Advice column becomes bestseller

By Charlie Gates writing in The Press Tuesday, 23 October 2007

An unassuming column dispensing simple advice has become a New Zealand best-seller.
The first published collection of the Soul Food columns, which appear on the diversions page of The Press every weekday, has sold so well that a second volume hit bookshops this month.
The first book was published in 2005 and is now enjoying its third print run in New Zealand.
It has also been published in Lithuania, Korea, Holland and India.

The new book, called Soul Food from the Heart, brings together more recent columns.
The success of the column has surprised its creator, industrial psychologist Kate Marr (also known as Kate Kippenberger).

She proposed the idea to The Press in 2002 and within months the column attracted a strong daily following.
"It must have been right place, right time and right idea," she said.
The idea came about after Marr felt newspapers needed "something positive" to counteract all the "negative stories", particularly after the September 11 terror attacks of 2001.
"I just thought, `Wouldn't it be great if there was something positive in the paper for people just to balance it out a bit'," she said.
She writes her five columns for each week in a one-hour sitting, drawing inspiration from her life.
"Every Thursday night I will allow myself an hour to write it. I will think about things that have happened to me in the week."
"If I have struggled with something I think about how I could have dealt with that to make it better."

Marr feels the Soul Food column stands out in a market crowded with self-help books by offering practical advice rather than simple homilies, and encouraging people to take responsibility for their own actions.
"Books with happy quotes make you feel good, but for some of them there is not a lot of substance to them.
"I want to make sure people take the ideas and put them into action," she said.
"People email and say, `I have been going through a really tough time and your column has really helped'. That is amazing because it means people are putting the advice into practice."