What’s it take to make a story go viral? Global? To top the charts as word-of-mouth carries your tale far and wide—for days, months, or even years? There’s no one formula. But certain things help stack the odds in your favor. Like novelty (a unique idea). Grabbiness (where your reader is instantly pulled in). Brevity (requiring no significant time commitment—at least not to get them hooked). Universality (people see themselves in your story). The urge to merge (large numbers want to share your work, and do!).
Chart-topping is something my guests for today’s Beautiful Writers Podcast episode know well. Kelly Noonan Gores is the director, writer, and star of the global phenomenon, the HEAL documentary, now out in book form this month. She’s joined by Anita Moorjani, who you may know of from her gob-smacking miraculous healing story. (Riddled with cancerous tumors, Anita walked out of the hospital cancer-free following a near-death-experience.) Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Dying To Be Me, inspired millions, including being the impetus for why Kelly finally made the film she’d been dreaming of for nearly a decade.
I LOVE this conversation—especially hearing about the magical way in which both women were “discovered” by publishers, just as they were finally feeling ready to be seen and heard in the world, after years of resistance. (Funny how the universe knows our innermost thoughts.)
As Kelly points out in HEAL, nearly half of Americans—more than 133 million of us—lives with a chronic disease. Close to 80 million of us have multiple conditions. If you’re suffering or love someone who is, I believe these women will make you feel a renewed sense of hopefulness. Hope about the body’s innate ability to heal. Hope about how you were born to have a life you love. And hope about how to follow their lead to create a unique, grabby, universally beloved story of your own.
I’m so glad you’re here!
Listen here:
Or, to find all the links, go to beautiulwriterspodcast.com.
PS. If you’d like support writing or publishing your own healing stories for a global audience, I’d love to help via my online Book Proposal Magic course (currently in its 4th of 6 weeks—but all recorded), Your Big Beautiful Book Plan (co-authored with Danielle LaPorte, and free to BPM course participants), or through one of my Carmel Writing Retreats.
A quick word if you’ve been thinking about a retreat: I’m making more space these days for my books and have reduced my enrollment from 60 annual spots to 30. That number may soon fall further. For that reason (and the fact that the cost of putting on my retreats has nearly doubled), I will be raising my rates following the Feb. 2020 retreat. If you’re interested in booking a January or February spot before the price increase, head over to bookmama.com/retreats, fill out the retreat registration form, and we’ll hop on the phone or computer to see if you and I by the sea is your next right step. xo
