Born! Paleo Vegan is Burning it Up on Amazon!

IMG_2098Thanks to a huge, wonderful, maybe the nicest story ever done on my attempts to defy my genetic odds, my newest baby, Paleo Vegan came out this week with a bang! Snazzy sang his praises too!

It soared to the top 2000 books on Amazon, #9 in vegetarian, #15 in all paleo books (a vegan book on a paleo list…love it!) and as I write, it also brought my 3 year-old, “Eat Vegan on $4 a Day” screaming along with it. “Eat Vegan” is in the top 3000 on Amazon, and is the 12th ranked vegan book. Kinda rare for such an oldster. wink While I’ve provided the Amazon links here, and the books are slightly cheaper there, if you buy the books from me here (link), you spend a few bucks more, get shipping and of course, any personalized signed copy you want. Just tell me when you order what you’d like me to say, or you can leave it to my own creativity. It’ll get you at least a few more pennies on E-Bay! wink Seriously, whatever works best for your wallet is fine by me. Or as my co-author says…Amazon is the Walmart of books. Buy local. Support Fair Trade and my passion to do this full time. Though I haven’t quit my day job as a personal trainer just yet.

IMG_1483Fox 13 in Tampa, did an incredibly kind story (transcription is here too, in case you don’t have time to watch the 2-minute story) about all three of my books and my vegan running.

They called me a “senior,” to which some fans on my Facebook page said cute things like, “How dare they?” or a few that said “I feel guilty calling you a hottie if you’re a senior.” But I got so many kind comments from viewers who said “You have really inspired me to get off my duff.”

Serious kudos goes to Cynthia Smoot at Fox 13 for spending an entire afternoon, asking lots of questions and truly being concerned about animal welfare and health. I got to use a fabulous “Go Pro” camera, holding it while I ran. What a super editing job they did!  How wonderful it is that the Tampa area has someone like her as an anchor and reporter.

One of the reasons I chose to focus on health in my vegan writing was because I saw how newsroom management scoffed at any animal rights stories I tried to do, unless I had good pix of animal abuse. I had those too. And that would forever shape my beliefs…I had to cover some of the worst animal abuse stories as a reporter. But I always thought it would be good to focus on the many health and environmental aspects of the vegan diet/lifestyle.

In addition to the lovely TV coverage, 6 hours before that, Examiner.com did a wonderful story about Paleo Vegan and my co-author, Alan Roettinger. Many have asked why I didn’t do the recipes, and truth is, my publisher and I agreed that Alan’s expertise as a gourmet chef to presidents would make the book sizzle. I make no secret that I am not a gourmet chef, but rather a functional “everyday” chef. That said, I know you’ll find Alan’s recipes easy and irresistable.

The concepts and ideas for the book are mine…fermenting from the very first time several years ago, when someone came to our weekly training run and said, “I’m doing the paleo diet.” Since I’ve tried and failed on most every other diet except a vegan one, I began the research and read almost every paleo book and blog I could to understand the various interpretations. There are many, given that there was no Instagram back then. A post for for another time.

Hugs to everyone who has ordered books anywhere, reposted, re-tweeted the TV and examiner story! I stayed up till 3 a.m. last night doing same. That half-marathon Sunday is probably not going to happen. I need clones. Clones I tell you! Gotta run!!