#228: The Journey of Publishing (Finisher Series)

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Welcome to our Finisher series. So if you've been following along, last summer we did our breakthrough series, helping you break through those obstacles keeping you from writing your book. Then in the fall, we did our Overcomer series, just helping you overcome and really do what God has created you to do in your writing. Now it's time for the Finisher series and we are going to be focusing this series on helping you cross the finish line of publishing your book. This is spiritual encouragement, but we're also going to be talking about some practical things and we record these live inside our private group for Christian Book Academy. Now, I would love to invite you to join us. Just go to ChristianBookAcademy.com I hope this episode encourages you today. Our theme for this week is the journey of publishing. You know, when I think about a journey, I think about twists and turns, ups and downs, road closures, detours. We've had a lot of road closures and detours around this area this last six months or so, haven't we?

Yeah. I don't know about you guys, wherever you're at in the country, but there's been a project that was basically, you know, the result of a passing of a bill here in Colorado Springs that it seems like they have a limited amount of time to probably spend the money. But it just seems like everywhere you go and there's not a street that they haven't visited where they're digging up and replacing pipes, water, probably sewer, I'm not sure, but they are digging up every side of the street to grab those pipes. And it's just been absolutely amazing. On one hand, it's good, but on the other hand, you know, it gets a little annoying. And you're like, I can't wait until this is finished. But it's a reminder, too, that maintenance is needed.

Yeah. And, you know, when we are on our journey of publishing, there may come times when you reach what you think is a dead end. And what God's been saying to me lately is, shelly, it's not a dead end. It's simply a detour. And so, you know, I have created for you the publishing map.

Most of you should have already downloaded it and printed it off.

Wait a minute, Is that a Shoots and ladders board.

Yeah. Doesn't it look like it? It's my, my drawing here and lettering. But this is, you know, just a visual representation of the journey that you're each on right now. And some of you are actually even beyond this map. You're into the marketing, the book launch marketing, you know, that sort of thing. But when you're on this publishing journey, there are certain steps along the way. And I highly recommend you download Print this off. We also have a checklist for you in the publishing challenge that, that just gives you the different things to check off as you go. And depending on which publishing path you choose, each lesson will have a worksheet. So then you can download it off. Take us to a big sigh of big deep breath. Depending on whether you choose ebook only print and ebook full color book, like a children's book. You just print off the checklist for you and then you know everything's right there for you. We tell you if something's optional or not, and it tells you these are the steps along your publishing path, your publishing journey. But how many of you know that sometimes maybe the editor you contact can't edit your book right now? They're, they're, you know, they're booked out for six months. Detour, right? You know, contact someone else or there's things that delay the process. My mom right now is working on a book and her process has been delayed, but God, in the meantime has been teaching, teaching her the things and showing her things that have been essential for the book. And so the book's going to even be better than it would have been in the beginning. So just a reminder, the path that we're taking as we go through the publishing challenge is to, number one, commit number two, your book topic and outline. This is where we started in the first draft challenge. You know, number three, to write the first draft, that messy, ugly first draft. Number four is self editing. And number five, professional editing. And that's kind of where we ended the first draft. Then the publishing challenge comes where you're formatting your book. Number six, number seven, your book cover design. Number eight, preparing for publication. And number nine, uploading and publishing. And so there is a definite journey that you're on. How many of you like road trips?

C.J. loves them. I, I'm, you know, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. You know, it just depends. As I get older, I'm not as much into the long road trips, but we are all on a journey and I just thought it'd be fun to Share a few Testimonials from members this week.

Kim Steadman shared kudos to Rebecca Livermore and her class about creating low content books using PowerPoint. How many of you have seen that class? You can actually format your books like journals, you know, all sorts of things in PowerPoint or Google Slides.

