First-time author and former CEO Dee Gibson lives with Parkinson’s Disease and has written an extraordinary memoir chronicling his life leading up to the diagnosis and many of the ups and downs since. His story is real and raw and honors well the tests of his faith and coming to terms with what life with this disease will look like.
Though we have partnered with authors facing chronic illness before, working with Dee was a unique experience as we were able to witness first-hand his personal challenges as well as his resiliency to overcome them. As we navigated our tasks for editing and publishing these precious words from Dee and his family members, we were also able to see the close-knit familial relationships, unending support, and beautiful accolades for one another in action.
About This Recent Project
Book Edits, Cover Design, Formatting, & Typesetting
Ariel Curry began this process with Dee, starting with a developmental review to help him finalize the content and chapters included in the book. Next Ariel and Dee completed three rounds of developmental edits, working together to finalize the chapters from Dee’s wife and children and to polish all content and organization for the manuscript.
Carey partnered with Dee next to begin the copy and line edits for that extra attention to detail for grammar, sentence structure, and general flow. After spending time in Dee’s story, Carey had this to say, “I deeply enjoyed his story and wanted to help make it impactful. From what his children wrote about him in their chapters, I think Dee is an extraordinary man and father.”
Carrying that extra care forward, the final proofread allowed Randi to put the finishing touches on the book’s details and prepare the final manuscript for our designer. Once the document was cleaned and properly formatted, we brought our fabulous Nelly into the project to work her design magic.
The cover design was a fairly simple process for this project. Dee had purchased a vibrant portrait of a lion’s head while on a trip to Africa with his family; this trip and the portrait hold deep meaning for Dee so it made perfect sense to nod to both in the cover art. The interior design incorporated the same bold artwork throughout, resulting in stunning section and chapter title pages. All of these little design elements and details carried over into other areas of the project such as social media graphics and the website design.
What Dee shared with us…
“The title of my book comes from a conversation I had with my son where he told me had been praying for my healing and that I would find my roar. He was actually talking about my spiritual healing, helping me get my voice back. My interpretation of our conversation was that, even if God didn’t heal my vocal cords, that I still could find my voice through the written word.“
Publishing & Optimization
We designed and formatted Find Your Roar for both IngramSpark and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, in print and eBook, to maximize opportunities for distribution and sales. After detailed research, Sara provided the back cover copy and product description, fine tuned the author’s bio, and listed metadata keywords and categories 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 book’s sales page, email campaigns, publicity outreach, and social media prompts that can be repurposed as needed throughout all marketing efforts. Using all of the information Sara provided, Mandy created product listings on both IngramSpark and KDP and an Author Central profile for Dee, setting him up for great success on both platforms.
Marketing & Publicity
As part of our marketing support for this book release, Randi created a digital assets package for Dee and his family to utilize in the email list and on the Facebook page our team created. The package included social media graphics, platform cover images, suggested prompts and hashtags for use in all of their own posts and promotions. The graphics feel bold, professional, and empowering—incorporating elements from the cover design and staying true to Dee’s new brand.
For Dee’s new brand and website design, we had the pleasure of partnering with our long-time friend Erin Ulrich for one of her VIP Days. Given Dee’s health challenges and limited availability at this stage of our work, the VIP Day with Erin allowed us to quickly organize the website content and sitemap to create the design he needed. With a little bit of direction from Dee and his daughter, Erin designed the full website in just one day. She also created his new brand identity kit, a very professional and masculine design Dee can use in a variety of ways going forward.
We love offering authors support through email and social media marketing, as well as publicity campaign outreach to garner appearances and new connections. In Dee’s case, though, it was necessary to pivot from some of our usual marketing tasks and adapt our plan to better serve him and his needs. Sara stepped in to oversee Amazon and BookBub ad campaigns and a few additional newsletter promotions to gain maximum exposure for Find Your Roar.
We are so honored that Dee and his family chose Market Refined Media & Publishing to bring his inspiring story to life. Find Your Roar is an incredible resource for anyone living with Parkinson’s Disease, or another debilitating disease, and for those who care for them.
Services Included in this Project
- Developmental review and edits
- 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
- Mini brand identity package and social media branding
- Marketing and launch strategy and implementation
- Digital assets package
- Management of ad campaigns for Amazon, BookBub, and newsletter promotions
Team Members Involved
Ariel Curry
Randi Avant
Nelly Murariu
Mandy Roberson
Carey Scott
Erin Ulrich
Sara Ward
Find out more about these ladies and the rest of the team here at MRM: Meet the Team
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