#354: Publish with a Purpose: 5 Ways Publishing a Short Kindle eBook Will Save You Money

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.

And we are going to talk today about five ways that publishing a short Kindle ebook will save you money. So I know that many of you have dreams of publishing a book. Maybe you have even had a literal dream. You have woken up from a dream and you had that book idea that God has put on your heart and you have maybe big projects and big dreams and big things. But I want you to consider that, you know, it is not always about dreaming big, but it is about dreaming with God. And today God may be inviting some of you to step into a smaller project first. Maybe instead of plowing ahead with some of these big things and then getting stuck in the details and never having hitting published anyone in that position, it just feels so overwhelming and you get stuck. What if you would consider publishing a short Kindle ebook and not saying that's the end of the story, but that would just get you started. So there are many reasons to consider starting with a short Kindle ebook or even if you've already written books, to consider writing another one. C.J. and I have been doing this for years. We've been publishing since 2008. We have over published over 70 books and God has just blessed it. I never dreamed of being a writer. I never did. C.J. did. But God invited us into this and it is just been an amazing and amazing ride. Been very hard, very difficult. I quit my physical therapy job over 10 years ago. So we have been doing this full time for ten and a half years. And it has been tough at times, but God is always, you know, providing what we need. And he has blessed so many lives through our, our simple steps of obedience. Have I made mistakes along the way? Too many to count. But God is with us. He's with you. And some of the small books we've written have went on to become bestselling. We, I, we've, we've written a series like 21 day series. So we have a series on gratitude, on faith, on generosity. So CJ wrote the one on generosity and I wrote the other two. But there's one like small book, 21 prayers of gratitude. And then there's one 21 days of gratitude challenge. And then there's, you know, another one 21 stories of gratitude. Those were all published as small Kindle ebooks first and have just went on to do so much more. And so then, you know, we were able to put them in print later when we noticed there was a demand and people were enjoying them and being changed and impacted, impacted for eternity with them. And I have so many examples of the books that we have done over the years. But let's dive right in. You know, you can become a published author for the first time by publishing a short Kindle ebook. You know, you can add that to your bio, you can add that to another place of influence that you can have. But even if you already have books published, you can publish a short Kindle ebook that will help build your platform. So in the beginning and the end of the book, we always recommend adding a call to action to your lead magnet to your email list. And at the end of the book, you can add an excerpt call to action to read the next book in this series or your other books. So these can also just be marketing tools for you as well. But there's two benefits. Before we get into the five ways it saves you money, there's two benefits. The first is it's a win for your readers. A short book is easy for your readers to consume. Now, specifically for this conference, we've tried to make all the presentations around 15 to 20 minutes. Even the opening presentation. CJ's part in that opening presentation was around 15 to 20 minutes. We've tried to make it easy for you to consume this conference. Have you found that to be helpful for you instead of having an hour or 90 minute presentations to consume? Yeah, you know, you've been able to consume them. And the same thing goes for sometimes for books. And so somebody can read a short Kindle ebook over their lunch hour or when they have a few minutes, they can, you know, easily get through your, your content. And, you know, it has a feeling of satisfaction. You know, people often enjoy reading shorter books. I mean, there's lots of us that enjoy, you know, a good novel, right? It's just long, it's, you know, whatever. But sometimes when I need something, I just, I just want, I just want something short to the point and you know, to entertain me or I need to solve that problem. And so a short book is a win for your readers. It's easier to consume. But also, how many books do you have on your shelves or even on your virtual Kindle bookshelf that you've never read? You know, you start getting into it and it's just like, and so you can actually help people more because they're actually going to read it. Amen. They're actually going to consume it. And then God is able to show up and impact their lives through it. So one of the benefits is that it's a win for your readers. There's the second benefit is, is it's a win for you because it's quicker to write. And so I believe almost anyone can write a short Kindle ebook in 90 days. But some of you already have the content. It's on your blog. It's. It's in your first draft of this huge book. And you could just take out a piece of that to publish as a shorter kindle ebook. But 90 days is very doable. But a lot of you could do it even quicker. You know, when some people have come into our academy and they published a book within 14 days, because Jennifer Nelson, I think that was you. And she is here live right now. But, you know, you can do it faster, too. But I believe anyone with any time limits can at least, you know, get it done in 90 days, three months. And so it is doable to fit into your life. Plus, it's a quick win for you, and it builds momentum. Have you ever heard of the Debt Snowball by Dave Ramsey? CJ And I were in so much consumer debt after we came back from being missionaries in Belize. We were starting at zero and we made some poor decisions, bought two vehicles, you know, all the things we had to buy. All this stuff coming back from the mission field. Well, anyways, we were in a difficult position and we used Dave Ramsey's Debt Snowball to pay off all of our debt. And basically, you start with the smallest one, you pay it off, you get that quick win, and then you roll whatever the minimum payment was for that into the next one, you pay that one off, and it builds momentum. He calls it the debt snowball. Well, I believe that when you publish a short Kindle ebook, if you've been stuck, if you've been procrastinating, if you've been in a place where you know that God is supposed to, you know, is calling you or inviting you to do this, and you just feel overwhelmed, this can be a quick win for you and build momentum for the other books coming later. Because I believe most of you have more than one book in you. Anyone? Anyone? You have more than one book in you. I believe most of you do. And so it will build momentum for those that come behind. And so it is a quick win for you. And guess what? You get to learn the process of self publishing. The first book is the hardest. C.J. i think just recently said that on one of the presentations, the first book is always going to be the hardest. So why not make it a little easier on yourself while you're learning the process and start with a short Kindle ebook and then you can rinse and repeat. And so those are just a couple things before we just get into the meat of five ways publishing a short Kindle ebook will save you money. And you know, it's not just about saving money, but that's kind of been the overarching theme of this conference. But I want you to think about impacting lives and the readers that will be on the other side of your books. When CJ and I published our first book, we were speakers. We weren't writers or authors at the time, but I published my first book to have it, speaking Engagements for Teen Girls. And now that book has gone around the world. Many people have emailed us and continue to email that they have accepted Christ because of that book. And you know, we have then went on to publish 70 books in all. And it is just, it blows my mind what God has done. And a lot of those 70 books are short Kindle ebooks. That is how we have been able to publish so many, right?