So Kim Steadman says, I knew some of the things, but she taught me a few new ones as well. Like any student, I applied what I learned. I had a bunch of journal prompts sitting in a draft file. I pulled them out, played with new tips, I learned and in another hour I will have a draft journal ready for publication like no time at all. She said I'd been stalling on this project because I just didn't have an already purchased template that I wanted to use. Her class combined with the class that I'll be creating for Christian Book Academy, it's coming later. So so fun. She's going to be creating a class helping you figure out how to brainstorm ideas for your low content no content books. But she says there will be no reason why every author in here doesn't have at least one low content book as part of your book marketing strategy. Woohoo. So Kim, so excited for you. And I said to Kim, you'll probably have 40 new books this month now. And she's like, Shelly, you know me too well.

But also she also created a bonus training on how to use Google Slides with Rebecca's training. So I've added that in the member area. And then congratulations to Sherylee Swady who published her second book this week. Let's give her some kudos, some congratulations in the comments. I just know this semester we're going to be seeing this week after week after week people pressing publish on their books. And I loved Shirley's comments. Her book is called 16 Gifts from a Stepmom and she said it was in the virtual writing retreat two years ago. So you know we're having our virtual writing retreat this weekend and it was in a very similar retreat two years ago that she said, I saw the vision of the 16 gifts book and came up with the outline. The Lord used that retreat. So I encourage you to support her and to just plant a seed by helping her purchasing her book. The link is in the description, but congratulations Shirley. So excited for you and cannot wait to see for the rest of you as you continue, you know, to go through the publishing map to click Publish to see your book become a reality. It is so exciting.

Yeah. Amen. Congrats. Sheryl Lee and, you know, we mentioned road trips, and I was recently.

Reading a book by Anne Lamott called Bird by Bird. And, you know, in that book she just shares several helpful things for authors, just being an author herself. But she got an illustration from someone else that she said was some of the best advice she had ever received. She says many times people just, you know, her students that she teaches will constantly be saying, how can I get published? And, you know, how can I do this as soon as possible? And on and on and on. And she mentioned an illustration, you know, that had to do with. With road trips. And, you know, many times those of you that have been on long road trips and I used to actually, you know, drive to and from college, from the state of Oregon all the way out to Indiana. And in my younger days, sometimes I would actually pull all nighters or pretty darn close to it, where I'd stop driving at 3, 4 in the morning. Crazy, maybe getting to Grandma and Grandpa's in Wyoming. But I did a lot of night driving. And those of you that have done lots of night driving know that, you know, you. You may not be able to see much around you. It's dark, but your headlights illuminate about a hundred feet in front of you. So you're. You're essentially traveling 60, 70 miles an hour, only being able to see 100ft in front of you. You don't really get all of the scenery. You just know that you're making progress mile by mile, hour by hour. And eventually you get there with a road trip. And especially during the night driving, you have to sort of fall into that mode of we're going to get there, even though I can't see every point along the journey, sentence by sentence, we as authors are going to get there paragraph by paragraph. And pretty soon.

You know, here a year goes by and we're able to hit a publish button, maybe even sooner. Maybe you've been working on a book for six months and at one time you wondered, man, how am I going to get there? Everything just seems so dark. I can't see anything ahead. And yet, you know, the Lord took you by your hand, said, if you'll just follow, if you just listen to me, if you just commune with me, it's going to be exciting when we actually get there. You're going to, you're going to just trust me. When we get there, you're going to be glad that you did some of that night driving and that you couldn't necessarily see everything along the way. And, you know, some of us get a little impatient, you know, which is natural, you know.

But it's also good to remember that God is taking each of us through a unique process.

He's got something a little different. He's teaching every single one of us. He's maturing us in the process of writing, in the process of going through the steps of the publishing process. And, you know, some of us can get antsy, you know, like, are we there already? Sort of like the, you know, your kids, when they used to ask you on those long road trips every five minutes, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And you know, for the 20th time, you say, you know, we're not there yet. But, you know, hold on, partner, we're going to be there. Let's enjoy the ride. And of course, you give them all kinds of things to do in the backseat.

Well, I sometimes feel that way because CJ drives most of the time because he gets comfortable car sick if he doesn't. But now I can just open my Google Maps and I can put in the destination and usually I can see, okay, we have this much further now.

