My biggest hopes and dreams for this book is that people can start truly separating their identity from the pain or sickness they’ve undergone, and truly walk in healing and freedom, regardless of what culture is trying to tell us. However, this blog post is focused on the specific process for it to get there.
At the start of 2019 I thought it would be easy to push through the “last” step of the process, little did I know everything that would unfold. When you self-publish it’s challenging because you don’t have a team at your disposal. The first step was putting together an editing team that would be willing to read through my book on a timeline and make necessary and sometimes uncomfortable comments/adjustments. This process in full took about 9 months, something my impatient self was hoping to be finished in TWO. But rushing the finale after the years and hours of writing wasn’t worth it.
Then came the formatting, this was probably the biggest challenge. Adding a copyright page, figuring out spacing for headers, chapters, and the overall book took so many edits from .doc to .pdfs. Lulu did a great job of giving templates and overall help, but it was still up to me to piece this nearly 200 page puzzle into a perfect flow.
Every day, every minute of this process was challenging mostly because from April – June I was recovering from surgery and underlying health issues, and July-now exhaustion and “morning” sickness. It was tumultuous, but I also felt convicted to push forward and finish these words that can only be attributed to Him.
So, November came and it was a race to the finish I settled in to put in the final work and edit after edit and I started to get frustrated it would never happen, but THEN the first week in December it all came together. It was time. How it works with Lulu is that they send you an author copy for each revision, and if everything looks good you accept and it gets pushed to global distribution. BUT for every error or alignment issue you find its starting that all over again, so you can imagine the relief when the pages seemed to come together!
My hopes would have had this pushed in March, but that quickly got derailed and then it was simply before the holiday season, then before Christmas, and on December 30th, 2019 it finally made its way to the website. (We are still a couple weeks from being available on Amazon and other large retailers, but its helpful if you buy it off Lulu so my ranking can go up in one space)
What a breath of fresh air, meeting a goal not on my timing, but I truly felt it was God’s.
This week has been beautiful, so many friends getting behind this work and helping support me, and I pray it finds its way into the hands of those that its supposed to. Patience is a fruit of the spirit that is a daily battle and surrender, but regardless of what my plan is He will be glorified.
If you want to check it out here you go: http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/jordan-woodson/fueling-her-forward/paperback/product-24359656.html
Thank you for journeying with me!
Fueling Her Forward 