What Makes a Great Spirituality Book with Allen Klein

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Allen Klein. He's spent his career writing spirituality and personal development books.

To date, he's written over 31 books, including The Healing Power of Humor, and his most recent title is The Awe Factor which spiritualityandpractice.com dubbed one of the best spiritual books of 2020.

I wanted to understand what goes into a good spirituality book and how authors can take a simple idea like awe and turn it into a book. Allen explains how he draws on stories from his personal life, stories that people tell him, and those he comes across online.

Allen talks about spending over a week in a library using microfiche film to extract an article from the New York Times, whereas, today, it's just a Google search away, or you can download an app.

He also talks about how he promotes his books using a service called Help a Reporter Out (HARO). If you write any non-fiction, I recommend checking it out.

In this episode we discuss.

• Why Allen describes himself as a jolly-ologist
• Where Allen got the inspiration for his awe stories
• How looking for awe in your life is similar to meditation
• How humor helps Allen to deal with life
• When to include stories in self-help books versus science-based research
• Capturing stories ready to write down later

Resources.

• Spriritualityandpractice.com
• HARO
• The Awe Factor
• The Healing Power of Humor
• The Joy of Simplicity
• Secrets Kids Know
• You Can't Ruin My Day
• Embracing Life After Loss
• Allen Klein Amazon Page
• Allen Klein Website

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Thanks for listening!