#268: Publish with a Purpose: Start with a Short Kindle eBook

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 this training all about publishing with a purpose. My name is Shelly Hitz.

And I'm CJ Hitz.

And we are the writing mentors and owners of Christian Book Academy, where we help you write words that will outlive you. And so today, we're going to be talking about publishing and the power of starting with a short Kindle ebook. So a lot of times, writers come to us and, you know, have books that have been on their heart for years, sometimes decades. You know, we've had people that said they've been dreaming of publishing a book for 50 years. And a lot of times, you know, you'll have this book that it's almost like your life's work, right? Like, you just imagine this book, you know, just being an incredible resource and impacting so many lives. And we want you to publish a book like that. However, if this is new to you or, you know, if you're not doing this full time, you know, it may take some time to get a book like that done. And so. And also, there's a lot of pressure, right? And so one of the things that really can help when you're getting started is to say, let me start this whole journey of publishing with a short Kindle ebook. Something that's really familiar to me, that I can write really well, really quickly, but then a Kindle book is cheaper, and, you know, get the experience of what it's like to publish a book. And so, you know, there are so many reasons to consider writing a short Kindle ebook. Now, CJ and I, we have really done a lot of this, and over the years, we have written books in what we've called our 21 Days series. And so we would have, like, 21 Days of Generosity challenge. That's one of CJ's books. And then 21 Days of Generosity or 21 Prayers of Generosity, and then 21 Stories of Generosity. So it was three small ebooks. We did also a series. I wrote a series on gratitude, a series on faith. And people really like these books. They're short, they're to the point. And, you know, personally, we have been writing these kind of books for years. And, you know, way back in 2012, one of my first series that I did that of short Kindle ebooks was. Was on vegetarian recipes. Believe it or not, I was a cookbook author.

We've since retired those books. They're no longer available, available for sale. But I still use the recipes and I still have my cookbook and use it sometimes. But we've been doing this for a long time and you know, actually I think people enjoy reading shorter books most. Most of the time too. You know, if you're able to encourage or inspire or entertain or answer their problem. You know, sometimes if a fiction book is too short, some people will feel cheated. You know, if it's like a novella and it's just too short. But most of the time, people I think, enjoy that.

Yeah. And so it works two ways. You know, where the reader feels like they've accomplished something.

Yeah.

By finishing that in a short amount of time. We all like to have that start and finish, you know, kind of neatly tying the bow and finishing something. But as the writer, this can also be a quick win.

Right.

You know, it's a way that we can build momentum off of that. That thing that we finished. And sometimes we just need to get over that first hump.

Yeah.

And once you get something out there and we're not talking about just quickly throwing something out there that's not very good quality, we're talking about still throwing your good work out there, whetting people's appetites. You may find that you still like to do the. The short stuff for years, but. But then it might be leading up to something that is longer. But it's really nice to sort of jump over that first hurdle and hit the publish button.

Yeah. So if you have been stuck, okay. Raise your hand, reach out, let us know. Have you been stuck in finishing a book? If you've been stuck, I want you to seriously consider this. I want you to think about.

What can I do? Maybe even put that project on pause for a minute. And what is something I could do that is quick is something I know really, really well and that I could publish as a Kindle book and have a quick win. So I really believe anyone can write and publish a short kindle book in 90 days. You know, we have done 90 day publishing challenges in Christian Book Academy and I really believe that you can. The reason I believe that sometimes it doesn't happen is because you're still wanting to do that bigger book. You know, you're still wanting that you want to finish that bigger book in 90 days, which sometimes you can. It depends on the time you have. But I want to encourage you, if you've been stuck, consider doing a shorter book. So what are some examples? Well, C.J. and I, we have a.

A contract with a subscription box company, and they actually like the shorter books because they're not as heavy for shipping. You know, it fits into their boxes better. And so we have been writing a lot of those books, and a lot of them tend to be more devotional style. And, you know, C.J. wrote a book, Encounters with Jesus. And how many devotionals did you have in that book?

That one's 21. So the subtitle is 21 Days of.

Of Drawing Close. Drawing close to the sun.

Yeah.

Saying I have a heart for prayer, which is 21 days of drawing close to Father God. So, yeah, It's. It's that 21 that. That seems to be a sweet spot for me. Now, for you, it might be different. You might say, seven ways to improve your carpentry skills. You know, and you've got seven things that fit into that, say, less than 100 pages.