And that's cool about technology. But even, even with that technology, when you're doing driving at nighttime, you can still only see a hundred feet ahead of you, no matter what kind of technology you have. And so it just reminds us of a scripture know in Philippians 1:6, which says, and I am certain that God who began the good work within you will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. So what that tells us is we're all under construction, we're all under maintenance, we're all in process. And one day the work of our salvation is going to come to a completion and nothing else is going to matter when we look in the eyes of Jesus. But I believe there's these many processes along the way, and in our case, as writers, authors that are endeavoring to publish a book. And there is that process. And I just believe that the Lord who began. I believe it was the Lord who began the work in us. He birthed the idea. He says, son, daughter, would you join me in this journey? Writing a book, sharing your story, sharing your expertise in some particular area. Would you join me so that we can impact even more lives in this sort of miniature journey of publishing a specific book? And so each book is going to be like dialing in different destinations on that gps. It's going to take you through a different terrain, different scenery. Yes, there's going to be night driving involved.

And yet the bottom line is, no matter where you have your GPS set, when you're driving with the Lord, he's taking you through the process. And he does have incredible plans along the way. Even if we don't know detail by detail what that's going to be. And sometimes it drives some of us batty, but when we reach that destination, we hit that publish button. Wow. We can look back and hindsight's 20 20, isn't it? Like, this is what the Lord did inside me and this is how he's going to even bless others even more because of what he did inside me.

Yeah. And if you're here live or watching the replay, post in the comments. Where are you on the publishing map? So where are you in the process? And deanne says Jesus spoke this to to me in my journaling this morning about trusting him and staying focused on what he reveals to me and not fall into worry. It's so easy, right? To fall into worry, not to fall into works. He is my peace. He promises that we will eat the fruit of our labor and I love that. So thank you for sharing that encouragement, deann, but we are all in a different place.

Some of us are still in the first draft module, right? You're still in the first draft challenge and that's cool. Like you be where you need to be and let it take as long as it needs to take. But I was reading this morning in Genesis, Genesis 2, verses 15 to 17 and it says the Lord placed man in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, you may eat. You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden except the tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die. And I think most of us know what happened. You know, the the enemy tempted Eve and she ate of it and then gave it to Adam. He ate eight of it. Sin came into the world. But God was reminding me about this today that a lot of us worship.

The need to know. We idolize knowledge. So as you're walking through this publishing process, you may feel a little bit out of control at times. You may feel a little bit uncertain. You may not know exactly, like, ooh, how's this going to work out? How am I going to get my book formatted? Don't worry, we've got you covered. And in the training we give you a lot of options and we are here for you. In the Facebook group. You can always post if you have just follow up questions but sometimes we just want to hold on to that need to know. Have you ever been there, cj?

Absolutely. You know, sometimes it's a control kind of issue with each of us, but that need to know really boils down to. To trying to control every variable along the journey.

Yeah. So it is, it can be a form of control, which I know I've struggled with a lot. And I've talked about that in the past. God's working that out of me layer by layer. Part of it's because of some of the trauma that I went through as a young girl. And, you know, God's healing that layer by layer, it's a, it's a process. But I wanna, I want you to think about that today. Are you in this process of publishing? Are you content being where you're at today, or are you always thinking ahead? And like Deanna was saying, worrying or wanting, you know, feeling like you need to know, you need to have that knowledge? Or can you trust God that he is going to provide for you every single step of the way? And are you willing to, like we talked about last week, die to your need to know.

And just know that.

You have all of the step by step training in the member area. You have our help and our entire mentor team's help in the Facebook group. You are not alone. And, you know, also God had reminded me this week I was in my Luminate prayer journal, which I use and I created for myself, but it is available to purchase as well. And one of the last things is a time just to write out some worship to God. And in the back of the journal I have some different attributes of God as well as names of God. So it just gives you variety of how you can worship God. And I just needed some variety that day. So I looked back there and one of the first attributes of God is that he is omniscient. And what does that mean, CJ Means.

He'S all knowing, knows everything.

He every minute knows everything. And that all of a sudden it hit me because God was kind of.

