by Alvin Ramirez September 12, 2013
In this post, we review Dr. Angela Lauria’s Book Journeys interview with author Paula Youmell, author of Hands On Health: Take Your Vibrant, Whole Health Back Into Your Healing Hands.
Paula’s interest in holistic health was awakened when, on her first day on the job as a nursing student, she was put in charge of a male patient who already had at least two heart attacks. Paula was “appalled” with the food she had to bring him, as well as that she would walk him to the hospital lounge so he could smoke cigarettes, and she realized that nobody was doing anything really to help heal the man. In the years following, she trained to receive certification in such alternative fields as herbal medicine, reiki, yoga and integrative nutrition, and gained some clients interested in alternative healing for such ailments as cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and the like.
Paula noticed, in her practice, that she was telling her clients the same thing, over and over again, and so decided to write the book so that she wouldn’t need to do so. Writing a book wasn’t that much of a stretch for her, as she had been writing various articles on holistic health and healing for her local food cooperative for seventeen years and enjoyed doing so. Paula writes late at night, after tucking her children into bed, as she says that it is during that time that she can concentrate fully on writing, rather than worrying about all the things that a mother needs to worry about during the day.
Paula went straight to Balboa Press as the publisher of her book, as she knew that Balboa was run by Hay House, and she was strongly influenced by Louise Hay. She had a good experience with them, and even mentioned that her sales representative was one of her classmates in high school. Raised from childhood with the attitude that she could do anything she set her mind to, Paula had no doubts that she could bring the book out.
Marketing, as Paula mentioned, takes up 75% of the time and effort related to making the book well-known. In addition to doing book signings, Paula has set up a map of New York state, researched the newspapers that were printed in various cities and towns, gotten their contact information, and contacted them so she could send them some material on her book and make herself available for interviews.
Paula mentioned that her book is actually the first in a series, and that she has two more books in her computer, as she wants to wait until Hands on Health becomes reasonably well-known before publishing these. Angela noted that she, herself, recommends that authors space out the publishing of their books by around a year so the first books can be properly marketed before the second one comes out.
Listen to the Paula Youmell Interview on Book Journeys Radio
DOWNLOAD Book Journeys Author Interview – Paula Youmell – Sep 12 2013
Watch out for Angela’s interview with another exciting author.