Yeah. And so for me, when I was thinking about what can I publish for writers, that's something I know really well. It would, you know, be able to be easy to write. I was thinking about how to publish a Kindle book, and it's seven steps, and it's my procrastination of publication book. And people love it. It's quick, it's to the point, but it solves a problem. So we're all busy. We all have a lot to do. Therefore, if I personally or your target audience can find one book to read quickly, get their question answered, and move on, I think we're all happy campers, Right? And so that's what this book procrastination of publication does. And a short book is easy for your readers to consume. I have to admit, I have a lot of books sitting around here at home or on my Kindle that I have never finished, especially nonfiction, because you get into them and it's like, whew, this is a big book. And I don't have time to. I mean, sometimes I just wish there was like, a Cliff Notes version, which a lot of times there is. But, you know, some readers could finish reading, you know, procrastination of publication over their lunch hour if they wanted to. They have the links, they have the resources, and now they can go do it. And so. So the best part, like CJ Said about writing a shorter book, is that it's quicker to write. It's a quick whim. And, you know, your book can be a Quick win for the reader to develop momentum for them. And it can be momentum for you in your writing career because you're getting something out there. And what I find and what I've seen. C.J. it's been a decade that we've been mentoring writers. Can you believe it?

Over this past decade, over and over again, I've seen it give writers confidence. You get that first book out there, you're a published author, you start getting feedback, reviews, you get on the bestseller list, and all those things that are just kind of fun to do as a writer. And yet it's like, wow, I can do this. And so there will be book projects that take more time. There will be projects that take more research. There will be projects that you're going to have to pour your heart and soul into. And yet we also encourage you to look for books that can be those quick wins for you. Another way to have a short Kindle ebook is to repurpose. So recently CJ And I published our most recent book. And it was exciting because I personally didn't publish a book in 2020. C.J. did. He had a couple books, but I was busy rewriting the curriculum for CVA for Christian Book Academy. But we just recently published our book, 50 Days of Praying God's Promises. And that book actually was a book that we repurposed content that we had created for other things. And so that's another way that, I mean, it's going to be. It's a great book. It has just short prayers based on scriptures. And yet it was content that we had written for Our Living Colors Online.com membership for coloring pages. And, you know, it was just a really great way to combine some things that we had already written. And it was a quick way to get a book done. And so, you know, when you're thinking about writing a short Kindle ebook, that book can also be print. We're not saying you can't have it in print. We've had books as small as like, 60 pages that we still put in print. And so, you know, you can do that. But to get the momentum to get the quick win, I recommend stick with Kindle, just do a Kindle book because it's cheaper, it's easier, it's less like, details to have to figure out, and you'll get it done. And then you can always turn that into a print book later. But one of the questions I'm often asked is, how long should a short Kindle ebook be? So for short Kindle ebooks, I recommend a length of about 10,000 words. So, you know, that would equal to about 60 to 70 print pages. And you know, this is the length of most of our short ebooks. And however, your book can be anywhere from 6,000. My Prayers of Gratitude book. It's about, I think, 6,600. I don't know, it's really short and, you know, up to 20,000 words. So, you know, I would say somewhere around 100 print pages and under, you know, not too much more than that, but that just gives you an idea. It doesn't have to be your, your thesis, you know, your life thesis. You want it to be good. And that's why we take you through the steps in Christian Book academy of exactly what to do, how to self edit, how to get a professional editor, the formatting and book cover. You want it to be quality, but it doesn't need to take years and years to finish.

Yeah.

So, cj, why don't you pray for each one of us and pray that God would just give wisdom to each kingdom writer that's listening right now, whether or not they are to continue with their current project, if they're to start a shorter project, get that momentum, or what, what is the next project that God has for them?

Father, we do come to you just thanking you for inspiring us to be writers, to endeavor to publish books that encourage and inspire others. And we ask specifically that you'd give us wisdom regarding.

What we're to do, whether to continue on a bigger book project or to.

Change directions and write a shorter Kindle book or even something that can be put into print. So we pray that for those listening right now, those watching, we pray that you would give them wisdom going forward, give them a clear direction that they would even have ideas come to mind regarding their personal expertise and the things that they're passionate about writing. I pray that you'd give them ideas.

On how to go about writing a shorter book and getting that quick win. And we just pray that every book that goes out would be something that you use in powerful ways to encourage and inspire. So we're going to give all this to you, Lord, and we thank you for this episode, that it would be glorifying to you and edifying to those that stumble across it. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. So the other thing I know from working with writers for over a decade is that many of you tend to overthink things and are perfectionists. So getting a short Kindle ebook done and out is your challenge. If you have not published a book yet. Let's do this. And we are excited to be in this with you, cheering you on, praying for you again. We will talk to you soon.

Love you guys.

Love you. Bye bye.

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 to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers.