Sallie Dawkins’ newest book teaches others to self-publish

After self-publishing 11 books in less than three years, local Christian author Sallie Dawkins is teaching others to self-publish through her newest book.

“The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Self-Publishing for Christians” by Dawkins is a technical manual for anyone to learn how to publish a book without a publishing company.

The book is available at Amazon.com. The eBook is free for Amazon Kindle Unlimited members, and is $0.99 for non-members through the end of September to celebrate its launch.   

The book made it to the number 1 spot on two of Amazon’s best seller lists, in the categories of “Business Aspects” and “Authorship.” Dawkins said the book has sold almost 200 copies in the last week.

Dawkins is currently a Danville resident, but has lived in many different states. She went into Christian ministry after having a healing experience in 2015. She had been struggling with debilitating chronic pain and many health issues for about two decades, but Dawkins said that she received healing from God through a group of children.

Now, she is an ordained healing evangelist and prophetic intercessor. She said she felt a call to start writing books in October 2020. She began writing a series of three books, and released them all in November 2021. The series is called The Awakening Christian Series.

The Advocate-Messenger published an article about those first three books by Dawkins, titled “Writing for God – Danville resident’s new book series is on Amazon bestseller list,” which people can read here.

Since then, Dawkins has self-published numerous books, and wanted to share her wisdom on self-publishing in “The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Self-Publishing for Christians.”

Dawkins collaborated with other people and authors over the course of a year of writing the book. She has an online writers and authors group, and invited authors who write different genres from that group to serve as points of reference for the book. She also received help and inspiration through CentreWorks in Danville.

Dawkins originally intended for her notes on self-publishing to be a course, but she thought God was telling her to do something else with the information.

She signed up for the local Liftoff class by CentreWorks, which is an entrepreneurship training class that teaches beginners how to form and launch a business idea. In that class, Dawkins interviewed 28 local people, asking them if they’ve ever considered writing something that would eventually be published.

“I discovered that 90 percent of the people that I interviewed did want to write something, but they didn’t know where to start, it was a confusing process, there was some fear,” Dawkins said. “It was the same barriers that were preventing them from moving forward, and it was that the process was so complicated. So this book serves to simplify that process step by step, and it’s something I wish I would’ve had [starting out].”

From the CentreWorks class, she got the idea to turn her outline for a course on self-publishing into a book.

However, Dawkins is still offering a series of free classes based on the book, held at the Boyle County Library in the Georgia de Araujo gallery. Classes are every Tuesday in September from 6 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. (remaining classes are Sept. 12, 19, and 26).

In collaboration with Mary Beth Lovett, a local editor/proofreader, the class goes over different chapters of Dawkins’ book, and walks people through the process of self-publishing. Seating is limited to 12 people.

Dawkins does every part of the self-publishing process herself, including designing the books and sending them to a printer. Dawkins said she doesn’t have many technology skills, so she uses basic programs to design her books, including Microsoft Word, and Atticus.

Dawkins’ other books mainly come from her own journal entries, time praying, and quotes from the Bible. The list of books with the release years is below:

2021

The Awakening Christian Series:

• Vol. 1: “You Can Hear the Voice of God Through All Your Spiritual Senses”

• Vol. 2: “You Can Know the Heart of God For Your Life”

• Vol. 3: “You Can Share the Love of God with Others”

2022

• “God’s Promises of Abundance for Healing”

• “Complete in Christ: Discovering Identity, Provision, and Purpose within God’s Word”

• “God’s Wisdom for Wealth: Flourishing in Family and Business”

• “Spirit World Truths from God’s Word”

• “311 Questions Jesus Asked”

2023

• “Maggie’s Legacy: Lessons in Spiritual Obedience Learned from My Border Collie”

• “Identity in Christ: 100 Scriptures and Affirmations to Build Confidence”

• “The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Self-Publishing for Christians”

Dawkins said that she’s been able to write so many books in such a short time due to the simple content of some of them.

Her book “Spirit World Truths from God’s Word” came out of prayer time when Dawkins said that God told her to look up every use of the word “spirit” in the Bible. She gathered every Bible verse with the word “spirit” and compiled them into that book.

“I was really quite surprised by what I found,” Dawkins said. “You expect references to God’s spirit, but then he’s also referencing man’s spirit, and then he’s naming demonic spirits, and that’s something I had never noticed before.”

“311 Questions Jesus Asked” is a similar compilation of Bible verses – all the questions that Jesus asks in the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John books of the Bible. Dawkins added her ideas on how to use those questions and how they’re beneficial.

“Everything I publish I do because it’s useful to me, and I think if it’s useful to me, it might be useful to other people,” she said.

Other books include daily affirmations with Bible verses, and other books include information from her own prayer journal.

“Journaling is really important, and there’s not a day that I don’t sit with the Lord and talk with him and journal our conversations, or journal what I think he’s saying, or dreams,” Dawkins said.

She said all her ideas for books come from God, explaining, “all the provision for everything I need is from him, I’m not trying to build something on my own … I’m allowing him to lead, and that makes my life so much less complicated.”

Dawkins said her top sellers are “You Can Hear the Voice of God Through All Your Spiritual Senses,” “311 Questions Jesus Asked,” and “Maggie’s Legacy: Lessons in Spiritual Obedience Learned from My Border Collie.”

She said “Maggie’s Legacy” might be her favorite book, because it’s based on her dog Maggie who passed away in 2021. That book was her first idea in starting to write, but she said God told her to wait. Then, Maggie died from blood cancer at eight years old, and Dawkins said the process of writing that book healed the wounds of losing her.

The book is somewhat of a daily devotional with simple spiritual lessons about God speaking in everyday life.

“I wasn’t a prolific writer; I would journal sometimes, document my dreams sometimes; but when the Lord asked me to start writing, I started documenting the things I was learning from walking the dog,” Dawkins said.

“It’s meant for families to use as a read-aloud in the evening to end the day with having a discussion about the Lord,” Dawkins said. “It’s easy enough for new readers to read, and would hold the attention of middle school readers.”

The font size of Dawkins’ books is larger than what traditional publishing companies put out. Font size is something she can have control over as a self-publisher, and she said this makes it easier for older people to read her books.

Dawkins is in the process of launching her 12th book, “Healing Words: 100 Scriptures and Affirmations for Wholeness.”