I am a beginner in the self-publishing world, but it has been an exciting start. THE AMAZING POTENTIAL OF ONE SURRENDERED CHURCH is not a candidate for a publishing house, yet is a useful tool in the hands of a pastor who desires to open up new ministry vistas for his leadership team. So, self-publishing appeared as the next step to take for this manuscript.
And it is proving to be an education! There are many experts out there, who can tell you a lot more than I can. But I am thankful for some colleagues who have gone down this road ahead of me and can share the lessons they have learned. Learning to work with the online tools for formatting and proofing has been terrific, and very time consuming.
But the biggest challenge is distribution. Without the built-in channels of a publishing house, the self-published author has to do a lot of strategizing and labor. One of my major strategies is to ask friends I have made over the years to distribute a complementary copy to church leaders in their area. This will get the book into leaders hands so they can see its value for their church. Giving away books is an expensive distribution plan! I am praying that as leaders see the value of this tool, they will order copies for their colleagues, thus replenishing our supply to print and mail more books. I can do this only because I am not funding this project personally, nor am I receiving any royalties from it. I am much more excited about hearing stories of churches helped toward greater effectiveness.
So the adventure continues!
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