Self-Publishing A Personal Testimony: On Becoming A Believer

Good morning dear readers and brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ!

Today I am continuing what I wrote yesterday about writing my testimony as a gift of God’s to those who will not believe in Christ Jesus but who may believe at a later date, maybe after we get taken up in the Rapture.  I don’t know when the rapture will take place but I know that it took some time and terrible times to convince me that Jesus was real!  A testimony of life from someone who was raised in an atheist home and who became a believer in Christ can be a miracle in itself, but with God all things are possible!

I will share with you how I’m making progress in a book where I am going to write my testimony in Christ Jesus!  I think it may be of help to those of you who want to serve Christ Jesus and who have your testimony to share with the world that is living in darkness, not having the light of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!  Our testimonies can be meaningful to them if they want a way out of this terrible darkness!  Reading stories about those who came to Christ Jesus can be of help, I am sure.  No doubt there is much to be said about the One True God that people have been given false information about!  Our stories could help change that as a way to serve Christ, if one is so inclined to publish their testimony as a way to do that.

I took a self-publishing class here:  Self Publishing School and was surprised to learn the stats on where books are published.  Most traditional ways to publish a book are no longer available to most people unless you can write a winning query letter to an agent so that an agent will create channels through book publishers and finally get your book published.  More times than not your book does not create the interest of publishing houses to be accepted and you may never find an agent interested in your book.  It may be because most agents have connections with publishing houses for content that does not include topics which we want to write about – being Christian writers.  More people are likely to write books and self-publish to sell on Amazon, or on a website that sells Christian, or possibly secular, books.  Marketing will be an issue for another day.

My thought is that having a book helps explains who the author is and the quality of that blogger – as in my case.  I want to go beyond mere publishing and do some good in the world for Christ Jesus.  Sharing my testimony will be a way that I can praise God publically, and share the joys I’ve had in knowing the Lord as well as I do which isn’t going to be the same for everyone, is my guess.

We all have stories which can be told and are valuable.   Let’s get going!  I’m going to give you tips on what I do here on my blog in order for those who want to try self-publishing their testimony with a way to get started.  The link I gave above to the school gives a pretty good start on understanding a way to get your manuscript self-published.  I did not pay the school but took notes, and cliffsnotes were provided at the end of the webinar at not cost to me.  You do not have to join anything – it is totally free.  I do not get any compensation for sharing the school links, or any of the information I can provide for you to follow if you so choose.  It is all voluntary from me.

The school chose to share a “mind map” which briefly records topics which you want to write about in a book.  It is brief, takes about 3-4 minutes is all and captures what is in the mind on paper.  It is notes to remember of topics you want to cover in a book, a trail of littered thoughts you want to describe but in no particular order.  Below is a photo of the mind map I created during the webinar I found at the link I provided above.  This time was part of the webinar, and I sketched out a mind map on a sheet of paper.  Soft music played during this time which I enjoyed.

Frankly I learned more from this one webinar all in one place than I’ve learned anywhere else, and was quite happy to complete the webinar.  I liked learning and was inspired.  I think it can be done.

I took the time to finish the webinar and haven’t read all the cliffsnotes that were provided at the end of the course but I was inspired enough to make a start.  

I found I can break my mind map into 12 chapters as suggested, and learned that I can “speak into text” so I don’t have to type the manuscript.  The editing is the next part I am afraid of and will find something I can share to help you out, in case you go down the same path of publishing a testimony about Christ in your life.

Once you get the mind map done, you separate the content into several chapters.  The workshop suggests twelve chapters.  At one point I was unsure what to do with the mess I had created by the mind map, but once I found a way to record what I wanted each chapter to focus on I could arrange the book in chapters that made sense.  I used a free program to organize the subject content into what I wanted in the book.  You create another mind map for each chapter, taking about 10 minutes on a mind map for each chapter.

I found I could speak my thoughts into  “Speechnotes” where all you have to do is speak into a computer program that will type every word you say onto a webpage where you save it.  I cut and pasted mine into my email to save.   Speechnotes gets it right about all of the time and types your words accurately, but it does not correct for punctuation or grammar, but types your raw text you can save.  At least it creates an outline of how you want to organize your chapters.   

I found that Speechnotes does have an editing tool in a margin that I have not explored yet which is found on the right hand side of the webpage.  I will edit later.  First I want to get some words down and make progress on writing the book.  Editing slow down the process. 

By speaking my “story” all in one sitting, I want to enter into a consistent “flow” where I can talk about what I want to say and publish, to tell my story without stopping.  I can create a choppy story, but it sounds reasonable to me to get as much speaking done as I can, and then I can enjoy the story-telling aspect and get it down on paper in the same “voice” before I begin the editing process.   

So now I have my chapters outlined in an email and today I plan to start speaking into “Speechnotes” and rough out my chapters.  

The workshop says that a person’s rate of speech is 150 words spoken per minute, on average.  Taking 10 minutes to speak into Speechnotes for each chapter would produce up to about 1,500 words.  Then you take the fact that your average book runs from 15,000 to 40,000 words could mean I have twelve chapters of approximately 1,500 words each totalling a book containing 18,000 words.  Taking ten minutes to speak twelve chapters takes about one-and-one-half hours without a break.  Giving myself a break in between will add time to speaking the words for a book which could be done all in one day without editing.  Not bad for a day’s work.

The following steps will be editing, creating a title, finding art for the cover of the book, and getting people to read the book in it’s electronic format – at no cost for their free ebook to read – and promising to give me a (good!) review while I sell it on Amazon.  That’s the plan.

I wish you all a great day and I’ll be enjoying the Lord’s teaching through prayer and studying His Words of the Bible.  I pray I may help the Lord in helping His Children find ways to live and survive in these terrible times, and I give Glory to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior!