A Powerful Success Story
Celebrating another client book launch!
I met novelist Tessa Burns at West Coast Christian Writers conference, where I serve on the board and faculty. Tessa was working on a Christian rom-com novel: an adorable story about a quirky young woman who wants to learn to cook and ends up saving a life (oh, and falling in love along the way!)
Tessa came to me for help in self-publishing her book.
Tessa Burns
After reading just the first few pages of Candace Can-Can Cook, I knew it was a project I wanted to take on: humor, depth, solid writing. I knew our team would be proud to partner with Tessa on this book.
Like every good novelist, Tessa had already sought out knowledgeable readers to give her feedback. She’d already had a line edit from a trusted editor, and made plenty of self-edits. She’d been working on it for quite a while—as good writers do. I gave the manuscript one more read-through, suggesting ways to make it stronger, pointing out a few places she could really make it shine.
It was a joy to work on this book because I could tell that Tessa had done a lot of work already but was open to my suggestions to take it to the next level. We began working together last December.
Tessa gave the manuscript a final polish. We worked together with my designer to create an adorable cover. (I think we had three or four revisions as we tweaked it but the end result is amazing). Don’t you agree?
We handled the interior page design, then set up her account on Kindle Direct Publishing, guided her through purchasing her own ISBNs and launched her self-publishing company.
(A Powerful Story is not a publisher. We provide assisted self-publishing services, along with editing and design, so that authors can have complete control of their own product.)
This week, I’m delighted to announce that Tessa finally released her book in paperback and ebook. You can see and order them on Amazon now!
Here’s what Tessa had to say about our partnership:
“Keri has been wonderful to work with as she guided me through the self-publishing process. Her expertise, patience, reliability, encouragement, and responsiveness made my first novel come to life. It has been a pleasure to work with her.”
Many writers want to rush. They think they can write a book in a month or two and self-publish it in a week. And you know what? They can. That is, they can if they want to put their name on a low quality product. Writing, revising, making sure the design is eye-catching—those things are worth taking the time to get right. I encourage writers I work with to focus on quality over speed.
Four months is not an unusual amount of time to work on revisions and the self-publishing process—after you’ve completed writing and even some intial edits. Even if your manuscript has been edited, you want to make sure it is the best it can be. Find another beta reader. Comb through it again. Make it shine.
Cover design takes a bit of back and forth as our designer creates a custom cover based on your input and ideas. Formatting and interior design takes some time as well. But investing time before you publish will help you to launch a book you can be proud of.
Learn more about Tessa and sign up for her newsletter on her website.
P.S. A blessed Good Friday and Happy Easter to all who celebrate!
This is such good advice, Keri. I just returned from a writing seminar that included a week on storytelling and a week on editing. Both instructors stressed the importance of quality over quantity and speed. Our editing speaker recommended at least three months for the editing process, AFTER putting the book away for a month to rest.
There is so much pressure to crank out book after book. But after writing six books in three years, all with tight deadlines that made it almost impossible to set a manuscript aside to simmer or not rush the editing process, I see the value in slowing down for the sake of quality. I don't regret those projects at all. I loved being part of two series of novels, and I learned a lot. But now that I'm working on a project that flows from my own heart, I'm taking my time to write it well.
I was introduced to Substack by A Powerful Story, and I’ve found numerous substacks to follow! A Powerful Story, however, is most useful for my own writing endeavors (I don’t call it a career because I haven’t released anything yet, but I know that day is coming…) Thank you for pointing out that good things are worth fighting for and that you can get good and cheap or good and fast, but not all three. I look forward to sharing my finished rough draft with you in the coming months!