I Wrote a Book on Pediatric Physical Therapy Documentation, Here’s How You Can Write a Book Too
Originally published: August 17, 2021 | Updated: October 15, 2026
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My Self-Publishing Journey
In 2020, I self-published a book on Amazon with my colleague and fellow PT, Katlin Middleton, called The Pediatric Exercise Handbook: A Developmental How To for Parents and Clinicians. Since its launch in February 2020, it has sold an average of 60–70 copies a month on autopilot.
That experience taught me two things:
Self-publishing on Amazon takes a lot of guts, courage, and googling for answers, but it’s not actually that hard.
I could and would absolutely do this again.
Since then, I’ve taken on the world of children’s book self-publishing with The Boy and The Boomerang: An Adventure in Haiku, hiring Natia, an illustrator from the Republic of Georgia off Fiverr.
Most recently, I wrote, edited, and self-published The Ultimate Guide to Pediatric Physical Therapy Documentation for Student Physical Therapists and PTs Transitioning into Pediatric Practice.
My newest book came out August 2nd, 2021, and I’m pretty excited about it, mostly because it’s my first solo-written, formatted, and self-published book in an area where I have expertise.
While the children’s book was FUN, the pediatric physical therapy documentation book feels POWERFUL.
Why I Wrote a Book on Pediatric PT Documentation
This book feels powerful because it solves a very specific problem. I know firsthand that the problem exists from working with my students as an adjunct physical therapy faculty member in a DPT program, and from Facebook groups like the Pediatric Physical Therapists group, where people ask for help with it while they’re on clinicals.
You see, the DPT curriculum does a fantastic job of teaching us how to think critically about orthopedic and neurological physical therapy documentation.
But it leaves student physical therapists (SPTs) to learn “on the job” when they have to translate the interventions they complete in pediatric practice while making them sound authoritative and skilled on paper.
Oftentimes, this is a huge stretch for students. I know it was for me during my first clinical rotation in a school district in North Carolina. I could barely understand how to make therapy fun and talk to children in a way that was direct and effective, let alone write what I was doing in a way that sounded intelligent, skilled, and like something insurance companies like Medicaid would pay for.
How I Accidentally Wrote a Book
For this specific reason, I accidentally wrote The Ultimate Guide to Pediatric Physical Therapy Documentation between November and December 2020.
It started off as a short PDF to help my students build sentence structures and prompts, so they could understand where play became structured, skilled therapy, and how to write it down so others would read and interpret it that way.
That “short PDF” became 45 pages, because there were just so many things to cover that I couldn’t stop writing. If you knew me in person, you wouldn’t be surprised that I “accidentally wrote a book.” Being wordy and sharing information isn’t exactly hard for me.
What surprises me is how fast it all came together. From writing to editing to formatting to self-publishing, it took less than a year (nine months), and six weeks of that was spent doing nothing but waiting for the copyright office to approve it.
If you’re looking for a straightforward book that helps you take the interventions you’re completing in the clinic and turn them into efficient, authoritative, skilled documentation, this is the book for you.
If you’re curious how I did it, keep reading.
How to Write and Self-Publish Your Own Book
If you like demonstrations, everything I share here and tons more is in the video below. It runs about 1.5 hours (there’s so much to learn!), so I’ve added timestamps to help you jump to the parts that matter most to you.
