With the five-fold job of praying, preaching, writing/publishing, distributing the Lord’s provisions to people in need, and providing sanctuary-style care for 18 formerly homeless dogs with special needs, coupled with a most-of-the-time shoestrings budget, no staff and virtually no volunteers, imagine my challenge as a prolific writer with the desire to get books into print as quickly – and professionally – as possible.
Challenging? Now that’s an understatement! But the Lord truly does supply all my need (Phil. 4:19), the Bible), and He recently provided me with the most astonishingly, wonderful, simple, straightforward, and easy-as-can-be solution to my publishing needs.
Now picture this. I write books typically in a matter of weeks. I try to get them published and distributed as quickly as possible. The challenge? The layout, design, and printing without the budget to do so, and without the desire to wait for a professional to become available even if I had the budget for one.
Leave it to the Lord to use the Internet to put me in touch with the absolutely perfect answer. The answer? I could not have even dreamed this one up myself. Joel Friedlander, a professional book designer with an awesome reputation, teamed up with author and technical expert Tracy Atkins, with the dream answer. A book template system for people who use Microsoft Word that is so professional that I could have hired a book designer to put together my book.
Yet the instructions that come with the system are so simple, the template is so easy to use, and the results are so professional that my ministry and I saved boatloads of time and money with a perfectly professional result. As if this were not the best part of all, it gets better than this. The template can be used over and again – for years to come. So I can write as quickly as I want, publish as quickly as I desire, and continue to end up with the professional results I seek.
And the very, very best of all? I found this template system AFTER I had already written my book manuscript in Microsoft Word. So I could simply use the template to get the book ready for publishing. That’s great, but I wanted more than this. I wanted a template that with future books I could use by writing directly into the template and not have to do anything significant upon completion of my manuscript. In other words, you guessed it. I wanted something even simpler than simple. And that it is!
The only missing piece for me in my research online to see if this book template package was legitimate and really good was this. I read preview after preview, but I could not find any reviews from people who had actually used the system. And if anyone else out there is like me, I want to know ahead of time if something is high quality and worth the investment.
I also want to know ahead of time if someone like myself, who has limited technical skills and does not have the time to do any significant studying and learning of something new in the technical area, will be able to figure out how to use something before I decide whether to try it. Suffice it to say my entire book was written, edited, laid out, and published in a matter of weeks! The layout process involving the template took virtually no time at all, and I received superior customer support with the few questions I had.
I want to close by saying that I was not asked to write this review. I actually asked if I could write this review, because I wanted others to know – particularly ministries, churches, non-profit organizations, and individuals and businesses on a significant budget – that this could be the ideal answer for anyone looking for the most affordable, time-effective, simple, easy, and professional way to turn a book manuscript into a published work.
Though I have never met them or spoken to them, and perhaps never will, I truly cannot thank Joel Friedlander and Tracy Atkins enough for how their work has blessed my ministry and myself. In the meantime, most importantly of all, I thank God not only for calling me into this full-time ministry work but also for equipping me to do it – including through blessings like the one provided through Joel Friedlander and Tracy Atkins.
You can learn more about me (Lara Love) and Walk by Faith Ministry at www.walkbyfaithministry.com, and you are also welcome to contact me via the contact information on my website with any questions on my experience with www.bookdesigntemplates.com. You can see my latest book, SIMPLE JOY: A Shabby Chick Christian’s Inspiration for a JOY-Full Life!, at https://www.amazon.com/dp/098332820X.
1 Comment
Cool! That article is precisely what I have been trying to find!