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Interview with the Author Royane Real about her new book: “How You Can Be Smarter” November 2004
Christine: You’ve recently written a book called, “How You Can Be Smarter” that you’re now publishing as a downloadable ebook on the Internet.
What made you choose this topic to write about, and can I ask you – why does the world need this book at this particular time?
Royane: Well, Christine, I guess that’s two big questions I’ll try to answer here. First of all, the reason I got interested in this topic was a very personal thing for me.
About fifteen years ago I noticed that my mind was starting to feel foggy all the time. I couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t feel like I was as smart as I used to be. My brain actually felt empty and like it was stuffed with cotton. It felt scary.
I went to the doctor, but my doctor couldn’t suggest anything in those days except to get an x-ray to find out if I had a brain tumour. (I didn’t)
I felt desperate. I started to read everything I could get my hands on about the human brain, how the brain worked, how thinking worked, what helped the brain, what hurt it.
At the same time I was doing a lot of teaching and I was always on the lookout for anything that would make learning easier and more fun.
So between these two big concerns of, on the one hand, wanting to learn about how the brain worked, and on the other, wanting to help people learn more easily and more effectively, I began to develop a big storehouse of knowledge that I wanted to pass on to other people who wanted improve their thinking and learning.
One of the things I say in my book is that we’re all given a brain when we’re born, but we’re not given an owner’s manual to tell us how to use it. Our brain is a marvellous piece of hardware, but most of us don’t use it nearly as effectively as it could be used.
Christine: I found your book really full of helpful information when I read it. I feel smarter already.
Royane: That’s good. I guess I have one happy customer already!
Christine: To tell you the truth Royane, I haven’t read any other books except yours on the topic. How does your book about how to become smarter differ from all the other ones out there? Why should people buy yours, if they haven’t bought any of the other ones?
Royane: I think that most of the time, we’re not actually thinking to ourselves, “Gee, I need a book on how I can become smarter” as a conscious thought.
But subconsciously, we can be thinking, “I wish I had a better memory for names” or,
“I feel so overwhelmed by all the reading I have to do. I need a way to get through it faster”.
Or you might think to yourself, “I wish I wouldn’t get so nervous before a big test”. Or, “I wish I was more confident.” Or, “I’m scared to apply for that job because there’s so much to learn.”
So we can have lots of thoughts going through our minds that really are an expression of our frustration, and deep down what we’re thinking, is: I wish I knew how to get my brain to work better. But we aren’t really consciously aware of it, and we aren’t really aware consciously that there’s help for us, or we would be looking for it, but subconsciously we’re looking for help.
Can you imagine any ways your life would be better if you were able to read faster? Wouldn’t you like to see yourself remember more? How would you feel if you finally had confidence that you could learn whatever you really need to learn? Wouldn’t you feel great if you could get better at problem solving?
Most authors who write about how to improve brainpower only deal with one or two methods in their book. For example, an author might write a whole book only about how to improve your memory, or only about how to think more clearly.
The main difference between my book and the others I’ve seen is in how much information is packed here into just one book.
My book shows you how to find out what kind of learner you are, what kind of learning works best for you. How to read faster, improve your memory. How to take notes, how to be more creative. Plus what to feed your brain, and what to avoid. How to breathe. How to slow down your brain waves so it becomes easier to learn.
To get the same amount of information you’d have to read about fifteen or twenty books by a variety of different authors to get all the information I put into one book. Here it’s all in one place.
If you’re like me, you’re very busy. You don’t want to go out and track down fifteen different books and read them all, looking for a few nuggets of information, trying to sort out what’s fact and what’s fiction. You want information you can trust, information you can use.
Christine: I guess one of the questions I have for you Royane is, why did you choose to release this as an ebook, instead of going the more traditional publishing route?
Royane: I think that in the future, more and more writers will go the route of publishing online. I’m glad to be living in a time when writers have this option.
I’m very excited about the future possibilities of the Internet. It’s a whole new world, and I guess at this stage, you could say we’re still all pioneers. Both the readers and the publishers.
By publishing my books on line, I hope to develop a relationship with my visitors. I’ll get immediate feedback on what works for them. My goal is to write and publish books that will benefit people. I get to know what they really need as readers, what their concerns are, and hopefully I will be able to help them.
Christine: You’re publishing online. You’re brand new. People don’t know you. How will they know if they will like your books or not? How will they know that you know what you’re talking about?
Royane: That’s a very valid question to ask a person who is new to the field of publishing.
What I would say to my visitors is, if you feel sort of interested in maybe buying this book, but you’re also sort of hesitant, that’s okay.
Relax and take your time. Look around at the website. Check out the sample pages. Look at the table of contents. Sign up for the free newsletter.
I’m not a person who is interested in pushing hype and impulse buying on people. I’d rather develop a long term relationship with the visitors to this website. I’d rather build a reputation for quality and integrity. And if that takes time, it takes time.
If the particular topic of how to boost your brain power isn’t something you want to read about right now, there’s other books and reports available at the site and you can take a look at them, and there’s more in the pipeline coming up soon.
If this looks like the kind of website that will have information that’s useful for you, keep coming back. Send your friends a copy of the newsletter.
I’d rather slowly build a community of readers who care about quality work, people who value accuracy and insight, people who really want the best information available that can help them solve some of the problems in their life.
Christine: At the moment this book is only available in downloadable e-book format. Do you have any plans to publish it in a more traditional format as a paperback or hard cover book?
Royane: If it turns out that there’s a demand for a paperback or hardback version, I will publish it in that format.
Christine: Thank you Royane. This has actually been more interesting than I expected. Thanks for letting me get to know you better. And thank you for letting me practice my interviewing skills on you.
Royane: Well I’m glad we got together to do this interview, Christine. It was interesting for me too. And I think you have a great future as an interviewer!
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