My book, The Happy Addict, won an award (a real one!)

I am totally over the moon. My addiction recovery book "The Happy Addict: How to be Happy in Recovery From Alcoholism or Drug Addiction" won a BookAuthority Award for "Best Drug Addiction Books of All Time".

Other winners included books by Russell Brand and Dr Gabor Mate. (I bet they aren't as chuffed as I am seeing as they've probably won a ton of awards.)

What makes this extra-special is that I am a recovering alcoholic. I am just someone who wanted to help people find the same wonderful recovery that I have.

Even more amazingly, the book is not with a major publishing house. I self-published it under my own imprint. I even designed the cover. I put my heart and soul into this book and it has resulted in this wonderful achievement.

So, I'm not only posting this here because I'm so delighted, but also to encourage others with their self-publishing efforts. If you know you are a writer and have something special to give to the world, you don't have to wait for the 'gatekeepers' to give you the green light. Go ahead and self-publish. I did and, blimey, look what happened!

Sending you all good vibes for motivation and thanks for all the support you have given me with other book projects.

Big love,
Beth Xx

Thank you so much Moon, Storm and Lily. My parents always wanted me to win a Booker or a Nobel, but I guess this will do for now lol

MaeZe said:

Not only is it fantastic that you won, what a great subject to win with!

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Thanks, Mae. The awards are chosen, not by a panel of judges, but based on an algorithm made up of sales, recommendations, reviews, ratings, public sentiment etc., which makes me really happy because it must mean that the book touched people, and helped a lot of addicts find a happier recovery. And that is totally awesome!

Thanks, Straight Success. Haha. What I meant about it being a "Real Award" is that you can't enter your own book, you don't pay to enter or receive a prize, you don't have to promote the website or anything like that. I didn't even know I'd won until they notified me. BookAuthority has been featured on CNN, Forbes and Inc. They are well-respected

Thank you, Atlantic

Thanks, Guy, Irene and Spicy! Sorry for the late reply. I wish you all as much success (and more!) with your work.

Thanks very much, Randi

Hey Landon, thank you. Congratulations on your recovery. That deserves more plaudits than any book in the world!

It's actually my second book on addiction recovery. I hardly did any promotion for "The Happy Addict" at all. I think people bought it if they liked the first book.

So, I'll tell you about the promo for my first book, "The Recovery Formula", which was done for zero cost apart from author copies and postage.

When I'd done the draft, I emailed some well-known people in the recovery community and asked them if they wouldn't mind taking a flick through. I didn't know any of these people before - I was just taking a chance. Note that they weren't "celebrities", but people who were influential. Luckily, they all loved it and agreed to provide endorsements for the back of my book.

When "The Recovery Formula" was released, I mailed a copy to all the major rehabs in the UK (where I'm from) for them to put on their bookshelves. I connected with relevant people on LinkedIn and offered free copies to prisons and detoxes.

I was already blogging and making videos (I was an addiction therapist at the time), so I left a link to my book on Amazon on everything I posted. My blog was at one point, the 8th most popular blog on addiction in the world, according to Alexa.

I answered journalist requests for interviews about addiction recovery and stated in my bio that I was the author of "The Recovery Formula" (search the #journorequest tag on Twitter for opportunities). I also wrote guest blogs on The Huffington Post and a few other places. I covered topics like addiction stigma, celebrating recovery, timely pieces on mental health and addiction.


I didn't do any of the usual promo work that people do for books (like sending to book bloggers or book sites, offering it free or discounted), because that wouldn't have suited the nature of the book. It is on Goodreads and all those sorts of places, but haven't done much other than list it.

I just followed the rules: Be brave, get in front of the right people, at the right time, and be amazingly helpful to them.

Then, when the second book was released, a lot of people already knew me and, I presume, wanted to buy the second book, based on that. I wasn't able to much promo for "The Happy Addict" as I was already succumbing to what, now, is a chronic illness. So, I can't do anywhere near the amount of stuff I did before.

I did a couple of things for the second book, as it was not only something that could be understood by addicts, but was really relatable to anyone wanting to improve their lives. So I emailed other authors or people in the mental health field and offered to read their books (which were on different subjects, so not competitors), in exchange for reading mine. (It is much more difficult to get customer reviews for addiction books, because it's been a stigmatised disorder for so long). That got me a few reviews, and led to actual customers being a bit braver about leaving their own reviews.

The book doesn't make a ton of money, but it makes sales every day and I am always delighted by customers emailing me to say how much they loved it. I sometimes google the title and find the book (or me) mentioned in unexpected places.

For a topic like addiction recovery, you really have to be brave, be vulnerable and give, give, give. I've just followed you on Twitter (I'm @BethSmyls). Best of luck in your incredible journey