Megan Faulkner is passionate about walking alongside others and empowering them to live life on purpose. She is an author, speaker, and podcaster who communicates biblical truths with a side of humor and wit. Megan gives back to her in-person community through youth ministry and her local church and works to intentionally grow an online community for Christian women—no matter what stage or season of life they are in.
Our associate Ariel Curry first introduced us to Megan, and we knew immediately that her book, Happily Ever After All, needed to be out in the world. This project is also one of our favorites in that we not only designed and published Megan’s book, but we also rebranded her ministry and podcast and redesigned her website in tandem with the other marketing and publishing tasks. We love a full project scope and having the opportunity to create such a strong, cohesive foundation for a first-time author!
About This Recent Project
Book Edits, Cover Design, Formatting, & Typesetting
Megan worked with Ariel for developmental edits, to polish the manuscript content and flow. Then Randi began our initial work with the copy and line edits for that extra attention to detail for grammar, sentence structure, and general flow. The final proofread allowed Randi and Danielle to put the finishing touches on Megan’s message and prepare the manuscript for our designer.
The cover design was such a fun process for this project. Through conversations with our team regarding what she envisioned for the book, it was clear Megan wanted to highlight the strength of women and the unique purpose God called each one of us to. Playing off a quote in the book about “queen bees,” Nelly brought the cover design to life with a soft watercolor background, a vintage crown, an intricately detailed bee, and varying textures of honeycomb.
The interior design incorporated the same honeycomb, crown, and bee throughout, resulting in beautiful chapter title pages and fun checklists at the end of each chapter! All of these little design elements and details carried over into so many other areas of the project, including preorder bonus gifts, social media graphics, and printed items for Megan’s launch party.
Publishing & Optimization
We formatted Happily Ever After All for both IngramSpark and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, in print and eBook, to maximize opportunities for distribution and to make a pre-order timeframe possible. The book was available online for pre-order at most major retailers and actually set a new record for our publishing imprint with nearly 1000 pre-release copies sold!
Sara provided the back cover copy and product description, fine tuned the author’s bio, and performed metadata keyword and category research to ensure we maximized the book’s reach on Amazon. As part of a very detailed marketing and launch strategy, Sara also created marketing copy for the sales page, email campaigns, publicity outreach, and social media prompts that can be repurposed as needed throughout all marketing efforts for Happily Ever After All and for Megan as she expands her platform.
Marketing & Publicity
As part of our marketing support for this book release, Randi created a digital assets package for Megan. The package included social media graphics, platform cover images, suggested prompts and hashtags for her to use in her own posts and promotions. The graphics feel peaceful, professional, and empowering—incorporating elements from the cover design and staying true to Megan’s overall brand—and the captions feature inspiring quotes and checklists from the book.
In addition to the content calendar and assets page for Megan, our team also created a resource page and Facebook group for the fantastic Happily Ever After All launch team. Melissa worked closely with Megan to manage launch team participation, weekly challenges, and fun giveaways. Sara and Melissa also assisted with a publicity campaign for Megan, to coordinate podcast interviews and other media appearances for this book release, and Debi lent her support with on-brand email templates and campaigns to help Megan grow her new email list and engage with launch team members.
Carol not only created the gorgeous brand, website, and sales page designs included in this project, but she also designed the picture-perfect pre-order bonuses for early buyers. PSA: Today is the last day you can get those special bonus gifts, so grab your copy of Happily Ever After All and hop over here to claim your free downloads before they go away!
We are so thrilled Megan chose Market Refined Media & Publishing to help make her author dreams come true. She was an absolute delight to work with throughout this project and we cannot wait to see what else God has in store for her and this book baby journey!
What Megan had to say…
“Thank you so much for all you’ve done! You guys are THE best. I actually could not have accomplished this without you. God + MRM + Megan = what a team!”
Services Included in this Project
- Copy, line, and proofread manuscript edits
- Book cover and interior design, formatting, and typesetting for IngramSpark and Kindle Direct Publishing (Print and eBook)
- Metadata, category, and keyword research for IngramSpark and Kindle Direct Publishing
- Marketing copy for the product listing and author bio
- Product(s) and author profile setup and optimization for Amazon Author Central
- Use of Market Refined Publishing imprint
- Brand design, full website and sales page design, and development of new website
- Full brand identity package
- Marketing and launch strategy and implementation
- Digit assets package
- Launch team management and publicity campaign
Team Members Involved
Ariel Curry
Randi Miller
Nelly Murariu
Carol Poortvliet
Danielle Raymond
Mandy Roberson
Debi Stangeland
Sara Ward
Find out more about these ladies and the rest of the team here at MRM: Meet the Team
