by Alvin Ramirez June 2, 2015
It was another interesting episode of Book Journeys with Angela Lauria last week as she interviewed The Difference Press’s top selling author, Jill Angie on her book Running with Curves: Why You’re Not Too Fat To Run, and the Skinny on How to Start Today. The book is essentially a how-to guide for women that encourages them to run in the body they have right now and not wait until they look like a fitness model. Her inspiration in writing the book came from her own fitness journey of trying to look for the most effective weight loss and fitness program. It was almost 20 years ago when she started running and then became a personal trainer herself where, along the way, she would hear her clients say that they had to be thin to start working out and to start running. The goal of her book is to make readers realize that one can just be powerful and feel wonderful in the body they have right now, and that running can help get them there.
For Jill, having her own book was completely life-changing as it created a whole new career for her that she never imagined possible two years ago. After launching her book in late 2013, she started getting emails from readers about how her book had helped them start running without waiting to be thin. This made her think that she could actually help people in a whole different level than just being private clients in her studio. And so she started a lot of processes like creating a website, a Facebook page, and later on a Facebook community where women started connecting with each other, resulting in her being able to grow the book into a worldwide revolution where the people themselves are spreading the message.
Jill’s advice for authors having difficulty in writing a book is to know who they’re writing to as it will make it easier for them to formulate their message. In her case, she was writing the book almost as a love letter to herself even as she framed her ideal reader to be like herself — somebody who was overweight and who wanted to do different things that she thought she shouldn’t do but she knew she could do. She admitted that she experienced writer’s block but it was all tied to her questioning whether she was qualified to write the book. So she found ways to get all the negativity out of her head and then it became easy for her to write again when she was able to resolve those questions.
Asked what for her was different from her initial expectation of writing a book, she said that it turned out to be so much easier than she expected. While she enjoys writing, it was the other processes that seemed overwhelming for her because these were out of her comfort zone. She says that having somebody else taking care of the other aspects including the editing, formatting, and even figuring out how to upload to Amazon made it possible for her to just focus on the writing. She attributes all this to the Difference Press program that gave her the proper guidance and help from the writing process to the publishing and promotion of her book.
Listen to the Jill Angie interview on BlogTalkRadio
DOWNLOAD Book-Journeys-Author-Interview-Jill Angie-May-28-2015
Watch out for Angela’s interview with another exciting author.