Songdove Books Presents:

Welcome to all our latest subscribers this summer!  It's great to have you with us!  How has your summer been so far?  Here in the Okanagan, it began warm and got hot very quickly.  We had a week mid-July that reminded me what we normally get mid-August!  So the really hot weather came early.  For those that like to do a little math conversion, the hottest we got 1.5wks ago was 39C, 42C in some areas of town and other areas of the Okanagan.  The hot weather also brought a record number of forest fires for this early in the season as well.  For two to three days in a row, this author was running around and sleeping with a bandana wrapped around her nose and mouth!  Not fun when the air is hot and so is the breath you are exhaling!  Ugh. . . An incredible rain/thunder storm this past week doused much of the fire threat in the area, thank the Lord.  But we're due to get hot again next week as we head into the BC Long Weekend.

Well, enough about the weather!  July was a busy month and August is going to be busy as well!  Read on to find out why!  Warning. . . it's another long one!  Got your iced tea ready?

A Year in Prayer With Jesus" has an Official Launch Date!

You read that right.  My next book project is about to become "my latest book"!  The pre-launch book tour, which is still going on for another two weeks, (You can view the full tour schedule at the FB link here: https://www.facebook.com/events/880095405340333/) has gone well over all.

An author never knows where the controversy will come from when they write non-fiction, particularly Christian non-fiction.  This particular tour, I got brave and decided to appear across a wide swath of Christian genres from devotionals and marriage help to fiction and Christian fantasy.  Those of you who regularly read my blog will know that I have firm beliefs regarding the interpretation of Scripture and it's daily life application.  So imagine me sharing these blog stops over at what is supposed to be an entirely Christian social network, and getting royally SLAMMED for  being "suspect" and "New Age" because a couple blog stops landed on Christian fiction/fantasy websites.

At first I was shocked!  I called in some prayer warriors and began praying over those who had levelled these accusations while also asking for prayer at a couple author groups on Facebook.  It turns out that another Christian author got saved out of the New Age false religion, and had some constructive criticism that I chose to take to heart and act on.

Many in the Christian author community will label various books that are glorified outlines, as guides.  We have Leadership Guides (I have one for my series), we have prayer guides, we have curriculum teachers' guides, etc.  This lady I met wouldn't buy any book calling itself a guide because of her upbringing.  I decided to use the thesaurus and change what few references within the book where I'd used the word "guide" and changed them.  The most notable change being to "pattern of prayer".  Turns out this lady is also a quilter and immediately fell in love with the term and offered to review this book!  I'm looking forward to her stop at the end of Week Seven's blog stops at the link above.

The official launch date for "A Year in Prayer With Jesus" is the September Labour Day Long Weekend!  If you don't follow my author page on Facebook, G+ or LinkedIn, then you heard it here first!  The proof is on order, and if all goes well, the book will begin to enter online retail outlets in paperback, PDF, epub and mobi formats in time for the launch weekend!

To celebrate, the following announcement is going out!

From August 1st until August 30th, there will be ebook giveaways for all 10 current titles under the Songdove Books imprint!  Each giveaway will last three days and three winners will be chosen each day.  When August 30th arrives, A 4 day and a 7 day giveaway will commence for "A Year in Prayer With Jesus"!  4 winners and 7 winners will be chosen respectively at two different websites, for a total of 11 recipients of the brand new book.

URL's to these giveaways are already up and clickable at:  http://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/songdovemusings/calendar-3/
Simply choose the month you wish to look at (August) to mouse over and/or click the various giveaway dates.  Each event listing in this calendar contains the link for that particular 3-day giveaway.

In addition to the month-long round of giveaways, there will also be a month-long sale taking place at three locations online where paperback versions of my books are sold.  For the entire month of August, you will be able to pick up paperback copies of my books for 15% off the usual retail price.  You'll need to use the following codes at checkout for the following sites:

YTUWZNRV 15% discount code https://www.createspace.com/
YPWJ-PROMO 15% discount code http://songdovebooks.storenvy.com
YPWJ-PROMO 15% discount code http://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/songdovemusings/new-christian-books/

It is a dream of mine to have 365 people purchase this book in paperback, PDF, epub, or mobi, and each of these people begin "A Year in Prayer With Jesus" on 365 consecutive dates!  For those prayer prompts where people groups, language families, nations and missions organizations are presented, this dream would have them covered by someone every single day for an entire year!  This includes those nations and people groups in current conflict zones as of the time of this announcement.