Writing and Formatting Your Book
4:59 Start and intro
11:07 My self-published books
13:27 Author proof example and cover changes
16:03 How to write a book / getting started
17:10 The story of how I co-wrote my first book
19:59 Writing a book in google docs and structuring my first book step 1
25:25 Formatting the first book in google docs for edition #1 (printed at staples)
25:43 Why you shouldn’t write your book in google docs
29:30 Formatting nonfiction book version 2 in google doc
34:20 Writing a book in canvas
38:27 Formatting a book in word/pages (mac)
29:30 Formatting nonfiction book version 2 in google doc
34:20 Writing a book in canvas
38:27 Formatting a book in word/pages (mac)
43:18 How to “show invisibles” an absolute must for formatting
44:25 How to justify text
45:45 Insert table of content & make it clickable
47:01 Deciding on spacing and bullets
49:00 Text boxes on top of the page
50:29 Formatting pictures
52:00 Specific pages you want to add for book signings
52:27 Summary of objectives for formatting
Copyright, Amazon KDP, and Getting Paid
52:47 Submit for copyright and copyright page
55:10 KDP website (how you actually get the paperback submitted to amazon)
56:31 Royalty payments and tax considerations
57:34 Sales and marketing ideas
Publishing and Selling on Amazon
1:01:15 Creating a book and publishing on KDP
1:03:17 Keyword research and picking Amazon key words
1:04:38 The top two things you need to sell books on Amazon
1:06:44 Keyword Everywhere for chrome and finding long tail keywords for Amazon
1:08:57 Continuing setup on KDP
1:11:30 The cost of self publishing on Amazon
1:14:00 Example of cover for paperback on amazon
1:16:32 Example of paperback preview in KDP
1:18:53 The cost to print a book and setting your price
1:21:20 Requesting author proofs (the book with the ribbon on it)
1:23:23 Amazon Author Central and your Amazon author page
1:25:50 How much my books have made in sales and profit
1:33:24 Closing and where you can find me
Why More Physical Therapists Should Write Books
Honestly, the biggest takeaway from this entire post is this: I wish more physical therapists would write books. The public needs the information we have locked away in our brains. There are PTs out there who write better than me, know more than me, and are probably better at marketing than me. But that doesn’t mean that the information in my head isn’t valuable.
It is important to share what we know so that we can connect with those who learn best in the way that we teach or explain things. There can be twelve books on one topic, and some readers will resonate with my writing style and some readers will resonate with yours. Both books should be written.
Come join me on this journey.
Writing books might never fully replace your PT income (or maybe it will; you won’t know until you try), but more than that, people all over the world need what you have to offer and teach. If you do write a book, let me know about it by sending me a message on Instagram or writing me an email. You won’t be the first (I love hearing about your journeys and hopefully you won’t be the last either!). I also love promoting other people’s work to my online audience if you’re a peds PT or to my instagram audience if you’re just an awesome human :).
If books aren’t your thing, maybe online courses are. Pro tip: online courses are actually great ways to increase your revenue with book sales, if one book gets $5-10 in your pocket but if 1-5% of readers convert to a higher cost online course, you can increase the lifetime value of each customer/reader. It will also give you an opportunity to get those individuals onto your email list, which increases their lifetime value to your business.
For lifetime access to Teachery.co, the online course platform that I use for my bonus online courses that go along with my proactive play infant milestone series, go here. Teachery.co is a small business, run by Caroline and Jason Zook, who created an online course platform that is pretty, easy to use, and doesn’t come with a monthly subscription model that never ends (which helps your mental state and your monthly revenue!).
Don’t Let Your Fear Stop You
Sometimes, we let our fear stop us from taking action on the things that are calling to us to create. This is so easy to do at first, but over time it can actually become harder and more painful to avoid the thing you’re meant to create than it is to DO the thing or write the book.
The stats for those who actually write a full first draft of a book are atrocious, aka less than 0.1% of people ever write and complete a book. Which is bad, for sure, but absolutely horrifying when 81% of Americans want to write a book. That means out of 80,000 people who want to write a book, only 80 people actually will write a complete first draft.
Don’t be one of the 79,920 people who don’t sit down to write your book. Be one of the 80 people who open a blank document and start pouring love out onto the page in the form of words. Just get it out there, you can edit after 10,000 to 90,000 words are in that document. Don’t judge what comes out, let it. Then sit your butt back down the day or week, and do more of that.
It comes together, I promise.
About the Author
Dr. Lauren Baker holds her Doctorate in Physical Therapy and Certification in Manual Therapy from The University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences. She has built a thriving career while navigating the unique challenges as a military spouse, including serving as an adjunct professor in the DPT curriculum, owning multiple successful cash-based mobile pediatric physical therapy practices, and authoring multiple books on baby development and pediatric physical therapy for both parents and healthcare providers. She now focuses on empowering proactive parents through her books, website, and YouTube channel @drlaurenbaker.