A Journey Toward Self-Publishing Part 2
I continued to spend this past week working my way toward self-publishing. I started working on ideas for a “bread and butter” book. A bread and butter book is a non-fiction piece that is designed to sell consistently year after year. The book need not be a best seller (selling 10,000 copies a year or more), just a consistent seller of as few as 1,000 copies or so.
When I sat down to decide what I wanted to write about I explored all kinds of ideas and finally settled on the subject of self-hypnosis and the therapeutic applications of hypnosis. I chose this subject because it has always been an interest of mine and because I have been using its techniques for years to manage stress, among other issues.
My lifelong interest in hypnosis became more focused around 1980 when the combined effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and alcoholism hit me hard. I spoke with several psychiatrists who, to their credit diagnosed the disorder correctly. When they told me they wanted to put me on therapeutic medication (and that the medications were not addictive) I balked.
The medications may not be addictive, but I am. I have an addictive personality which, on its positive side, makes me a highly creative, driven personality. On the negative side – well, let’s not go there.
I balked because I had just made a commitment to give up one crutch – Vodka and lots of it – and I wanted to be sure I wasn’t trading one crutch for another. I started searching for alternatives.
During my search, I had the good fortune to meet the late Charles Tebbetts. He was in his eighties at the time and had an excellent reputation as a hypnotherapist in the Seattle area and also ran a school that taught professional hypnotherapy courses
As I told him about my concerns he agreed to give me a “freebie” session. After that session I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and, while I knew more sessions would be needed, I knew that I had experienced real progress in managing the effects of PTSD.
It was also after that session that I decided that, if I was going to use hypnosis to manage my stresses, I needed to make an all out commitment to understanding it, so I signed up for Charlie’s courses in hypnotherapy. While attending his hypnotherapy school I was also fortunate enough to take instruction from Gil Boyne, who has an international reputation in the field of hypnotherapy as one of the best in the world.
At one point I was even registered to practice hypnotherapy in the state of Washington, but I let my credentials lapse because I was more concerned with my own issues.
The one thing that did not change, however, was my interest in the therapeutic applications of hypnosis, which leads me back to the subject of the books I intend to write and self-publish in the next few months.
How many books I might write, is not clear. I would hope I can write at least a dozen on the various ways hypnosis can be used to manage stress, improve sports performance and create powerful, positive and healing life changes.
© 2009 Moody Publishing Co
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