Are You Ready to Write Your Book?

It took me a year and half to write my first book and I did it between healing sessions. My process was like this: I would think of a topic I wanted to include in the book when a real life situation would happen with a client so I would quickly make notes. Some of my most creative aha moments come from the space of emptiness when I'm facilitating for a client.

After each session, I would try to jot down key concepts and topics to remember for later, when I had time to write a specific chapter for the book. I'll be honest with you, writing is not my strongest skill. I can explain something to you in such an effective and efficient way by using my throat chakra where it takes me a lot more time to find the exact collection of words and make them pretty, proper and organized.

I think we all have our own unique way of organizing our thoughts and just learning how you best communicate and create is half the battle. The hardest part of writing the book was organizing all the content and laying out the chapters in a progression that made sense. These thoughts and concepts had all come to me in random moments, so it took time to deliver the information in an organized fashion that made sense.

In order to do this, I took advantage of a few days when my son was at a summer retreat camp. I hid away in an Air B and B near my home and did nothing for three days but organize and lay out my book. My husband would pick me up for dinner and we had fun dates. Throughout those days, I stayed hyper focused in my PJs until the book was completely organized. Three days of focus was all it took to have the book ready to publish. It would have taken me so much longer if I hadn't devoted myself fully to the project.

I am such a fan of the work strategies of Cal Newport in Deep Work and I utilized his methods to get the book done. At that point, I had no idea how to self publish. I found a woman-owned company called Digital Design Solutions in Boulder, CO. These ladies became my tech angels and I made a substantial investment in them as coaches and trainers to carry me forward.

https://designdigitalsolutions.com

I loved working with Kathy, Ingrid, Jenn and Emily so much! We were a great team, which is what you need with any creative endeavor. They use a software system called Basecamp that allows you to stay on task while working on projects with others remotely. If you have ever heard of Slack, Basecamp and Slack are very similar-great tools for teamwork, communication and productivity.

I signed a two year contract with the ladies at Digital Design Solutions. In two years time, they taught me how to manage my Wordpress site, design and send out emails through Mailchimp, how to make my blog posts and podcasts SEO friendly, how to use keywords to get my work noticed online, and most importantly...they taught me how to lay out an e-book and paperback book (two very different processes) and upload them to sell on Amazon.

This process of laying out my book was painful and uncomfortable! I learned what tasks I like to do, in terms of having an online business, and I learned the things I despise doing that need to be outsourced. Getting clear on what you are willing to do with your time and not willing to do are both equally important to know. I looked at creating my first book as an investment, which would lay a foundation for my online course creation and coaching program.

Since I was a one woman show with no publishing house to financially back me (and I didn't even look for one), I knew I had to make this project work on my own. From the very beginning, the plan was to link my creations together as parts of a wheel that turn the machine of my online business: the book, the podcast, and the online courses.

You could make any one of those three creations profitable for you, but my goal has always been for my online courses to be my flagship signature products. The books I write and the podcasts I create are complimentary offerings that keep people wanting more until they are ready to fully invest In themselves and take a healing journey with me. My goal now is to take my book off Amazon and offer my book by donation on my website.

You may notice that I have not included one-on-one sessions in my package of offerings here, but you can totally have coaching sessions as your foundational flagship offering and that is perfect! For me personally, I have been doing one-on-one sessions in person for twenty-six years. My appointment book is as full as I want it to be anytime with energy healing and coaching sessions, so that's not what I'm personally working on anymore, that's what I help other people to achieve now that I have done this.

What lights me up now is to do the group coaching and online training and throw in a little one-on-one action, which is irreplaceable in value. I know I can always do as many private sessions as I want, after years of building trust with a loyal client base. The fun thing for me now is to make my offerings more accessible to anyone, anywhere and free myself up to explore the world and be with my family.

Many other books are just bursting out of me, so I decided to get time efficient as I created online courses. Creating my first online course about shamanism allowed me to write my second book at the same time, curating content as I went. My workbook on ceremony, ritual and shamanic living will be out in 2022: Expanding Sacred: Beautify Your Life with Shamanic Ritual & Ceremony.

My intention with the creation of each downloadable PDF handout in Expanding Sacred was to create a section of the workbook. When you repurpose content in this way, you make your time more valuable and become even more prolific.

So now you've heard my story-my failures and triumphs with my first book. Thankfully, I have something much easier and helpful to share with you that I did not have when I was piecing together my messages from my heart.

Book Publishing as a Ministry

I have shared many generous teachings of Dale and Jeanne Stacy with you throughout the program. As Abbotts of Earthstar Spiritual Center, they are graciously available to help my students right alongside their own students and members of their ministry. You have been gifted their training manuals for Huna Level 1 and Reiki Level 1, as well as their Shamanic Coaching strategies.

Through the years, I have been growing alongside them and enjoying the journey of teaching and serving our students and clients together. The path of book publishing has been a long, winding journey of learning and exploration for us all. Dale took the publishing house route with his first novel and I followed along with his experience. I took a different approach with my first workbook and we compared notes.

Dale's second book that I recommended in this course, A.L.O.H.A. Ideals of Ascension Shamanism was his opportunity to learn how to lay out a book and publish to Amazon on his own. Throughout his journey of creating the book, we were discussing the need for publishing assistance for healers who do not have the skills or time to learn how to digitally lay out a book, much less meet Amazon's requirements.

I envision a day when there will be no need to put our books on sites like Amazon. As I mentioned, I am working toward offering all my books on my website by donation.

In the meantime, healers need to get their messages out without spending years and a substantial investment. Dale Stacy has created a program that will teach you how to design and lay out your own book and he also has a turn-key option where he and Jeanne will do the work for you.

If this appeals to you and you want to focus more on your message than on learning the nuts and bolts of how to lay out a digital or paperback book, Dale's publishing as a ministry might be a fit for you.

If you do wish to learn all the aspects of how to create your own book and sell it, the kind folks at Earthstar Spiritual Center can teach you how to do that, too! Contact Dale and Jeanne Stacy for more information: [email protected] 336-668-7044

Dale and Jeanne assisted me in setting up my own ministry and I am sharing the paperwork for by-laws you will need below, if you want to eventually want to create your own spiritual organization.

I want to be clear that there are TWO ways you can be a minister. You can be ordained through my organization (by 2022) and Earthstar Spiritual Center anytime OR you can create your own spiritual center and file with the government for a non-profit corporation tax ID.

My upcoming Shamanic Priestess Ordination program will be an in-depth training into how to facilitate specific kinds of ceremonies such as weddings, rites of passage, baby blessings, funerals , space clearings and plant spirit medicine ceremonies. Stay tuned for this-I'm very excited about it!