31st, 2026, it didn’t work. There’s a delay. It’s actually kind of almost like showing up late to the dinner party kind of thing. It’s kind of cool to have a delay in a weird way. The process itself is so important, like the teamwork. There’s different parts, there’s emotions, there’s all these little fine details that you’re putting together into this beautifully packaged book. You are going to share with others. It’s absolutely a wonderful journey.

I love it. It’s fun. I don’t know if everyone feels like checking all the T’s and dotting all the i’s and making sure everything. I find that fun. I love it. And I try to bring that energy into the projects that we work with just to help people because I know how emotional it can be too. Because I’ve gone through all the emotions myself just having a typo in the book. It was a children’s book. And I was like, there’s a typo. What? And then I know how to deal with that and I can help people deal with that because it does not have to be the end of the world if there’s a typo. It does not have to be the end of the world if it doesn’t meet your expectations or timelines.

And it’s about just working with what comes up. And it will get out there and people will read it, and you’re gonna be given something to the world.

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

Cheryl: Yeah, so I have developed a self-publishing roadmap to give to you as part of this podcast, but also just to share what the world. To show you the different steps of publishing, but also some of the timelines to consider. There are some tips in there to support your journey. Again, you can choose whatever method you want to for publishing this book and there’s so many different avenues.

But this roadmap will just give you what to consider while you’re planning your publication and planning the launch of your book. Because it’s journey, it really is it. There’s lots of working parts, lots of different people supporting you in this. And it’s a wonderful journey and it’s worth every moment. And you learn so much through it too, which you know is really important. ,I think.

So, yeah, the road roadmap is to help guide you. So, you have point A and a point B, and you follow along the ups and downs, but it’s trying to make it for you a little bit more smooth so you know what to think of next.

Kayla: So, to sign up for Cheryl’s Self-Publishing Roadmap, check out kayladas.com/cherylfountainroadmap.

Also, can you share a little bit about Raspberry Press and the services that you provide to help aspiring authors?

Cheryl: So, we kind of do it all in the sense that we can either teach you how to do the things that you need to do to publish your book, or we can do the services for you. So, we do editing, we do book design, we do cover design. We help you connect or find artists or illustrators. We helped you figure out how to get an ISBN, which is an important part of the book. I forgot to mention, every book should have an ISBN. If it’s an eBook, gets a different one. A print book gets a different one.

They’re free in Canada through the library archives as Canada for other countries, you do have to pay for them. So, we are lucky as Canadians that we have support from our government to write books and publish books. So, we help you navigate the publishing process.

But we also offer coaching and visioning. So, if you’re stuck on something, we can help you through that. We can help you. With your writing process help you keep accountable. And we help you learn how to upload it to distributors yourself and just basically we can do the services for you again or teach you how to do them. So, it’s what we love to do.

I have great team behind me. So, I have two editors, two designers, and actually, no, we have three designers now and we are building more and more relationships with illustrators. For children’s books, I know that might not be the audience, but who knows? You can do amazing things with children’s books.

So, we’re developing relationships that we can connect you with as well. And yeah, we’re just loving what we do.

Kayla: And I cannot talk you up enough. If it wasn’t for Cheryl, I really don’t know if I would get my book out in the world. Since working with you, I’ve gotten so much further than I did on my own, and I literally let my book sit for like over a year and I didn’t pick it up at all to write. So, I cannot say how helpful Cheryl has been.

And if you are looking to start the writing process, finish the writing process, go through the publishing process. Find illustrators. Have editing. Cheryl is definitely the go-to person. And I just have to say it because I am so grateful for you and helping me get my books out in the world.

Cheryl: I really, really appreciate that. We’ve been really blessed with the people who’ve come across our desk at Raspberry Press. Like the books are just beautiful and fantastic. That’s actually a really important thing I need to say is just because a traditional publisher turned your book down doesn’t mean it’s not good. And that was actually one of the main reasons I started Raspberry Press.

A lot of quality books out there get turned down from traditional publishers, not because they’re the bad guys. Because they just doesn’t fit their publication plan and they only have so much money to invest in a book. You’re investing in yourself when you’re writing a book. Your words are wonderful, and we want to help you get them out there as easily accessible and as affordably as possible.

Kayla: Amazing. So, to check out Raspberry press, head to raspberrypress.ca, or simply scroll down through the show notes and click on the links.

Cheryl, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how to publish a book as a therapist.

Cheryl: Thank you so much, Kayla. It was absolutely an honor to be here. It’s 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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