Working a phrase or a thought out in my mind and I hadn't fully. Hadn't fully like sculpted it. You know, have you ever done that when you're working on a sentence or you're writing something? And.

What he gave me is that we can trust an unknown future to a God who knows everything?

Yeah, mic drop. And you know, that's what, you know, God was speaking to me because that's where often, like the worry and the control comes in. Is that unknown and there's going to be, like C.J. said, you know, when you're night driving or you're on a journey, there are going to be unknowns along this journey of publishing. And there are going to be things that you're going to have to deal with as they come up, whether it's a detour or, you know, something else. But let me repeat that again. We can trust an unknown future to a God who knows everything. And that just really made me just relax. And it was like, yes, I know. Corrie Ten Boom had a quote that we can trust our unknown future to a known God. Which I love that as well. But for me personally, this was something I needed this week. So this last weekend we saw it was going to be nice weather. And for my birthday this year, I'd asked for a ski pass. So I was like, cj, it looks like it's going to be really good weather on Sunday. What do you think about going into the mountains? And we went to Crested Butte. Gorgeous area. And it was a beautiful day, right? Picture perfect. Like, it was just amazing. So I'm skiing, and C.J. was doing some other things, running and other things. And so I was by myself. But I love that time. I don't know how many of you are introverts. I'm realizing I'm more of an introvert than I realized, but I love that time. And I was just asking God to speak to me, and he was bringing this back up to me, this whole phrase, you know, that I can trust an unknown future to a God who knows everything. And as I was skiing, I came across.

A group of people, and they were wearing these, like, vests. And the vests said, blind guide. And I was like, oh, my goodness, that person in the middle must be blind. And the people on each side of them was their guide. Can you imagine? Like, Colorado mountains are no joke. And she was skiing blind, but she had someone on each side. And then there was some sort of rope or some sort of rod or something that. That she was holding onto, and they were holding onto. There was another person that was navigating and making sure that there was no traffic. You know, as people were coming down, that would get in the way. But all of a sudden, God was like, bam. Shelly, this is what it looks like sometimes in your life you will feel like that blind skier that you can't see anything. You don't know what's ahead. You don't know what's next. You're not sure how it's all going to work out. But God was like, shelly, I am right beside you on each side. I'm holding you, I'm leading you. I'm guiding you. I am your eyes. I am seeing everything and how it's gonna all play out. And I was actually able to watch them, like, come down. And she made it safely down the entire mountain. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, that takes faith. Oh, just to do that in the natural. But God showed me that picture in the supernatural, that he is our blind guide, that he is our eyes into the unseen, that he is the one that knows every single thing in our future. And he's got it. He's taking care of it. And there was a couple scriptures that I came up with. You want to read those?

Yeah. So Matthew 6:8. God is greater. Actually, your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him.

So he knows what you need along this publishing journey. He knows exactly what you need even before you ask him. But we are to ask him because there's another verse. I didn't write this one down. But you have. Not because why you ask? Not because you ask. Not. So we're still to ask. But he knows. He already knows. And then in first John 3:20, part B, it says, God is greater than our feelings. How many of you know that? That worry, anxiety control, you know, all these things are feelings. As we're going through the publishing process, some of these feelings are going to come up. God is greater than our feelings. And he knows everything.

Again from scripture. He knows everything. You can trust an unknown future to a God who knows everything. Even when you feel blind and can't see the path ahead of you as you publish your book, God is with you on each side, leading and guiding you. I just want you to take a deep breath.

You are safe. Just like that blind skier on the mountain that I saw this past Sunday. You are safe. And God's got you. He knows. Whatever you need, just bring it to him. Keep asking him, you know, ask in our group, you know, get the help that you need. But you are safe. Safe.

Amen. So we're going to take our time. This is a point where we actually want to take one minute and have a one minute reflection. And we simply want to have you ask the question.

What is God saying to you today? You know, what is through, through what we've been talking about. Maybe even in your thoughts. You went down a rabbit trail. Other things that God brought to your mind. But what is it with you personally? And if you'd like, you can even Share those things in the comments. So we're going to take one minute and we're also going to play a little background music. And this is just again, a one minute reflection between you and the Lord.

