Last week, I encouraged you to stop, to be still,
to call to God before you AI searched or called anyone else.
And maybe you did that. Maybe you sat with him and something stirred.
Maybe you sensed a nudge towards a new book series.
Maybe a reader came to mind, a specific kind of person your writing is meant to reach, and you couldn't shake them.
Maybe God confirmed something you'd been second guessing for months.
Or maybe he simply said, write and you felt it land differently this time.
But then Monday came,
and with it came the question that follows every spiritual moment. Now what?
Because knowing God told you to write is one thing.
Knowing what to write,
who to write it for, and how to talk about it in a way that actually reaches the people he had in mind. And that's where most Christian authors get stuck.
And staying stuck means the message he placed in you stays buried.
The reader he had in mind never finds it, and the calling never fully gets off the ground.
Today I want to change that. I'm going to help you take what God told you and translate it into a clear author identity, a defined message, and a direction you can actually move in.
And I have a free resource that's going to help you do exactly that.
So stay with me because I'm going to tell you about it a little later in the episode.
Grab your favorite beverage, settle in and turn up the volume. This is the Anointed Scribe podcast.
I'm Urcelia Teixeira, ex real estate agent turned award winning Christian fiction author.
When I wrote my first novel on a bucket list whim, I had no idea it would spark a spiritual journey that would redefine my calling. But you know what, friend?
Self publishing wasn't easy. I got caught in the hustle, chasing rankings and sales while desperately trying to stay rooted in Christ.
Now, by God's grace, I'm building my author business his way. And now he's called me to help you do the same, saying,
welcome to the Anointed Scribe Podcast, where faith meets business for Christian writers. Let's write, publish and grow our author business God's way. Are you ready? Well then, let's get started.
Hey, it's your author friend, Urcelia. And welcome to the show, the podcast for Christian writers and authors where we learn to build and grow our writing life and our author business with Christ at the center.
If you're joining me for the first time today, welcome friend.
Consider yourself officially part of the Anointed Scribe community. I'm really glad you found your way here today.
And to my subscribers, my followers My regulars. Thank you for coming back. If you listened to last week's episode, today is the natural next step.
And if you haven't listened yet, I'd encourage you to go back and start there. It's episode 75 and it lays the foundation for everything we're covering here today. Today.
Last week we talked about Jeremiah 33:3,
about the unsearchable things God wants to tell you. Things that cannot be Googled,
cannot be generated by AI,
cannot be found in anyone else's framework, things that are uniquely, specifically yours.
And this week I want to ask the follow up question.
Once he tells you,
once you receive that direction, that clarity, that sense of calling,
what do you actually do with it?
Because I've noticed something in the conversations with Christian authors and in some of the communities,
the paralysis doesn't usually happen before the calling.
It happens after the calling. God speaks, something shifts, and then the author sits there wondering how on earth to turn a spiritual instruction into a book,
a brand, a message that reaches the people that have been called to reach.
So today we're going to talk about that bridge.
But before we get into the practical stuff, I want to address something that I think holds a lot of Christian authors back from doing this work at all.
The word branding makes a lot of us uncomfortable. It sounds worldly, right? It sounds like marketing. It sounds like the kind of thing people do when they care more about their image than their message.
And for writers who genuinely want to serve God rather than build a platform,
the whole concept can feel vaguely at odds with a calling, right?
But here's what I've come to understand.
Your author brand is not your image. It is not your aesthetic or your color palette or your Instagram grid.
Those things exist, but they are not the thing itself.
Your author brand is how you take care of the voice of God gave you.
It is the answer to the questions, who am I as a writer?
What am I called to say? And who am I called to say it to?
And those are not worldly questions. They are deeply, profoundly spiritual ones.
Because if God has placed a message in you and he has,
then getting clear on that message and on who needs to hear it is an act of faithfulness,
not vanity.
Proverbs 29:18 says, where there is no vision, people perish.
A God led author without a clear sense of their message and their mission is an author without vision.
And without vision, the writing drifts. The marketing will feel forced. Your platform will feel hollow. Not because the calling isn't real, but because the calling hasn't been defined clearly enough to be stewarded.
