Being a published author is the aim of many writers, but you don’t have to go down that route. You can have your book printed yourself, print your story off and have it spiral-bound, make it into an ebook, put it on audio, have it serialised in your church magazine, give your children the story printed out on A4 sheets of paper (don’t forget to number them!), or read it to them yourself.
Many excellent stories may never be published – there is a limit to how many books publishers can produce. Every child is precious, and if your story reaches just one or two, ten or twenty, all that time spent will have been worth it. Suppose just one child is encouraged to seek Jesus through your story? Would you not consider that to be one of your greatest achievements?
There’s nothing wrong with small beginnings – there’s nothing wrong with small anything – so don’t be discouraged, even if your story has been turned down by a publisher or two. Lift your head high and decide who you are going to write your next story for. Do they love football? Write about their favourite team! Do they love horses? Set your story in a stables! Are they interested in dinosaurs? Go back in time!
More than one writer has told me, “The Lord told me to write this story.” That’s great! But you need to be aware that publishers haven’t necessarily been told to publish it. Maybe the Lord told you to write this one (and the next few) for practice, so you can get better at what you do? Or maybe to use it somewhere other than in a published book?
Pray about the way forward. You never know where you stories might end up, or the fruit they will produce, so if you feel called to write, don’t ever give up.
What are you writing? Who for? Love to hear from you!
Janet
P.S. My new ebook of writing tips is due for release later today (3rd October) on kindle. You will be able to find it in Amazon kindle stores. My prayer is that it will be a useful tool for all who write inspirational stories for children/teens from a Christian perspective. As soon as I hear from Amazon that it has been approved, I will set the price to ‘free’ for three days (the maximum allowed), so do keep a look out. 🙂