Kokeb McDonald
“My first book did really well. I earned more from that book than I did from my first paycheck as an occupational therapist….I would not have created all of this if I had not written a book.”
Results
Full-time revenue from book sales and training programs
Her Story:
Kokeb McDonald is an Occupational Therapist, mentor, and author of the Reflex Integration Through Play book series, app, game, and training programs. She has created multiple tools to help parents, teachers, and therapists use reflexive integration exercise in home-based, school-based, and clinical settings.
Kokeb had already dedicated her career and time to providing helpful resources to parents, caregivers, and other occupational therapists. She was even running a website to give parents free resources. But wanted it to do more. For it to be more tangible.
While looking for that thing that would take her resources – and business – to the next level, she discovered an upcoming selfpublishing.com webinar hosted by Chandler Bolt.
The moment she realized she wanted to write a book for her business:
Watching that webinar was the mindset shift that changed her career. While Kokeb didn’t think of herself as a writer, she did see the value of writing down her expertise in a way that could be shared from one person (her) to many.
“A book is a tool you can use to reach a lot of people.”
That’s the line that resonated most with her during the webinar.
The wheels started turning. Kokeb began to imagine how she could create a book that would not only be a tool for her, but also for her readers. She doesn’t look back at this moment as when she decided to become an author. Rather, she was thinking about how she could share her professional expertise with those who could benefit from it the most.
Her “why”:
“I wanted a treatment tool I could create that parents and therapists could easily use at home [or anywhere] in a way that they could implement exercise and see results.”
As a business owner, she saw a space in the market. And she knew she could help.
Kokeb chose to work with selfpublishing.com and self-publish her own book because she wanted full control of her tools and work. She never considered any other options because, for her, there weren’t any.
She shared with us her favorite parts of working with selfpublishing.com:
“One great and unexpected thing was that selfpublishing.com has great coaches who helped me deal with my fear of putting myself out there and taking the risk. I felt confident with my expertise and the knowledge I wanted to share – but there was Imposter Syndrome about writing a book and becoming an author.
They helped me work through all of that.”
Her transformation:
Her experience with selfpublishing.com inspired her beyond just books as well. She had so much personal success with the clear 12-month plan, community, and coaching framework inside the Author Accelerator Program that she also created a 12-month certification program for occupational therapists. She wants the professionals she works with to have the level of support and transformation that she herself experienced.
“Instead of a one-time workshop or course, we want them there over time to have tons of access, tools, and, ultimately, results. We want to make these therapeutic exercises and reflexive integration more common [in the world].”
Expanding Programs
To provide even more ways to get access to her tools and exercises, Kokeb recently launched another program for teachers, an app, a children’s game, and is currently working on another program aimed at helping parents adopt reflex integration at home.
Now she’s writing books and educating full-time with her husband.
Experiment and Growth
Once she and her husband saw how much impact her books were making around the world, they decided to do a year-long experiment where they both dedicated their full attention to growing the tools and programs.
Global Collaboration and Satisfaction
There are even more plans to grow the business. Right now, they are actively working to improve their certification program and updating the app so that it can help even more people.
She also wants to focus some attention on getting more publicity so that her certification program can reach even more therapists.
Kokeb told us that one of the most rewarding parts of this journey and what she gets to do now is that she gets to work with amazing therapists all around the world.Being able to help them and their patients makes it feel like she’s still treating clients.
“Even though the parents or children don’t know me, I’m helping their therapists get them incredible results – and that’s the best feeling in the world. I would not have created all of this if I had not written a book with selfpublishing.com”