Category Archives: books

You Can Buy a Hard Copy of My Book

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Holla,

Recently I decided to take the plunge and get an ISBN and do a physical print run of my book. Because the book is for children and families it just makes so much more sense for it to be a proper physical book (in my mind).

**For those bookish types, in NZ you can get an ISBN number without cost but you have to provide the national library with 2 copies of your book – one for the archives and one for loaning. Which I love the idea of.

This is of course a bit of a risk – when you decide to publish a book yourself you pay all the cost of the book at the front end with no guarantees that you will break even at the other end. Writing this book was never a money-making venture of me (tbh, most authors, whatever route they are published don’t make a lot from it), but I would love to break even.

example of a page – there are 24 like this

I decided to get my book published locally – about 5 minutes down the road. I know it would have been much cheaper for me to get it done off shore but, as much as I can, its nice to support local people in local jobs and also the thought of trying to do this kind of thing by distance does not excite me.

I also decided to get my book published on the very best paper I could get – 100% recycled, at the highest of international standards and bleach and chlorine free. This felt like the right thing to do too – even though it made it a little bit more expensive for me.

So now 100 copies of my little Advent book are printed! Which feels like a big number to sell but hopefully kind of realistic.

Of course I’m aware we’re not even at June yet, but if you like to get things like this sorted early (or you need a whole year to get through the activities – which I completely understand!) you can get yours now.

You can read more about my book here
and you can also read reviews of the book here

Because I want to live hands open I would like to give away the first copy of this book (I can sign it if you like). I am happy to post this anywhere in the world. If you’d like to win a copy just comment here, on my other blog http://createhopeinspire.blogspot.com or on my facebook writer’s(!) page.

If you would like to buy a copy of my book, (yay!), it is $25 plus p+p. If you live in Christchurch I may well be able to drop you off your copy – or we could have a coffee??!

In NZ I can post this out in an A4 prepaid envelope so the total cost will be $27.90. At this stage copies can only be purchased from me. Because the mark up is so low it is unlikely at the moment that it will be sold through shops but I’ll let you know if that changes at all.

If you live somewhere else and want to purchase a copy/copies please let me know and I will calculate postage and let you know.

You can still buy the kindle copy via amazon which will only set you back about the cost of a coffee if you still want one but your budget won’t stretch to a hard copy.

I think that’s all for now. So….um…. you want to buy a copy of my book?

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Adrian Plass – I am a fangirl

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If I had a list of the people I’d like to be Adrian Plass would be one of them. So, I know he’s a guy, that’s quite a bit older than me, and has a beard!, but stick with me here.

The thing I love about Adrian Plass is that he manages to treat himself with such humility, the church with reverence, irreverence and total hilarity all in one sentence, but in all he writes there are these bold and gentle echoes of grace. That is a skill I so admire.

adrian plass

His book ‘The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 and 3/4’ (which is my current age, weird!) is the first book I ever read that made me really laugh out loud. So much laughing that I actually couldn’t recount it to others without laugh-crying. It’s the book I buy every time I find it in an op-shop just so I can ‘lend’ it to people without having to worry I might not get it back.

I include an excerpt here:

Friday 27th December

Went to Unity Hall tonight to hear ‘Bad News for the Devil’ practising. [His son’s ‘band]. When I got there, stood outside for a moment listening to a noise that sounded like a piano falling down a lift-shaft with someone trapped under the lid.

Turned out to be a number called ‘Peace Will Come’.

Anyone else have ‘youth band’ flashbacks??.

If your heart is weary for a good, deep belly laugh then I can so recommend this book or any of his sacred diary series.

I think it’s important, amongst the taking serious of our journey, that we can laugh at ourselves. So much science supports the benefits of laughter but I still go back time and again to those ancient words:

‘a merry heart doeth good like a medicine’

Today maybe you need a reminder that laughter is also a gift from God. That laughter is good for you.

That bubbling up and over laughter might just be a kiss from heaven to you today.

If your heart is heavy or if it all just feels too much to carry today I’d love to lend you my copy of this wonderful book – not that I can clearly – but if you need a laugh and some good doses of gentle grace get your hands on a copy.

*on the subject of wanting to be compared to a man…. I’ve spent my whole life being told by anyone who met my dad that I ‘look exactly like him’. Literally, he will walk into a place I work, where no one has met him, and someone will say, ‘Hey Miriam your Dad is here. You two look exactly the same’. What’s a girl to do with that???

Which is not exactly a compliment no matter how attractive my gay drama teacher told me he was. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, looking exactly like a man 20+ years older than me whose been rocking a beard since way before the hipsters made them cool again isn’t exactly the look I’m going for… I digress.

Be blessed today and feel free to not take yourself (or me) too seriously. And, if at all possible get into the company of a person, book, show… whatever that will make you laugh until your sides ache – that is a gift from God for your heart. xxx