Telling you my secrets, but no, but we found that people like them, they, they enjoy them and we got good reviews and good feedback and God was using it. And so let's, let's talk about the five ways publishing a short Kindle ebook will save you money. So number one, less words means editing will cost less. You know, most editors will charge by the word or by the project. And it's just a no brainer. The more words that you have, the longer it's going to take them. You're paying them for their time. And so the shorter book that you have, the less you're going to pay for editing. So number one, less words means less cost on editing. Number two, you don't have to buy an ISBN. Anybody not know what an ISBN is? It is the number that your book gets and you put that on the copyright page and it's your identifier. You know, it's, it's what goes with that book. And basically you have to have one for every print book. You know, there's lots of rules. This is not a presentation on ISBN but for, for Kindle ebooks, you don't need it, you don't have to buy it, you don't have to spend that extra money on that. You can Use what? Because you know, Amazon gives you an asin. That's their identifier number for Kindle books. It's free. Every Kindle book gets one. And the thing I love about not giving my ebooks an ISBN is if I ever want to make updates to my book title, if I ever want to make updates to the book in general, I don't have to retire that ISBN and then give it a new ISBN because there's no ISBN tied to that specific Kindle book title. You have freedom to change it. You have freedom and you don't have to go through all those extra steps. And so that's, that's a great benefit too, but you just don't have to pay for it. So ISBNs, you can buy them@myidentifiers.com typically, you know it's going to be $100 or more. You'll save that if you're, if you start with a short Kindle ebook and then with so number one, less words means what? Less cost editing. Number two, you don't have to pay for an ISBN. Number three is you only need the ebook, you just need the ebook only cover. So you can always take that cover and adapt it later to publish a print book if you want to. We've done that many times. We've published an ebook, found that it's selling really well, and we're like, okay, we're going to put this in print and you can then adapt that cover. But when you're just starting off with an ebook, all you need is that front cover piece. You don't need the, you know, the spine or the back cover. And so it saves you money. Most book cover designers will charge you a lot less for an ebook only cover than the print and ebook cover combined. Now if you do want to leave your options open for publishing a print book later, then what I recommend is first of all make sure that they're all the pictures, all the images, all of their designs are in print quality. Which in graphic design means 350 dpi. You don't need to understand all the technical stuff. Just tell your graphic designer. I want the ebook cover to make sure it's in print quality so that if I want to do the print book later, I can and then always get the original files. We talked about this in the book covers on a budget presentation. But you want to get the Photoshop files, you want to get the original files and that way it's much easier to adapt it if that designer is not available later to do it for you, others can. And so you know when you're choosing a ebook only option. Number one, less words. And it's a short Kindle ebook. Less words means less editing, right? Number two, no sbn. Number three, you just get the ebook only cover. And number four, formatting costs are typically less and it's easier to diy. So you know, also if you hire someone to format your book, they're also going to take into account how many pages, how many images, how many footnotes and references and charts and you know, all of the things. So the simpler, the shorter your book, the less that you could pay for that. But then also a shorter book's just easier to learn the formatting yourself. If you're learning the process for the first time, maybe using Atticus or Word or something else like we've talked about in this conference, then doing it with a short Kindle ebook is going to be a lot easier. Learning curve Print books. You have to get everything exactly right. The margins, the page numbers. I mean, everything has to be perfect. And obviously we can always change it with self publishing. Can I get a hallelujah? If you find something later, you can go back and change it. You're not stuck. So don't worry about being perfect because I know many of you are perfectionists. Any perfectionists in the house?

