Gaynor Curtis' story appeared on the front page of the Daily Mail
Continuing our series of interviews with our clients about their experiences of selling a story using Talk to the Press, meet Gaynor Curtis. Last summer, Gaynor contacted Talk to the Press via the sell my story from on our website. She wanted to talk about her near death experience after having a gastric band, and wondered whether a national newspaper or magazine would be interested in running her story. The answer was ‘Yes!’ and we sold her story to the Daily Mail and Chat magazine.
How did you hear about TTTP and why did you decide to get touch? I was browsing on the internet and decided to do a google search into publishing real life stories. There were loads of agencies that came up in my search but TTTP caught my eye. I read the testimonies and liked the sound of how the agency worked. I wanted to educate people about the dangers of gastric bands and thought that TTTP could do this for me.
Why did you decide to speak out? I remembered reading a similar story in a newspaper a few years ago. A girl who was a lot younger than me had similar problems with her gastric band. I wanted to let people know what to look for when things go wrong.
What was your reaction when you first saw the article? I was stunned. I didn’t expect to see my pictures on the front page of the Daily Mail. You expect to see Posh and Becks, but I’m just an ordinary person. I was happy with the articles published in the Daily Mail and Chat, they were fair and accurate and told my story as it was. If it was incorrect and inaccurate I wouldn’t have been pleased, but that wasn’t the case. Everyone was lovely at TTTP and I’m thrilled with the end result.
What did your friends and family think? Everyone was really supportive. A woman who lives in the same village as me approached me months after the article was written and said she could relate to what I had been through. Although she wasn’t as big as I was, she too had a gastric band. The article also encouraged a long lost friend to get back in touch with me on Friends Reunited. We are still in contact to this very day. I’m really pleased with the outcome of selling my story and still feel it was the right thing for me to have done.
If you have a story you’d like to sell to a newspaper or women’s magazine, visit our website and complete our sell story form, or email message@talktothepress.com