When "A Year in Prayer With Jesus" officially launches, it will be available for $25.50 in paperback, and $9.99 in its various ebook formats.  Currently you can arrange for pre-order at Storenvy and Createspace above.  Deliveries will commence the first week of September and depending on what you chose for shipping, will take anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks to get to you.

e-Course on Practical Thoughts on Becoming an Author

has turned into a 22-day course with one of the subjects being fleshed out from just a brief mention, to roughly 4 days.  This course arrives in your inbox once per day with most sessions being short  Each session has a daily task to be completed by the student.

More information about the course such as who would benefit from it, how much it costs, and the purchase link can be found at this link:http://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/songdovemusings/so-you-want-to-be-an-author/   Feel free to pass this link around to those you know who may be interested in what it takes to get a book idea from concept to print-ready with very little financial outlay.

Be sure to add the course's email address to your whitelist so that you don't miss out on any of the daily sessions.


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The above course has received its first glowing review which reads as follows:

I've enjoyed your eCourse much more than I expected. I looked forward to each lesson. The instructions were clear and easy to follow. You spent an enormous amount of time gathering these tools. I can't emphasis enough how much I appreciated your research.

Your detailed, friendly, and easy to follow steps proved you are very experienced with the tool. Not just a list of free stuff. It was very nice to have all of the tools in one place, well researched, and free.

I'm grateful you are offering a high quality eCourse at a price most of us can afford. Price and quality encourage me to sign up for your next series.

I also feel the price is low enough, that I am *not* tempted to share my copy. I would highly recommend this eCourse to anyone interested in preparing their book for publication.
Lynn La Vita July 2014

Needless to say, I am thrilled!  This student also suggested more subject matter, but the way I write and teach, it would have resulted in an entirely new e-course!  GUESS WHAT???  That's exactly what is happening!

"The Basics of Creating an E-Book" has finally been written and will be going through various editing stages over the next week or so before finally launching as the sequel to this first e-course.  Those who have taken the first e-course will find that parts of this next course build on what you learned.  Those taking this next e-course without having taken the first, will be offered a $1 coupon to round out their experience and ensure they have all the tools.

So life as an author continues to be very interesting!

GRADUATION IS NOW OVER! At least in most parts of the world. . .

Don't forget that "Mom's Little Black Book: Godly Advice for the High School Graduate" is currently being bundled with "Dressed for Eternity" to create a gift bundle worth $48 - $70, for only $40 plus shipping and handling.  This offer is good through to the end of July, meaning time is almost up to make use of this bargain!  Click this blog post URL to get to the paypal button at the bottom: http://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/songdovemusings/2014/04/29/peer-pressure-and-grad-gift-bundle/  Your order will be shipped to you as soon as possible.

Wrap-up

Just a reminder that if you are following me on Twitter, you can now purchase any of my books from the once-per-day Amazon link that gets shared at 12:30pm simply by typing in #amazoncart as your response to that link.  This will place the book into your shopping cart on Amazon so that the next time you visit Amazon, it's already waiting for final checkout.

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A sigh just escaped me as I begin to wrap up today's newsletter.  On the one hand, summer has been quieter than usual, but on the other, with everything going on with e-courses and book launches, this summer has felt busier than normal too.

When life seems busy, what do you do to slow down?  How do you centre yourself so that your daily routine doesn't get out of hand?  If God had His way, rather than centering on yourself, He'd have you centering on Him.  As an author, all the words in the world mean nothing if I am not ensuring that what I write stays true to Who God is and who I am before Him.  I've been going through the book of Genesis since late Spring, and the humanity of the patriarchs as well as the gentle, longsuffering determination of God to achieve His goals for His Chosen People have really jumped out at me afresh!  Even more than that has been the initial guiding and teaching God does in these early days of Scripture, that are expounded on later in the Bible.  Concepts such as how God feels about the 10 Commandments, His blessings, and His righteous judgements all come out in this book of beginnings.

God loves it when we come to Him in prayerful gratitude, quieting our hearts and minds before Him and letting Him speak into our lives.  No matter how quiet or busy your summer is this year, I'd encourage you to set aside time for just you and Him.  Many like to take the dog days of summer and read a good book, go to the beach, take a vacation, see the sights, etc.  Why not let God bring His love letter to life anew this summer?

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Songdove Books
Kelowna BC Canada