Jonathan Hardy is the co-founder of Leaders. Church and Church Marketing University. In 2007, he became Director of Adult Ministries at James River Church. He now serves as Administrator of Summit Park church and has helped them grow to 1600 in average weekend attendance. He also holds a Master’s Degree from the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. He’s the author of Arrow Striker, a book about living every day with purpose so you can have an eternal impact on the people around you. The premise is based on a story from the Old Testament.
We cover a lot in this interview. We kick off discussing the question of deciding how much faith-based content to put in a book. Jonathan is all in. He also shares how he got the idea for his book and why it was finally time for him to write and publish it. We talk about having a clear book description and why a bait and switch is a bad idea. Jonathan shares what he struggled with the most and why mind mapping was useful for him. We talk about deciding what type of publishing to choose and the advantages of each. He shares his primary goal of creating the book, his launch team strategy, and a cool promotional package for promoters of his book.
Show Highlights
- [02:18] Jonathan is on a mission. He got the idea for Arrow Striker 15 years ago. A couple of years ago, he felt prompted to write the book and get it done. His “why” is that he felt he was supposed to write the book.
- [03:49] The story is based on a story in the bible in the Old Testament.
- [05:08] His “why now” has to do with getting life experience. COVID also made him ask what’s next? Now felt the time to create the book. He knew he had to start.
- [07:16] The struggle of how much faith should I put in my book? It was clear to Jonathan to make the book faith-based.
- [08:29] The concept is about the King of Israel striking his arrows on the ground only three times, when if he had done it more times he could have completely defeated his enemies. We need to make a difference every time we strike our arrows.
- [09:58] It’s a matter of prayer and finding what resonates when deciding how much faith-based content to put in your book.
- [12:53] Be very clear in the description of your book about what your book is based on.
- [13:15] The hardest part of writing the book was getting going. Once Jonathan started following the SPS blueprint things started flowing. Mind mapping the chapters helped him a lot. Deciding whether to self-publish or traditional publish was another roadblock.
- [14:29] He made his company the publisher of his book.
- [18:46] He likes the control of self-publishing.
- [20:55] He’s also trying to create an overall package with supplemental videos and a children’s book. He’s building the brand.
- [21:45] His main goal with the book is to figure out who the pastors are that are buying the book. Then he wants to move them over into other services. They also have an email list. They might have some giveaways also.
- [23:21] Jonathan also has a lot of other book ideas.
- [24:36] He is also building a launch team. They have a network of pastors that will really help get the word out when these people leave reviews. They hope to get 300 people to write a review and share. He also has a box of promotional goodies to give to the endorsers of the book.
- [26:59] It’s his hope that this will help the book stand out.
- [27:41] They’re also building out all of their text stuff and social media. They have a book trailer coming out also. The plan is to leverage all of the pieces.
- [29:17] The second edition of Published has a lot more launch content than the first.