#138 Esther Espinosa sold 500 copies of her magazine after reaching out to pastors in her area.

So I'm excited to introduce to you another one of our Christian Book Academy members, Esther Espinosa, and she's coming to us from Australia. So, Esther, go ahead and introduce yourself.

Hi, everyone. So I started in CBA in November last year, and since then, I have sold over 500 of these little magazines for teen girls. And I also published my first book for teen girls. And next month, in October, I'll be releasing two gratitude journals, one for little kids and one for teen girls, and a book series for girls. So it's really exciting. And I know that if I wasn't with cba, I wouldn't have done any of that. But just being accountable and having the support of Shelley and everybody in today's amazing.

Yeah. And I just wanted to say, you know, it's been so amazing watching Esther, because it's almost like you've just been blooming, right? And, you know, it's just like sometimes it's just the right time at the right place, and just seeing all that God's doing in your life as you're just taking those steps of faith. And so Esther is going to share today, like, what's in your hand, and she's going to share a little bit about selling your books in bulk. So I'm just going to turn it over to you for a few minutes, Esther.

Okay. So in December last year, I had had boxes of these magazines I had for the teen girls, and I didn't know what to do with them. They were sitting there gathering dust, and I wanted to do more because the content is so good. It's got great articles on anxiety and just things that girls need. So, Shelly, one of the things is, I don't like to sell. It's my nightmare. And I get nervous, and I don't know how to tell people, you know, buy this, give me money for it. So one day, I was listening to Shelley. I had just joined CBA only a few weeks, and she talked about, talk to God. What do you have in your hand? She said, what do you have in your hand? And she said to something like, when Moses had his staff, God had given him his staff that he could, you know, in his hand, he had power in there. And Shelly continued to talk about business meetings with God. And that's just journaling anytime you want, maybe once a week, once a month. And just asking God, God, what do you want me to do with my book or with my magazine? So I did both of those, and I started praying about it. And when I was journaling and telling God, all my frustrations on how I could sell this. He just said, what about the magazines that you have in boxes downstairs? And. And I thought, yeah, that's. That's true. I do have that in my hand. So I prayed a bit more about it, and I thought, okay, time to execute, and God is leading this way, so I've got to do something about it, even if I'm afraid. So I started by researching churches that I had visited around my community in Brisbane and made a list. I made a list of at least 30 places and the pastors that were in charge of the church, and I emailed them. I converted a few pages of the magazine into a little PDF for them to have a look. And I also put in what age group it was. I've told them what he had inside and how he was going to benefit the girls, because I thought that was very important. And when it came to the pricing, I didn't tell them, you know, this is one. One magazine is just, say, $10. Instead, I gave them three options because I wanted to make it easy for them. So I said, 20 magazines cost this much, 50 this much, and 100 this much. And I thought that was a lot easier and easier for me as well to deal with. So in. In about a week or even less, I had pastors responding and saying, look, can I order this for my church, for the te?

And a lot of the orders were 20 magazines and 50s. And that was amazing. Like, I think I did a happy dance on the spot thinking, yeah, God was onto something when he asked me to do this. So one of the things that I can say is, if you want to sell in bulk, if you want to sell your books in bulk, is pray about it. And like Shelly says, make inventory of what you have. What do you have in your hand? What can you get a lot of and be able to distribute easily? The other thing that I find that's really helpful is going to events. Events are really amazing for me. I go to a lot of women's conferences and I ask for a booth. And a lot of the time the booth is like $25 or even free. And then during the break, women come and they buy magazines and books, and it's one of the best ways to sell in bulk. The other thing is when you have your book that you want to sell, make a list of the organ or the leaders that you want to approach and think, who is this book good for? Who is it going to benefit? And then write your letter and make it very simple. State what your book Stands for, who it's for, the age group, how it's going to benefit the girls or the women or the men, and also give them maybe three prices and then a clear instruction on how they can contact you straight away. And maybe even a limit of, you know, this offer is only available for the month of December for Christmas or something like that, so that they can kind of hurry because they tend to be busy and forget.

