#284: Systems Can Be YOUR Secret Sauce

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.

Would you like to give get more done without exerting as much energy? That's exactly what having a system can help you do and what we're going to talk about today.

Yeah, my name is Shelley Hitz and I'm here with my husband cj CJ Hitz. And we have been mentoring writers for over a decade, helping you self publish your books in multiple formats using our publishing map and step by step system so. So that you can write words that outlive you and publish books that fulfill your calling.

In each of our trainings, we promise to share at least one thing that's going to help you write, self publish and market your books so that message of your books can impact lives. Today we're actually going to talk about how systems can be your secret sauce.

So we're going to just spend a few quick minutes talking about systems, especially when you're in the publishing step of getting your book out into the world. But you can use these at any time. So we're going to talk about three different things related to systems and how they can be your secret sauce. The first thing is, what is a system? What is it anyways? Well, in the simplest form, form a system is simply a checklist you create for a repeatable task. And so basically you're just writing out, okay, step one, I do this, step two, I do that. And you know, there's a few things that I have asked CJ to do for our business over the years and have a little checklist for him. Right.

I need a system.

Yeah, for me, for the accounting of our business. I look back at our checklist or our system that our accountants help set me up with with bookkeeping. I look at that every time I do it. So number two, how does having a system help? Well, basically, like we were just talking about, you save brain power because you don't have to think about what to do next. You simply follow the checklist. So when you're publishing, this is so important because there are so many details involved and there's so many different, like just different websites and the people you're hiring and all of that. And so having that checklist, that repeatable system that you can use time after time, even if you tweak it a little bit, it's gonna save a ton of brain power, a ton of energy. And so number three, what is the best way to start using systems? Just you can get started today by writing down the steps of the tasks that you do often as you're doing them. So I will tell you, it takes a little bit of time in the beginning because you're having to write this out, but oh my goodness, this has saved me so many times when there's something that I don't do as often. And when you're self publishing books, you're, you're not going to be self publishing a new book every day or every week, you know, it's, there's going to be months in between. And even for C.J. and I, we, between the two of us, we have written and published 68 books. You think it would come second nature. I still look at our systems, I still look at our checklist because it saves brain injury, brain power and energy, but also so I don't forget anything. And so inside Christian Book Academy, we help you progress through our kingdom writers path. That's first draft is the first stage, final draft is the second, self publish is the third, then we go into book launch and then finally the fifth step is to impact lives with ongoing marketing. And so as you're progressing through each of those five stages, we have checklists for you. So in the self publish module there's a checklist, in the first draft module there's a checklist. And then what I recommend that you do is when you join our academy and you are using those checklists then to start adapting them to what you do and the people you hire or the websites you go to and that way you have that ongoing. So let's just, you know, recap real quick. The three things. What is a system? It's a checklist of a repeatable task. Number two, how does it help? It saves brain power and energy because you don't have to think about what you're doing next. And number three, what is the best way to start using a system? Just simply write down the steps of what you're doing as you're doing it. And so let us know. Comment below or email us supportrainingauthors.com Will you start using systems to save time and energy? Takes a little bit of time up front, but it's so worth it. I've had people over and over through the years ask me, shelly, how do you get so much done? And I'll say, systems are my secret sauce. And guess what? Now they can be yours too. So I hope that you will try this. You can use this with anything in life. You can apply it to anything, but especially when you're in the process of self publishing, this is gonna save you so much headache, stress, but also brain power and energy the next time that you go to self publish a book. So thanks for being here today and we will talk to you next time.

God bless you guys.

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 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.

Sam.