What a whirlwind the last few months have been. Between edits, meetings, marketing, working my other jobs and raising my fantastic kids (2 graduated this spring!), I’ve barely had a chance to catch my breath.

I thought I’d share a bit of what our publishing timeline has looked like as well as some new developments and upcoming events!

We received the coveted email from Cedar Fort saying, “Thank you for sending us Women in the Book of Mormon: Flames of Faith. We have had a chance to review it, and we love it and would like to publish it!” (Note the name change!)

Mechel’s email to me: “Yayyyyyyy!”

My sentiments exactly!

At this point I was in Hawaii with Matt’s siblings. Needless to say, we celebrated together!

Signing the paperwork proved to be a bit of a nightmare due to technical difficulties but we got it done! 

Then I lounged on the beach with my laptop, completing assignments and pondering potential titles in between dips in the sea!

I drove to Bentonville for this meeting with my wonderful coauthor, Mechel, and Cedar Fort’s fabulous marketing director Vikki Downs (now Butler – congrats Vikki!). She spent all the time we needed, filling our brains with more info than we could possibly take in, then following it up with a great informational email so we could remember everything we’d forgotten.

She taught us marketing strategy and how a book launch should progress. Perhaps her best words of advice were when she told us there’s tons of marketing you can do. The options really are endless. But your resources are not. Don’t try to do everything!! (Great life advice, incidentally). Prioritize and do what you have time, money, and energy for.

We also refined and submitted several bios for the book, the catalog, and other marketing. We also submitted title and cover blurb ideas and received the final title of the novel – Forbidden Faith.

The wonderful designers at Cedar Fort shared the front cover with us in December. Can we just say wow? They are amazing!

After that, we waited for word and spent the time enjoying Christmas with family and friends. Thank you, Cedar Fort, for the holiday reprieve!

It’s go time with edits. We received subedits and copyedits Kaitlyn Barwick and her fabulous editing team in February and early March. It was quite the experience learning how to navigate the online documents, track changes between lots of people, and make sure every detail was consistent!

In March we received proofs of the catalog entries for our novel, including our bios, and book summary. This is used for marketing the novel to various online and brick and mortar bookstores. We also submitted our dedications (they’re in the front of the book) and acknowledgements (in the back). Writing these was way more stressful for me than I’d expected!

We received the final proof and had a short time to blaze through it verifying there were no errors (let’s hope!!). We also received a reveal of the full cover from Shawnda Craig and the talented design team. They do gorgeous work. Mechel and I couldn’t be more pleased!

We learned more detailed marketing and strategy from Vikki. Among other things, we set up our amazon author pages and worked on our websites and social media. I started creating inspirational memes related to the novel. Mechel approached Barnes and Noble about hosting a book signing and they agreed!

AUTHOR COPIES

On June 11, Cedar Fort informed us our novel has reached their warehouses. Mechel requested her author copies to be shipped. I delayed due to reunions out of phone range. When I ordered mine, we learned that Cedar Fort had completely SOLD OUT!! So…mine are on back order waiting for the second print run!

RANKINGS

During the first weeks of pre-order sales, Forbidden Faith earned a #1 Bestselling New Release ranking on amazon thanks to all of our wonderful friends, family, and fans!!

Website: Over the upcoming weeks, be watching for changes to my website, with pages, posts and videos being added about Forbidden Faith!

Pinterest: We are building a Forbidden Faith Pinterest page to share our inspiration for the book, blog posts, and images that take us into the story.

Facebook: From July 1-10, Mechel and I are posting videos with us reading excerpts from Forbidden Faith. Check them out and please share, share, share!

Youtube Channel: Stop by here for video sneak peeks, writing updates, and life insights

Newsletter: I’m prepping to launch a newsletter in the next month or so. We will explore courage, faith, family, and share writing updates and exclusive content! Sign up here  🙂

July 10 Forbidden Faith is officially launched!

July 12 Facebook Launch party! Join the party for giveaways, sneak peeks, and insight into our tag-team writing process. 6-8pm central time.

July 14 Book signing with both authors at Barnes & Noble in Rogers, AR noon-4pm.