And the other thing is, if you haven't heard from the person you contacted in about four weeks, then follow up because I did that and they had just forgotten. I just said, oh, that was on my mind, but I had forgotten to, to get back to you. And you can do this reaching out every quarter. I don't like. Like I said, sailing. So quarterly for me works well to do a little letter and send it out to different places or look up events that are coming and then see if I can go to that. So that's, that's another thing. But, but the best thing that I could say is pray about it. Ask God to inventory, do your business meeting, which is journaling with him so that he can lead. Because I.

Little magazine has helped so many people, so many teen girls, and we get great feedback from that. So, yeah, so it's been amazing.

Yeah, that's so great. You really gave a lot of practical things as well. I love that, you know, because it was in the beginning you said, you know, you create a few pages. And I wrote in the comments, it's like you created your own little look inside feature. Right. You know, on Amazon you could do a look inside and you really focused on the benefits. And then you gave them a few options, but not too many. You know, a confused mind says no, but you gave them. How many options was it?

3. 3.

So 3 is usually a pretty good number of options to give them. And then you took the step of faith. Were you nervous? Like, was your heart pounding?

I was dying the whole time. It's. It's not my strength. And I remember there was a lady that, she's our women ministry leader and she. I emailed her. This was a separ one from the pastors. And I emailed her and I told her about it and she, she was amazing. She said, oh, I love it. Can you send me 100 straight on the go? And I'm thinking I wouldn't have reached out. You know, I was so afraid if I wouldn't have reached out, I would have. 100 girls wouldn't be benefiting from the magazine and we wouldn't have had more money to be able to print more and continue the ministry. So it's just amazing how God just open doors. And I think the thing that steps in, that steps in the way for us or the blocks us is the fear as well as ourselves because we think all these stories in our minds and some of them don't even come true.

Yeah, yeah. And there's some comments over on Facebook too. And Parker J. Cole was like, you know, I think most authors are like that where they don't like the selling part. Right. But you know, it's, you know, it means something when you take that step and you say, okay, God, I'm going to do this because you've given me the, this message. I'm going to ask you for wisdom and then I'm going to take that step of faith. Faith without action is dead. And so we're just so excited for you and I cannot wait to see what's next. How can people get in touch with you if they want to purchase your book or get in contact with you otherwise.

So the place to go, I think the website, you can send an email, it's gigi storylibrary.com and then just say hi there. Or on Amazon you can find this book for teen girls. It's called you sell the secret of the locket and you can. It's a great book for teen girls that you can look up for on Amazon.

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing and we just pray that God uses you in so many more ways to reach girls lives.

Thank you. Give it a go. You have nothing to lose. It's an amazing community.

The price, I think it's. I mean here in Australia is almost $60, but it's less over there. But I think it's everything we get. The value is amazing. Shelly has mantra motto. I don't have to say it, but it's no question goes unanswered. There is a weekly section where we can put our questions and we get questions. Like I get stuck and I'm like, O Shelly, I need you. I can't find those answers on Google or wherever I need them. I need someone who knows what they're doing. And just, just this week, I think every week I have a question, but it's answered no matter if it's the next day, in a few minutes. It's amazing. And the other thing that I would say is the, the library where the modules are so easy to follow. I had never done a book in my life before.

And with the modules there's like the first draft, and then when you finish all that module, all those videos, you go to the. To the next one and the next one. But all of those are so important because you follow step by step on how your book is supposed to look. There are editors that we can book so they can edit our books. There are names of places where we can get our covers done. Formatters, just. And even in the CBA community, there are people who can do all that. And it's. It's amazing. Like, I would say, go for it. Give it a try. Give it. Don't just do one month. Give it a good three months at least. Because I found that three months for me were great, and I was just eating all those modules one after the other, but they were excellent. And then at the end, I was able to have my book, and I. I didn't even realize that a cover for a book was like, that's the COVID the whole thing. I thought it was just this.

Yeah.

So I learned so much. And it's. Yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah, it's. You know, it's amazing what we learn. You know, we all start somewhere. And so I love how, like, you're just, you know, in there and asking questions. Doc ask questions, Tanisha, you know, and you just. You get involved. And those that are getting involved and asking the questions are the ones that tend to be moving forward even the most. And so I love that, Esther, and I love that we're a worldwide community. You know, people from, you know, the UK and Australia and South Africa and all over. You know, we have people from all over, so love having you part of the community. And. Doc, did you want to share just a minute.