I've been a writer for a long time. Nearly twenty years now. Over most of that time, I held a full-time job during the day which paid my bills so that I could spend the remaining hours of each evening trying to write a few pages. For several years, I was published by an independent publisher who was gracious enough to support my mystery series, The Rona Shively Stories. He was supportive and kind and observing the way he did business taught me a great deal about the publishing industry. In 2013 or so, he made the decision to close his publishing business and so, I also had to make a decision. Would I continue writing? Or would I just forget about it? At that time, I had written about seven books and had plans to write several more. I'd had no intentions of stopping, but the sudden loss of a publisher presented a bit of a dilemma.
After some consideration, I decided that I would re-release my books under my own publishing imprint. I started Books from Higher Ground and began the process of getting my books back out on the market. It wasn't long before I began to take on other writers and the purpose of Books from Higher Ground slowly changed from the promotion of one story to gathering a collection of like-minded individuals whose purpose became telling THE story! The story of how they overcame challenges or how they figured out a better way or escaped addiction or persecution to become all that God made them to be. It wasn't just about me anymore. And since then, we've gone through a few more changes including changing our name to Higher Ground Books & Media a few years ago. We went from a handful of authors to now, over 40 wonderful writers, several illustrators and narrators. And we are growing. It has been an exciting journey.
One of the ways I have been able to keep this company afloat has been through contributing my own resources to the production of our books including my time and money. We don't have paid employees. Everyone who works with us does so on a royalty split basis. Every bit of the money we earn from sales is put back into the business and although we aren't at all close to being a million-dollar corporation yet, I'm confident that we are heading in that direction with as much speed and momentum as is practical. The mission of Higher Ground Books & Media is to tell THE story, not to be a Fortune-500 company. If we get to that place, we'll be delighted of course, but money isn't what motivates us. It's the chance to touch lives with the stories of inspiration that our writers are courageous enough to share.
I'm so proud of all of our authors for being strong enough to share their struggles. So many of them have gone through unspeakable things and in some cases, are still going through them. I applaud them for all that they do to raise awareness and promote healing through their writing and speaking. Our resources deal with everything from sexual abuse to addiction to bullying to life-threatening illness to depression and anxiety. When we select stories to share, we think about who will benefit from hearing them. Is it something that will add value to another person's life? Is someone likely to gain insight from this book that they might not otherwise be able to find? These are the criteria that help us to decide what gets added to our catalog and this will always be a part of our selection process.
So, when you buy a book from Higher Ground Books & Media, you are helping us to achieve our mission of telling THE story! Every customer is special to us and we are honored that you would take the time to see what we have to offer. I hope you will stay tuned as we are working on more great resources to share with you. Don't forget, we have books available on Kindle and on audio as well as our selection of paperbacks. We publish books written by survivors, for survivors. And we pray that the stories we share will bring you peace, clarity, and strength, especially during these uncertain times. For the next three months, we'd like to offer a free gift to anyone who places an order in our shop. It's our way of saying thank you for supporting Higher Ground Books & Media. Just add the FREE RESOURCE item to your cart when you place your next order and we'll send it your way.
Thanks again for your support! God bless you!