#187: Jennifer Nelson discovered the easy path to finally become an author

Just introduce yourself really briefly and share with us a little bit about your. Your process of publishing.

Yes, I'm Jennifer Nelson. I am a wife of 31 years, almost 32 this month. I have three kids. I have eight grandbabies and two more on the way. I have a goat farm and so much more. But so that's kind of the backstory of how I actually became a published author by going through CBA was this past year. My backstory is I've always loved the idea of writing. And when I was a kid, I was like, I want to be a writer because I just loved language, I mean, all languages, and just wanted to create with that. And in middle school, I wrote a poem and my teacher submitted it and I won a national award, but it was like a. Wasn't like, first place, but I won a little book as a prize. And that was just kind of something that made me excited about writing. Well then, you know, you go through high school and college and get married and, you know, go off in the military and life happens, and then more life happens and just kind of forgot about that dream and kind of really gave up on the dream. And then last year, well, the past couple years, God kept putting ideas of different books and devotionals in my mind. And I'm like, oh, there's just no way. You know, I would, like, make notes, but then not really follow through with it. And then in last November, during a church sermon, the pastor was talking about praising God through his names. And God told me, you're going to write a book praising me alphabetically. And I'm like, okay. You know, okay. So I did start writing it, and there was other things in my life that was going on that he had to kind of work, work me, work in me. That through the last year, through my health and mindset, I was able to write the book. But then in July, I'm like, I'm getting toward the end of this book, Lord, now what do I do? I'm like, I'm writing it in obedience to you. But now what do I do? And I'm telling you, that week, maybe even the next day through my newsfeed popped up the Kingdom Writers Free workshop that you were going to host in September. And I'm like. And Lord's like. The Lord's like, here's a free resource for you. You need to get it done. I'm like, okay. So I signed up for it and took a couple of the free pre courses, kind of get ready, took the. The workshop, and there was so Much information that just, it helped me finish organizing the final steps. And then at the end of the workshop weekend, you know, you invited us to join CVA and so I'm like, okay, God's like do it. So I did. And following the course through the publishing, the publishing course in your academy, it, I mean literally with by, I think it was 10 days I got my book published. So when I finished, I finished writing it, I formatted it. I love the creation part. I designed the COVID and everything. Follow the steps on formatting. And then when I got it up on KDP and when I hit that publish button, I'm telling you, everyone's getting chills now. When I hit that publish button, it was like, okay, Lord, I followed through. You gave me the resources, you gave me CBA to finish it. And so after that I was like, okay, now what else can I create? So this is only about half of the books since October.

I've published. And then I've got two more. I've got an ebook that's on pre order released in next week, Pursuing Peace. It's a seven day devotional ebook and it has a companion notebook like I had for my November seven day devotional. I made, sorry, I made a, you know, a companion notebook for that ebook. And so I have the pursuing Peace Christmas theme on that coming up. And then my second one I haven't, I'm still working on is my 52 week prayer journal. Now this is my practical tip I want to talk about. And it was because I got this idea through Shelly and the CBA was, you know, when you go through KDP and you're putting it in there, you can order a proof copy before you submit your publish your published book. And so with this 52 week journal, it was a kind of a daunting thing. And with layout and trying to figure out the best way for the feel of it, I decided to go ahead and just put a general layout with the page, with the amount of pages I thought it would be and just got the proof copy. And that has helped me with understanding the thickness of it, how it's going to feel and some things I'm going to change. So I just, you know, the blank, what it's going to look like with the devotional. And so, so I practical tip is if you're kind of like trying to figure out a layout or see what's going to feel like before you really put the content together is go ahead and get the basic format layout put up into kdp, order the proof copy and just that way you have a real hard copy of, you know, not just like a, you know, paper copy with word, but like an actual book copy. So that's my practical tip that I learned through cba. That's kind of helped me with this book, get my mind focused. So.

Yes. And I love that you were like a firecracker. You know, it's just like you came in and was like, it was just the right time. Right. And when it is the right time and when it's God's time, you know, it'll happen. And for all of us, it's different, you know, different paces. But I mean, you've had this book on your mind for a while and then it was like, okay, let's go, let's, let's finish it. Let's click, publish. And I love that. So do you know how many books you've published?

So it's 12 are published on KDP. And then I've got the two. I've got the ebook that's going to be released. And then this one, this was 12. I have 10 published. And then two. No, 12 published, two more that are, you know, in the process and a lot more, A lot more in here that aren't started. I started.

Yeah, I love that. And I loved your tip. I was, I published a journal as well. It's called the Illuminate Prayer Journal. And I did something very similar. So I, I ordered a proof of the book before it was, you know, in the final iteration. And then I was using it myself to see, like, how did it feel to use it. And I was able then through that to really get a good final finished journal. You know, that really worked well in a practical day to day way. Right. So awesome. Thank you so much for sharing, Jennifer. And oh my goodness, I can't wait to see all the things that you have coming next. Thank you so much for being here. And I'm so glad that Christian Book Academy was just the resource that helped you, you know, get that, that, that push that you needed. Right.

I'm so thankful God, God gave me cba right at the right timing, the right resource. He. And so I thank you and you and CJ for being obedient and doing what you're supposed to do, because that allowed me to be obedient, do what I was supposed to do. So I do appreciate y'. All.

Yes, amen. And that's the way it is. Like, even some of you have books right now that God has called you to write and that's going to release something for someone else, right? It's going to help them to have a freedom or, you know, healing or it's going to show them what's possible and they're going to be like, oh, I need to publish a book, you know, so. So many good things awes.