I am Doug Toft, a writer and editor based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
My ideal clients have expertise in their field and ideas that create value for people. We collaborate to refine and expand those ideas into book-length manuscripts.
I want my clients to get clarity, credibility, and content that they can present in a variety of formats to make money. To learn more, contact me.
Simplicity, Completion, Patience
Is your life complicated? I can balance it with simplicity. I research, write, and edit—period. My days include large blocks of time without interruption.
Let me channel that time into finishing your project.
Though being analytic and organized, I also have a high tolerance for ambiguity and disorder. My clients often exude a brilliant intensity that looks at first like chaos. I affirm this messiness as essential to creativity. Clarity is close at hand.
Books for Behavior Change
I create books that help people to change habits and learn new skills. This is the core of self-help (as defined here) as well as many education and business publications.
Books in these genres vary widely in quality. My mission is to create materials that are both accessible and rigorous—grounded in best practices and recent research.
I especially enjoy “workbooks” with exercises, journal entries, and other interactive elements. These help readers move from personal reflection to planned action. Books offer powerful support for the process of behavior change.
See my blog for thoughts about the content of such books and the process of creating them.
Education and Experience
I have an M.A. in instructional design and have been writing and editing since 1980—mostly freelance. My experience includes work as a technical writer for Fredrickson Communications, Park Nicollet Medical Foundation, and the St. Paul Companies.
Over the years I’ve worked with Cengage Learning, Houghton Mifflin Company, Hazelden Publishing, Mayo Clinic, UnitedHealth Group, Fieldstone Alliance, Learning Strategies Corporation, and other organizations and individuals.
Sample Projects
Since 1990, I’ve been a contributing editor to the Master Student Series of books by Dave Ellis. Becoming a Master Student is America’s best-selling college textbook, now in its 14th edition.
Recently I created four Quick Guides that synthesize key insights from Hazelden publications about anger, anxiety, depression, and shame.
My books include:
Career Planning Supplement to Becoming a Master Student by Dave Ellis, Stan Lankowitz, Ed Stupka, and Doug Toft, Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Helping Chronically Addicted Adolescents: Problems, Perspectives, and Strategies for Recovery by Cardwell C. Nuckols, A.G. Porcher III, and Doug Toft, McGraw-Hill, 1994.
The Caregiver’s Journey: When You Love Someone with AIDS by Mel Pohl, Deniston Kay, and Doug Toft, Harper San Francisco, 1991.
The Disease Concept of Alcoholism and Other Drug Addiction, Hazelden, 1990, which I co-authored with Dr. Norman Miller, sold over 80,000 copies.
HIV: What You Need to Know by Dorothy Flynn and Doug Toft, Hazelden, 1989.
