Why My Ebook Hasn't Been Popular

This entry is part 2 of 26 in the series Faithful Fitness

We do some weird stuff in the name of getting thin. Liquid diets, drinking water with maple syrup and lemon for a week, colon cleanses, and giving up food groups — just to name a few.

I’m not here to knock any one particular program or method.

I think we can all agree, though, that most of us have done some really weird stuff that probably doesn’t even make sense when the goal is to get healthy, and what we are doing is not actually healthy. I’ve done some extreme stuff in my time, both with diet and with exercise, so I say none of this to judge.

This summer I poured a ton of energy into writing my ebook, The 101 Tips and Helps You Need Today to Reach Your Fitness Goals. The concept started as a blog post, and I just kept adding to it and eventually it was enough that my husband convinced me to turn it into an ebook with all the tips and helps I learned along the way of losing over 100 pounds, and what I do to maintain that weight loss.

I was sure this ebook would be popular. Not to brag, but this is good content. This is not the quick-fix stuff. This is the real deal — information of how to lose weight, keep it off, and be healthy in a practical way — that really actually works. I know because I have done it for 9 years now and I am still doing it. I stumble along the way, but overall I have maintained the same weight within a few pounds this whole time.

Truth is, the book has not been especially popular. I tried changing the cover and changing the title. That helped a little, but still not much. Other blogs I’ve written (some about sort of silly stuff like this one) have gotten hundreds of reads more, and some posts I’ve written have gotten even thousands more reads, like this one.

I was chatting with my mom about the ebook and she said, “Maybe people don’t want to know the ‘normal’ way you lost weight. They want to read about the next latest and greatest thing in weight loss.”

“Maybe people don’t want to know the ‘normal’ way you lost weight. They want to read about the next latest and greatest thing in weight loss.”

So I’ve been pondering this. I know gimmicky get thin quick sells, but it doesn’t last. It’s a flash in the pan, here today, gone tomorrow.

When I was at my heaviest weight, I was desperate to find a solution. I was miserable! But I was also not really ready to do what it took to fix the problem.

When I first became an at-home mom, the Rosie O’Donnell show premiered on day-time TV. Personal politics aside, the woman is freakin’ hilarious. I loved watching her show. She was my daily laugh and sanity as I transitioned into a new way of life. Rosie openly talked about her struggles with food and ate junk food right on the air during a live show. Love it! She was my soul sister. A couple years after the show came on the air, Rosie decided to bring a personal trainer onto the show and start a program to lose weight.

I stopped watching the show. I was betrayed.

I don’t mean felt annoyed. I mean it was as if my best friend had ditched me. Where was my soul sister in the being-fat-together-eating-junk-food-live-in-the-afternoons club? She had left me standing alone in the buffet line of life.

I give people credit for seeing here today, gone tomorrow programs for what they are. I do also understand needing someone to commiserate with, or needing a new and fresh motivation and a change of pace. These struggles for many of us are life-long, complex, and not simply answered with one book, blog post, or infomercial.

Let’s spend the next month discussing solutions together — how to turn our thoughts upside down, be weird, and tune in to what God says.

What say you, friends? Do you want a new program? How much time are you willing to put into fitness in your everyday life? What have you found that works?

Weird Faithful Fitness