But with the Kindle ebook only, the formatting is just a lot simpler. So, and typically it can be a little bit easier for that. But definitely if you're hiring out, I think the cost would be a little bit less for that. And then so number one, less words means less editing. Number two, no ISBN. Number three, it's an ebook only cover. Number four, formatting can typically be less or easier to do. And number five, because it's quicker to write, guess what? You get to profit faster.

Instead of waiting for years to start making money or to start earning royalties or to start impacting lives, you are going to get there a lot quicker. So with our 21 day series, the long term goal that I had was to have one big book that had all three books in it. And like the 21 prayers of gratitude and the Gratitude Challenge and the Stories of Gratitude, those all would be short Kindle ebooks that I would release as I'm writing the book. So I was like releasing one third of the book and getting paid to do it. Right, right. You see what I'm doing here? And then I'd release the second third of the book, get paid to do it, and then the third. And when I was doing the stories part, it was an anthology which a lot of other people were contributing to. I didn't have to write it all and they were all helping me promote it. So that was that. That's a little, little extra nugget for you. But I was able to start making money as I was writing the book. Is this giving anyone ideas for a series that maybe you could do? But then at the end, we took all three and combined it into one big book called A Life of Gratit. And so there's a lot of ways that you could do this. But the long and the short of it is the quicker you're able to press the publish button, the quicker God's able to use your book to influence lives and the quicker you're able to get to profit, which in the end does, typically, does technically, I guess, save you money, right, because it's earning you more money. So let's review again, 5 Ways Publishing a short Kindle ebook will save you money. Less words is what, less editing. Two, no ISBN. Three, ebook only cover. And four, formatting costs typically less or just easier to do yourself. And then five, you're quicker to profit, quicker to influencing people's lives. So the book length, I know you've already, some of you have already asked in the comments, and this is a question I get all the time. Well, Shelley, you always, you know, I've been talking about this for years and years and years. So you were like, well, what length of book is good to start with? And I want to tell you there's no one answer, but I Recommend Anywhere from 6000 words. Yes, as few as 6000 words. That's our My Prayers of Gratitude book. It's about 6,000 7,000 words. That's it. And it has sold like gangbusters. You can anywhere from 6,000 to 20,000. So some of you have written 6,000 word blog post, right?

Come on, come on, admit it. You know, some of you have this content already that could then lead into your series or could be a series, but, you know, maybe think about around 10,000 words. Now the thing is, when it's a print book, it's going to equal about 60 to 70 pages. These are really small books, but we've put these in print as well, and they're small, but it's good.

People love them and we've used them for a lot of different ways. And one way that we've used these books is a subscription box company has purchased 10,000 copies of our book. Because they're small, they don't Weigh much. They can fit in their subscription box company or in their subscription box with the weight and the shipping and everything. And so it's opened up opportunities for us that I never even knew would open when we started, you know, publishing these short Kindle books all those years ago, back in 2012. So there's so many options that you can have. I want you to be thinking, you know, is this an option that God wants me to do?

Father, I just thank you for each one that is listening right now, watching. We pray, Lord, that you would pour your wisdom out upon each one.

Yes.

I pray that you would allow their, their niche, their talent, their giftings to rise up, that it become clear the very style that they're gifted in, that they would really be able to home in on that area and that you would bless that. I pray, Lord, that each person here would have those aha. Moments of, oh, I didn't see it this way, or I see that from a different perspective. I pray that you would allow people to even see from your. Your vantage point that you would give them the vision that you have for their lives and that we would all be able to rise up in that and to be able to see from your perspective. So I pray that you would give us that vision, give us that clarity. And I pray that each person here would make progress in the specific writing niche that they're called to. And we give you this, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. So how many of you would consider publishing a short Kindle ebook? Anyone? You know, like I said, it can be a marketing piece. It can be the short novella that leads into your series. It could be the short book that then leads into your other books. It can also just be your quick win. Let's get published. Let's learn the process. Let's not take years. And you know, CJ and I have been saying this for a while now. I mean, and many of you know this. I mean, we. We don't know the day or the hour that Jesus is going to return, but it sure feels like it's getting soon, doesn't it? You know, and why not? Why not release the words into the world a little sooner than waiting and waiting and waiting?

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 by Christian Book Academy, where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.