Julie Sanders is passionate about helping women find peace—in life, in ministry, and in family and parenting. True to that passion, in 2013, she authored an encouraging devotional for new and expectant moms. This sweet devotional has been a gift to many young mothers over the years, and in the interest of keeping it present and relevant for moms today, Julie requested our help refreshing Expectant’s content and design.
There’s something extra special about working with an author to refresh a previously released book, and working with Julie on the re-release of Expectant: A New Mom’s Devotional – Faith, Encouragement, and Grace for New and Expectant Mothers was no different. We absolutely enjoyed this precious project!
About This Recent Project
Manuscript Edits, Formatting, & Typesetting
When Expectant first released in 2013, the manuscript was edited by Sandra Peoples of Next Step Editing, a mutual connection of ours, so we knew we could trust the quality of those edits. Based on that, we started with a simple pass of copy and line edits to polish Julie’s updated devotions. Jenifer helped refine the updates, prompted further revisions to a few of the daily passages, and tightened up the readability of the book.
Once the copy edits were complete, Jenifer passed the manuscript off to Randi for the final proofreading step. At this step, Randi put all the finishing touches on the file and prepared it for our designer, Nelly, ensuring the file was properly formatted, all Scripture was properly attributed, and the updated copyright page was ready to go.
Cover & Interior Design
The first edition of Expectant, though valuable in content, had a less than inviting cover design. Through our discovery process, Julie was confident that we warm and soften the cover design this time around, so the art on the outside matched the sweet conversations on the inside.
This was no challenge for Nelly. After a few different cover proposals, we settled on a lovely earth-toned color palette with gender-neutral watercolor baby items for a timeless and appealing design.
Carrying the cover art into the interior design, Nelly created beautiful chapter headings and section pages to perfectly complement the beauty of the cover. These extra little delicate touches helped brighten the interior pages while still keeping with the overall softness of the design.
Publishing & Optimization
We designed and formatted Expectant: A New Mom’s Devotional – Faith, Encouragement, and Grace for New and Expectant Mothers for both IngramSpark and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, in print and eBook, per our usual effort to maximize opportunities for distribution and sales. After performing our metadata and market research, Sara created updated copy for the back cover and product description, optimized Julie’s bio for her Amazon Author Central profile, and selected keywords and categories to ensure we maximized the books’ organic reach and searchability on Amazon.
Using all of Sara’s research, Mandy created product listings for both formats of Expectant on both IngramSpark and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and worked with KDP support to migrate the product reviews, critical to any author’s success, from the first edition to the new one, and to properly link the two versions together on both Amazon and GoodReads.
We are incredibly pleased with the new Expectant, and working with Julie again was an absolute delight! If you know a new or expectant mom, order your copy here—this book will make the perfect gift!
What Julie had to say…
“Friends, it’s absolutely beautiful! My heart is just so full. I can’t wait to start sharing it and to start gifting it to expectant mothers around the world. My heart is more than grateful for your help as my book Doulas!”
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), plus audiobook cover design
- 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
Team Members Involved
Randi Avant
Jenifer Jernigan
Nelly Murariu
Mandy Roberson
Sara Ward
Find out more about these ladies and the rest of the team here at MRM: Meet the Team
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