I've Set a Publishing Date ... Maybe

It's been a wild ride with my debuting my first devotional, and I have some updates that I have been hesitant to share because what if something changes ... again?

Let's do a quick recap, shall we?

January 2022 - began writing a 90-day devotional for moms

September 2022 - passed of the first 30 days to my editor

Then I took about a year off, time split between pregnant and post-partum with my youngest.

I came back on February 1, 2024, I wrote the 90th devotion! The book was finished! It felt like I was close to the end, but oh, what God had in store for me yet.

Then, around mid-February, my editor and I had a heart-to-heart and jointly decided that three books would be better than one. I broke The Found Mama up into three thirty-day devotionals instead of one big book and our focus became solely book one.

My editor and I passed drafts back and forth, making changes and improvements, and perfecting and polishing the draft until it was ready. Then, it was time for formatting and getting the book ready for print - adding in all the little details like checking margins, setting up page numbers, creating journal pages and graphics and cover art. Half of the work was just in researching and learning how to do all of this!

And then, I felt the Lord - very clearly - telling me to give my book away for free. I had no doubt about what He was asking me to do, so my next step was to figure out how to do that part. Enter this website, which was launched as a platform to host "The Found Mama Reading Plan." My new website and the reading plan all launched in June of 2024.

I heavily promoted the reading plan for a while, all while in the background continuing on with formatting The Found Mama and writing my other project - The Pink Thread.

And, just about the time I was finishing up with formatting, the Good Lord threw me for another loop. I had been praying about what to do next because I was growing curious about traditional publishing rather than seeking the self-publish like I had planned all along. I was in constant prayer about this as I found fly after fly after fly in my ointment. Try as I might, I was struggling with the formatting and back-end uploading of it all and I wondered if it was human error or divine intervention. And then, God spoke, and my next steps were once again made perfectly clear - He wanted to me to query one specific agent.

It took what felt like forever to do this because once again, there was much to learn and research, and finally, execute.

Time absolutely flew over the next year between working on an agent query and book proposal, and finishing the first draft of The Pink Thread - all in the midst of living a very full and busy life as a wife and mama and friend and daughter granddaughter and ya know... all the things

I submitted my first and only author query the first of July 2025 and it was the strangest experience. I knew before I even submitted the query that there was a really good chance that this was a test of obedience. I don't know exactly why I felt that way, but I went into it knowing up front that I may never hear back from this agent that I felt like God cherry-picked for me to query. I was okay with it, and I knew in my heart that none of this was a guarantee that the book would even get picked up by a publisher. It was really odd to feel God leading me into a very specific area, while not taking the alternative option fully off the table.

Did you ever watch the show Friends? There is an episode where Rachel thinks she might be pregnant, and she is taking a pregnancy test in the bathroom with her friends. Too nervous to pick up the stick when the time is up, her friend, Phoebe, grabs the test and reads the results - not pregnant. Rachel was disappointed, even though she had been hoping that the test would be negative. Her disappointment surprised her! And then Phoebe interrupts the silence to reveal the tricky truth - the test was, in fact, positive. Rachel was pregnant, and now, Phoebe had given her a true gift - the gift of knowing how she truly felt about this unplanned pregnancy.

Looking back, I feel like this is maybe what God was doing for me - He was giving me the gift of total peace about self-publishing.

When I submitted my agent query, my inbox immediately received an automated response telling me that if I did not hear back from the agency withing thirty days, I was to assume that they did not think my book was a match for their agency at this time.

For the next thirty days, you'd think I was checking my e-mail religiously but honestly, some days, I even forgot. That is how much peace I had about what was going on, and I knew and know that God is always in control. I know that God had me write this book, and I know that my efforts will not be in vain. Above all, I know that His timing is perfect, and I trust Him with my life.

So, now, here we are. Present day - late August 2025. I spent my summer reading through the whole Bible in 90 days, and that sprint through the scriptures left me feeling so inspired to spring through and publish The Found Mama - finally. And that brings us to the news I would like to share today.

I have set a publishing date ... maybe.

I have formatted the book.

I have finalized the cover.

I have purchased my ISBN numbers and will soon assign them, which is permanent.

I am planning a the book launch.

I am hopeful for offering a limited-edition box set pre-order.

I am working so hard on a thousand little behind-the-scenes details that nobody would ever guess goes into publishing a book. Hours every day to see if I can pull this off by the date I have entered into my calendar.

So, I am not yet ready to announce that date. I'm afraid something will change again, and cancelled plans are not the best look.

But, if you don't want to miss a thing, you're in the right place. Make sure you are subscribed to my e-mails and you will absolutely be the very first ones to know when The Found Mama is going to drop ...

And I every intention that I will be making that announcement very soon.