Once upon a time not too long ago, I gave up writing books. I even cursed the industry I used to work in. Never. Ever. Again.
I started pursuing a career in nursing. Our daughter was born. Last spring, I decided to turn in the man who sexually abused me as a teenager. What followed was a blessed insanity.
I found out there was a lack of resources to help equip the people who want to support sex abuse survivors. So, I decided to self-publish a book doing that. That book is called Healing Together.
Lifeway reached out and decided to publish it and I was so excited. But then we had different ideas about the necessity of survivors attending church. So we parted ways. I went back to the original plan of self-publishing it, and Lifeway would continue helping me in that process as an act of good faith. (They were wonderful.)
THE NEXT DAY: my very first publisher from TEN YEARS AGO (Zondervan) had no idea any of this was happening and were praying for someone to write a book about the same thing I had just written.
When I announced Lifeway and I were no longer under contract, they randomly found out about it. We chatted, I took a really long time to decide, but I did choose to publish with them again (and with Lifeway’s full blessing and support and help!)
A few things changed about the logistics of this book:
- The manuscript is MUCH better than I ever could have made it…holy cow.
- The release date is October 15, 2019. Not this summer.
- Because Z is a Harper imprint, they have contracts to charge certain retail prices, BUT the book will still be able to be found for free electronically as planned and $5 for paperback as planned (I’ll explain the logistics when they are available).
- The retail price on Amazon, B&N, etc. is exactly the same as it would have cost if I self-published it, something I am truly happy Z worked so hard on to make happen.
- I’m still in school and will still be going into nursing as planned & work at my hospital.
- I am also able to go out and support the book too. With Z’s awesome sales & marketing, I am glad the message of this book will be getting into so many hands.
I am tremendously proud of the research that has gone into this book and the editing Z did to make it easy to understand. I’m amazed that as life has carried me into studying to be a psych nurse focused on trauma it also aligned me with writing this book to help people understand trauma so they can walk alongside survivors and we can all heal together.