So… about that secret project I’ve been working on…

The cat is finally out of the bag, y’all! For the past couple months (which seems like a lot of time for what it is, but I’ll explain later), I’ve been working on making a paperback edition of my permafree nonfiction book for Christian authors, Writing by Faith!

Why didn’t I release a paperback version earlier this year when the eBook released, and why did I decide to five months later? Good questions. Scroll on down to find out. 🙂

So, Back in February…

My 28th birthday marked my fifth year as a published indie author back in February, so my Number One Goal for this year was to publish Writing by Faith on that day, for all the sentimental value. Since I finished writing the book at the end of November last year, this gave me very little time to edit the book, have my sister who is a graphic designer make the cover, and prepare paperback files. So, in order to get the book out in time, I settled on editing and preparing the eBook–which is the format that meant most to me, considering I intended it to be permafree–for publication.

To be honest, I also had reservations earlier on about publishing Writing by Faith as a paperback. My reason for making it a permafree eBook was so that anyone who wanted a copy could have access to it. With a paperback, you have to charge a certain amount to cover printing costs.

What Changed My Mind?

What changed my mind about the paperback situation was all the love you guys, my readers, have shown Writing by Faith since its release. I have been absolutely overjoyed by the praise and support the book has received, and thank God for allowing it to make an impact on the Christian author community. All the glory goes to Him for giving me the testimony that inspired the book.

Some reviewers have noted that Writing by Faith has a devotional feel to it, and though I didn’t fully intend for it to come across that way when writing it, I agree it could work as one. Then I got to thinking–what if groups of Christian authors wanted to do a group-read of the book? It would work so much better with paperbacks than eBooks, especially if everyone didn’t have access to an e-reader device or phone (I’m fully thinking of preteen writers here). So, the idea seed was planted.

When Did I Start Preparing the Paperback?

Back in May, I figured all I would need to do was export the interior paperback file I had messed around with back in January from Atticus, Dave Chesson’s book writing and formatting software. Haha, wrong.

For those of you who are new to Authoring Arrowheads, Writing by Faith was originally twelve blog posts that I posted each month throughout the course of 2021. To compile the document for publication, I copied and pasted all of those blog posts into a Google Doc file, downloaded it and edited it in Word, and then uploaded that to format in Atticus. Atticus didn’t like this one bit, and, due to all the different formatting the document had been through, it wouldn’t export a paperback file for me. After two weeks of trying to fix the issue myself, I had to contact their customer support team, who did an awesome job and fixed the issue for me after another week.

Then came June, where I needed to get with my sister on making the paperback cover. Long story short on this, when I first started asking my sister to do my book covers, she was working part-time, and had more free time to work on them. Now, she has a full-time job, and just got engaged, so she has a full plate. Therefore, it took a while for us to get together to get the cover made.

When and Where is it Available?

Writing by Faith‘s paperback is available on Amazon, and its expanded distribution services, as of today (July 22nd, 2022), for $5.99. I may try to release it as a paperback for other vendors, but my next goal for this year is to edit and release book two in my YA romance trilogy, so if my current interior and cover files won’t work for those vendors, that will just have to do for now.