That was the title of my pastor's sermon yesterday (July 28, 2013). Pastor Matt's sermon has caused me to do a 180 related to my post from July 11, 2013.
Yes, becoming an artist would be the bigger challenge. It would be the more difficult road.
However, I have more talent in the field of writing. In many ways, pursuing the children's novelist choice would bring more glory to God. My novels would be based on my faith and the Gospel would be clearly presented in every story. Not in a "preachy" way but as a natural part of the story. The stories will be structured in such a way as that if faith was removed, the stories would collapse.
The children's novels would allow me to write about some of my favorite things: Jesus, children and horses. It won't be easy, though. The writing will be the easiest part. Then the stories will be passed on to my first reader. So far, so good. The hard part will be finding an agent or publisher. There's a lot of competition out there. My work has to stand out from every other wannabe children's novelist.
More new authors are going with the self-publishing route, but I'm not sure that's the right route for me to take. All the expenses would be mine, but so would most of the profit. I'd also have to create a business in the state of Minnesota if I plan to sell novels, whether from my website - once I have a website, that is - or selling them to stores. It would be harder to get my novels into the hands of my target readers if I only sell from my website. With an ISBN, I would be able to market my novels to places like Barnes & Noble, Amazon, LifeWay Books and other stores. Without an ISBN, my only choice is to sell them from my website or at horse shows.
I won't give up working on improving my drawing skills. Once my skills improve, I'll look for ways to reflect my faith in my art as well as my writing, perhaps even doing art of the horses from the novels. An artbook would make a good tie-in to the novels. . .
"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." I Corinthians 10:31, NIV+
If you need some kids to read/test our your first book, let me know. I'll have my boys read it and give feedback. Also, I have a couple friends who have self-published, I can ask their advice if you need. Finally, there is an e-book called "How to market and sell your ebook" by Sarah Mae. She has successfully written and sold a few e-books. Her first e-book sold 20,000 copies in the first couple months. She is a Christian.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ingrid! My best friend is an aspiring writer, so she'll give me feedback from a writer's perspective. But it'll be great to get feedback from kids! I hope they won't be put off by the fact that the stories are aimed at girls as my primary audience. :)
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