Because You Matter: How to Take Ownership of Your Life So You Can Really Live was officially launched yesterday September 15^th, 2019. For the past two weeks, I’ve been sharing the story of how this book came to be.

It’s been a long wonderful messy process.

In part one I shared how the idea of Because You Matter was conceived, how long the process took, and how I went through transition not long before this book came to be available for you.

In part two I illustrated the process of arranging all the information. I left off with how I needed to add stories after completing the eighth draft and sending it off to my editor.

Stories not only entertain us—they also help us understand.

WHAT STORIES?

After my beta readers asked for more stories I went through my manuscript looking for ways to use story form instead of instruction. I was successful, but, I didn’t feel it was enough.

In April, my daughter told me about the book Bachelor Nation and how it had stories between the chapters.

I thought this was brilliant and stole the idea (Austin Kleon would be proud).

What I needed now were these new stories. A variety of them. Stories of other people who had taken ownership of their life and their value.

Everyone has a story to tell.

GETTING THE STORIES

To tell the stories of others I needed to interview people. I’d never done that before so it was a bit scary. How do I start?

Overcoming emotional trauma and knowing your value isn’t a female issue so I wanted to interview men as well as women. I started to think about who to interview and made a list of questions.

I asked twelve people if I could interview them for my book and received ten yeses. I was thrilled.

In addition to the generic questions above, I also added one at the end tailored to each individual so they could elaborate on their personal story.

Doing the first interview I couldn’t write as fast as the answers came so I missed a lot. I learned to record them is a much better choice and my first interviewee kindly allowed me to re-interview them.

Conducting the interviews was such a joy.

Sharing your story with another person is powerful and connects you.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Transcribing the recordings was tedious and time-consuming. Thankfully, my friend Eric Gale told me about an online tool called otter.ai that would transcribe them for me. This was so helpful.

After transcribing came the part of turning each interview into a story. Once completed they were sent to each interviewee for approval or corrections until they were happy with the end result.

To share these stories I needed a signed release form from each of them. They gladly complied.

Sharing someone else’s story is an honor and privilege.

THE INSIDE SCOOP

Books contain more than just chapters. They need what is known as front matter and back matter.

• Front matter is what you find before chapter one (dedication, copyright, table of contents, acknowledgments, endorsements, and note to reader etc).
• Back matter is what follows the end of the final chapter (author info, endnotes, references etc).

I was responsible to write all of it except the endorsements.

Asking for endorsements can be scary. Who do I ask? (who cares about my message?), what if they say no (some did), what if they ignore me (some did), what if they can’t make the deadline (some couldn’t), what if they don’t like it (didn’t happen).

I was bold in who I asked and knew the risks. Everyone that said yes was sent a preformatted copy to read and I received seven amazing endorsements.

Multiple edits were done and then came final proofreading.

PRETTY INSIDE AND OUT

I started the interior formatting process (page size, font choice, etc.) but knew I needed help. I used an online source called Fiverr. I hired Eswari who lives in India. She made the interior of Because You Matter even prettier than I expected and was a joy to work with.

For the cover, I wanted it to be beautiful and unique. While writing the book I gathered photos to help me envision my message but was never really happy with any of them.

Then my son got a tattoo with a feather and told me about the meaning of colors. This led me to research colors for my message.

I found four specific colors I wanted to use.

• Pink for unconditional love.
• Orange for change and inner voice.
• Green for healing.
• Brown for grounding.

Using these four colors, I created a watercolor I wanted to find a way to use.

Once again I needed help so I prepared a number of cover mock-ups and asked people to vote on them.

Their feedback was invaluable. The final cover is a cooperative effort between myself and a professional cover designer on Fiverr. He used my original watercolor and photo overlays to create it.

Because You Matter is a work of art inside and out.

DETAILS AND SETBACKS

While the formatting and cover designing were going on I began the detail set up in both KDP and Ingram Spark. These details are Amazon categories, keywords, what color paper, metadata and much more. It’s an important and tedious process.

Before I wrote a book I had no idea such things existed. There are so many details to writing and publishing a book.

My first setbacks were having trouble with the files provided by my designers and waiting for revisions.

The most recent and final one was when Amazon said my cover had an issue when I sent it to be published. This was disturbing because I’d received a perfect proof, and ordered copies already—there is no issue. But Amazon said there was so I had to go through the process to overcome it.

Funny that I received a shipment of books from Ingram Spark the same day Amazon had their issue.

Setbacks are never fun, but they’re part of the process.

TA-DA!

Finally, the process is complete. Yesterday we had a party to celebrate.

Because You Matter is available in paperback and ebook. Not just on Amazon and Kindle. I chose to use Ingram Spark to reach further so I could provide this message for more people. My next project is creating the audiobook.

For this first week Because You Matter will be available at a reduced rate of $14.95 for paperback and $2.99 for e-book on Amazon only.

WHAT NOW

• Because You Matter is in the Matchbook program on Amazon  (buy the paperback, get the Kindle for free).
• Get your paperback copy here
• Get your Kindle copy here.
• Get your Nook copy here.

Danielle Bernock

Author, Coach, and Speaker helping men, women, and organizations EMERGE with clear vision of their value, TAKE ownership of their choices, and CHART a path to their promise, becoming Victorious Souls who Embrace The Change from survive to thrive through the power of the love of God

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