All right, Some of you may want to take more time to journal through some of these things later, you know, that God has brought up. But if you're willing, if you're here live or on the replay, share with us in the comments. What were some things that God spoke to you or what were some things that came up for you during this time? As I was praying earlier for you and asking God, you know, did he have a specific picture or encouragement that he wanted me to share with you today, I got this picture of you, each one of you, you know, each member in our academy, like individually, just standing there and you were holding a brick.

And I just saw you holding this brick and God was, was showing me that Right now some of you are feeling like, you know, you're building something brick by brick by brick. You know, like C.J. said, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, one step at a time through that publishing map, through the publishing process. But you were just standing there holding the brick, and I saw you. And I don't know if this, I don't think this applies to everyone, but I really feel like there's someone listening, whether it's today or later on that you're holding this brick and you're wondering, is it worth it?

Is this work that I'm doing, is this next brick, this next brick, this next thing you know, is it even worth it? Why, you know, should I even finish? You know what is, you know what is, what is, you know what is going on. And I just want to tell you right now, it is worth it.

Your book matters. Your story matters, your words matter. It is worth it. Yes, you may face some obstacles, some detours. You may have to go around dead ends and find another way. But God is your guide. He is leading you. He is showing you. He. And I didn't see the picture of the finished project because you know it's going to be different for every single one of you. The bricks that you're holding, each one of you are going to be building something different. Some of you, it may not even be a building. It may be something else, you know, and so I didn't see the finished project. But I wanted to tell you today that it's worth it. And I want to ask you to do something this week. I want to ask you to ask God for a vision for the finished work. So see yourself holding that brick and then ask God, what is the vision that you have for the finished work? What is that going to look like? What is, what is going. What is possible once my book is published? What, you know, what is the vision you have for my book? You know, what, what is it that you're, you know, wanting to do? And maybe God, you know, speaks to you in pictures, maybe he doesn't, but just ask him for a vision. Maybe it's just simply holding that print book in your hands or seeing your book live on Amazon, your Kindle ebook, you know who? I don't know. But just, you know, that might be the vision that he gives you, but just ask him for a vision. And so I just, I'm going to have CJ Close us in prayer as, you know, as a group, and then we'll have a chance. If you have individual prayer requests, you can go ahead and type those in.

So, Father, we do thank you again just for this time. And we pray that.

You would bear much fruit through the words that you've spoken, through us, through these illustrations. Just this whole process of, you know, putting our head down, being able to write one word at a time.

One sentence at a time, one paragraph at a time. And I pray, Lord, that you would increase our trust, increase our faith, even though we can't always see the destination.

That we just continue to.

Put pen to paper or, you know, could be fingers to computer keys. And we just know that you're going to help us finish what you've birthed in us. And I just pray that each person would be given a confidence that comes from you, a deeper trust. And as Shelley said, we do ask that for each and every one of these CBA members that you would give them that vision. We know many times if we can have a vision of what that book may look like, it really can serve as fuel for many, many, many miles. And I just pray that you use those visions in unique ways for each and every member. We're going to give you the glory as we hear stories of each person being able to hit publish. And we're going to give you the glory for the ways that you use those finished books in people's lives around the world. So we'll give you the glory and the honor. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen.

God bless you guys.

Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Finisher series. It really means the world to us that you would time and be here with us today. So thank you. We have a free gift for you. We recently just made this available to the public. Previously was only available to the paid members in Christian Book Academy, but it's a copy of my publishing map. I hand drew and lettered this map out for you and it literally takes you through the steps of publishing your book and our members love this resource. Some have said they print it out and they use it every single time they publish a book. You'll also get access to a video of me explaining the publishing map to you and so I really hope that this also helps you overcome any confusion or overwhelm regarding independent publishing. And you can download this for free@trainingauthors.com publishing map or just swipe up and the link will be in your show notes. Thank you again for joining us. We love you all so much. See you next time.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers.