Self-Help: Taking Advice From Strangers
By Natasha Gapinski

From where most of us are standing, or typing furiously away hoping to be published, being a famous self-help author looks pretty sweet. Not only are they selling lots of books, but they're everywhere -- on television, radio, or People magazine, and people actually want their advice. You may even be a fan of these top-sellers and their writing.

Did you ever stop and wonder who decided that these people had all the right answers for you? Have you taken business advice from a former Mormon missionary (Stephen Covey), or relationship advice from a woman on her fifth marriage (Barbara De Angelis) or one of her ex-husbands (John Gray)? (When asked on the Howard Stern show about her recurring trips down the aisle and likely skill at smart relationship advice, De Angelis retorted, "At least I know when a relationship should end!")

A lot of self-help writers are medical doctors, psychologists, or other licensed practitioners and counselors. That gives us at least a reason to trust their advice. But what about the others-- those without a higher degree, or whose professional experience is a mismatch with the book topic?

Ask a successful self-help author what qualifies them to give advice to the world at large; you might as well ask a rock star if he thinks he's a great singer. The question is beside the point. These authors somehow make people want to read. Call it magnetism or whatever you will, the words on the page, like the song on the CD, would be nothing if it weren't for a certain power of performance, where personality overrides the critical thoughts of the audience, and an intimate relationship begins on the spot.

So how can a reader decide which charismatic writer will help, and which are just putting on a show?

Let's start with the author's fit with their book's topic. "Authors should be able to relate to their subjects, to give examples from their own lives, or from the lives of their clients. Otherwise, where's the passion?" says Jill Spiegel, author of Flirting for Success, and self-proclaimed Flirtologist (www.flirtnow.com). "They should be living their book."

Caryn Karmatz-Rudy, senior editor at Warner Books, looks for this sort of connection when considering book proposals. "If a figure skater wanted to sell me a cookbook, I'd have to ask myself if that made sense."

So you might say, "I will only take advice from people who practice what they preach." Are you sure? Would you want a cookbook by Hannibal Lechter? Authenticity is important, but it's not everything.

How about a celebrity? If you're like most Americans, you'll at least consider the celebrity-authored book on diet, fitness, or ascent from destructive mental states, over the book by someone who's never been on "Oprah." Americans prefer to buy diet advice from Suzanne Somers instead of a similar book by any boring doctor who's studied nutrition for years rather than playing a blond bombshell. What is it with us, anyway?

"People have a sense that they 'know' celebrities," says Caryn Karmatz-Rudy. This built-in audience was what sold Karmatz-Rudy on Marie Osmond's proposal for a book on postpartum depression. She knew that many Americans had watched the Osmonds grow up on television, and felt a sense of kinship that would open their ears to Marie's message on a difficult topic.

All very well and good to sell books as if they were boxes of Wheaties, with a different celebrity face each month to collect, but the recognition factor can make it easy for a reader in need of real help to overlook the right advice.

Linda Olson, author of New Psalms for New Moms: A Keepsake Journal, feels that self-help books by celebs "sell because of heavy marketing/advertising and public recognition. It's the power of the advertising dollar, not always the quality of the books, that gets them into the public's eye."

Adds author and webmaster of FrugalFun.com, Shel Horowitz, "We're raised in a culture that really values the superficial glitz. I'm always looking for substance. We're the third or fourth generation that was raised on television." Horowitz, fortunately, has few worries that celebrity writers will be attracted to his area of expertise -- saving money. (That's a topic that is ironically a hard book sell, since people who want to save hundreds of dollars are reluctant to pay $17 for a book like Horowitz's The Penny-Pinching Hedonist.)

There are so many self-help books to choose from. A friend may recommend one, you saw another on a talk show, or you liked a review in the Sunday paper, or maybe one just has pretty cover. Authors try their best to get their name and book out there anywhere, on television or on the shelves of your local bookstore, hoping to be one of your choices.

Book publicity is great... until an author has a personal embarrassment, something that makes even the most trusting reader wonder if the author has a clue. This happened in a very public way to Ellen Fein, who with Sherrie Schneider co-authored the controversial book, The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. The two authors were a publicity dynamo, says Caryn Karmatz-Rudy, their editor. They went out in public and stated that they had designed a simple, foolproof way to make any relationship a happy one, proven by their own long-lasting marriages. The two were vehement in defending what many denounced as an anti-feminist stance.

Then, just as the third "Rules" book was heading for shelves, Ellen Fein and her husband admitted they had filed for divorce. Does this mean the books were worthless?

Karmatz-Rudy says that Fein's sudden transformation into a public figure and the attendant stress kept her from following her own advice. "She was in extraordinary circumstances, and she couldn't step back and see her situation objectively. She didn't do what she would have advised another woman in her situation to do."

So do publishers want to sell us books by people who would tell us to do as they say, not as they've done? "Of course," affirms Joan Schweighardt, President/Publisher of Greycore Press. "Since we learn from our mistakes, why couldn't I learn something from a divorced relationship counselor or a bankrupt 'get rich' author? You can learn a lot more from your failures than you can from your successes."

There's no foolproof way to decide if a book can change your life for the better. The best you can do is find out as much as you can about it, read the author's bio, find reviews in the paper or online, talk to people who've read it, then flip through the pages and see if you like the way it's laid out. When you've done your research, you have a few choices: If you like what you see, buy the book. If not, start researching the next on the shelf. Or use your experience to write a book of your own on how to research, or the current state of self-help books in America, or a better take on your own problem. In the end, a book deal would be some of the best self-help a writer could receive.

Natasha Gapinski is a Central Florida-based freelancer with a credit list that's short but growing.  Please send email to natga@ivillage.com. 

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