#341: My Best Book Launch Yet (And Why)

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 Shelli 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.

In this episode, I'm going to share my best book launch yet and why. My name is Shelly Hitz and I'm one of the hosts here of the Kingdom Writers Podcast. But we are right now in the middle of our Kingdom Writers Conference. If you have been in a cave somewhere or you haven't heard, we are right now hosting our Courageous Writer Edition. This is to help you market your books, sell more books through collaborations. It's free right now and we also have an amazing opportunity for you to get our All Access Pass. So you can go and register@dommywritersconference.com and then once you register, you'll get a chance for about 20 minutes to get our best deal on the all access pass. About 5 over 50% off. You'll get all of the recordings so you won't have missed anything. Plus you'll get all of the bonus trainings from the speakers. This is going away, you know, in the future you may be able to purchase the presentations, but all of the bonus trainings will be going away soon. So make sure to go get signed up@domedywritersconference.com and when you're there and get the opportunity, I. I really encourage you to grab the All Access pass at over 50% off. All right, let's get into my best book launch yet. So I know how it feels to write a book that doesn't sell well. Honestly, like, I had no idea what I was doing when I published my first book in 2008. You know, I just wanted to write and share my testimony with teen girls, but I found out that it was difficult to know how to market it. And more than anything else, that book was a ministry and I gave away more books than I sold. But in December 2011, things took a turn because that's when Amazon launched the KDP select program. KDP is Kindle Direct Publishing. And you can go to kdp.Amazon.com you can upload your files and be published on Amazon. You can no fees or anything to do it. But the KDP select program is different. It's where you're exclusive to Amazon and they have some special opportunities for you. Well, when it first rolled out in December 2011, there were so many benefits to being part of it. And we heard about it and we initially enrolled our books in it in January, so the very next month. So we were really on the ground floor of this program. And that's when things finally started to change. So it was the summer of 2012 and God led me to write and publish my book, the Gratitude Journal. It was based on a 21 day gratitude challenge I went through myself when I was going through a really hard time. And I never thought I would publicly share it with anyone. I mean, it was literally my own Gratitude Journal. But once I decided to publish that book, God gave me an idea to launch it. And I felt led to invite my author friends to join me in a group promotion that I hosted on my website for the launch. And you know what? It worked. Everything went smoothly. I sold a lot of books, grew my email list, and even helped other authors sell books as well. And it was such a success because we were all working together towards a common goal. This was the first time I really witnessed how powerful collaboration could be to sell books. And the truth is, in order to become a successful author, you don't have to do it alone. I've seen it over and over again that when you're willing to collaborate with others, even just one other person, you'll often see faster results than you would otherwise. So that's why I'm super excited to share that we created the Kingdom Writers Conference Courageous Writer Edition for that very reason. To help you find the courage to step out, initiate purposeful partnerships, and sell more books using the power of collaborations. So right now, like I said, if you're listening in real time, we are in the middle of this conference and it will end on September 16th. We've assembled an amazing lineup of speakers who will inspire you with their stories and help you see how collaboration can lead to new opportunities for growth in your career. And you'll leave with a comprehensive understanding of how collaboration works today for authors and what it means for your success as a writer who has a bigger mission in the world to impact lives. Right? So make sure to go to kingdomwritersconference.com, grab your free ticket and if you're able to, to, I highly encourage you to grab that all access pass for over 50% off right after you register. But I can't wait to see you all there. We've been having a blast this week and registration will completely close soon. So if you haven't yet, make sure to go register@dommywritersconference.com and share with your writer Friends.

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.