Well,
clarity about your brand is not a concession to the world. It is obedience to the assignment.
Going back to Jeremiah 33:3 for a moment, because I think there's something in it we didn't fully unpack last week.
God promises to tell us great and unsearchable things. But receiving something unsearchable or hidden doesn't mean it stays formless forever.
Habakkuk 2:2 says, Write the vision and make it plain.
God told Habakkuk to write it down,
to make it clear, to give it a form that others could receive and run with.
That is the work of Christian author branding,
taking what God has placed in you, the message, the calling, the specific angle on the truth that is uniquely yours, and making it plain.
Not dumbing it down, not shrinking it, making it accessible,
giving it a form that the people he's called you to reach can actually find,
receive, and be changed by it.
And that work requires intentionality.
It doesn't happen by accident.
It doesn't emerge simply because you write good books and pray over them. It requires you to sit down and do the honest, sometimes uncomfortable work of asking, what is my message?
Who is it for?
What do I want someone to walk away knowing or feeling or doing after they encounter my work?
These are the questions that turn a calling into a brand and a brand into a ministry.
And here's the specific place where I see Christian writers get stuck. And I want to name it plainly, because I think naming it helps, and also because I'm not one to beat around the bush much.
Most of us know our calling in general terms.
We know we are called to write. We know our books are meant to point people toward calling. We know there's a message in us somewhere.
But we struggle to get specific.
We struggle to say, this is my message.
These are my people.
This is what makes my voice distinct from every other Christian author out there.
And the reason we struggle isn't that we haven't heard from God.
It's that we haven't done the work of translating what he said into specific,
clear, actionable language.
Sometimes that's because we're afraid to be specific.
Specificity feels like it excludes people, and we want our books to reach everyone, right? But here's the truth.
The more specific you are about who you're talking to,
the more deeply the right people feel seen.
Generality reaches no one deeply. Specificity reaches the right people profoundly.
And sometimes the paralysis comes from not having a framework to work through,
not because the calling isn't clear,
but because nobody has helped us ask the right questions in the right order to bring it into focus,
that's exactly what the resource I'm about to share with you is designed to do.
If you're listening right now and thinking, I know I'm called to write,
I know God has placed something in me, but I genuinely don't know how to define my message or identify who I'm calling to reach.
I want you to pause this episode for a moment because I've created a free resource called Discover your Christian Author brand.
It's a guided framework that walks you through the exact questions you need to answer to get clear on your identity,
your message and your mission as a Christian writer.
Not based on trends, not based on what's working for someone else,
but based on how God has specifically wired and called you.
It is the starting point. I walk every author through before we do anything else together. And once you grab it and keep an eye on your inbox because I'll be sending you some additional resources to help you take what you discover and put it into practice.
The link is in the show notes. Go grab it now and then come straight back and let's keep going.
So let's get practical.
What does it actually look like to take a divine direction from God and translate it into a defined author brand?
Well, it starts with your message.
Not your genre, believe it or not.
Not your niche, not your target market.
Your message.
The one thing you want every reader to walk away knowing or feeling or believing after they encounter your work.
For some authors, this is a theological truth.
For others, it's an emotional experience.
Hope,
courage, the sense that they are not alone.
For others, it's a specific transformation.
A reader who comes to your books confused about their faith and leaves with clarity. For example,
your message is the through line of everything you write. It's the reason your books exist beyond the story itself.
And getting clear on it changes how you write, how you talk about your books, how you show up on social media,
and how you make decisions about what to write next.
Once you know your message, you need to know your reader. Not your demographics,
not women aged 35 to 55,
but the specific person your message is for.
What is she carrying? What does she need?
What has she tried that hasn't worked? What does she believe about herself that isn't true?
What does God want her to know that she hasn't fully received yet?
When you can answer those questions, you stop writing books and you start writing to someone.
And writing to someone changes everything. About the quality and the resonance of what you produce.
And then,
and this is the piece most authors skip, you need to know what makes your voice distinct,
not better than other Christian authors distinct. The specific combination of experience,
perspective, writing style, and theological emphasis that is uniquely yours.
Because there are other authors writing in your genre, other writers serving Christian readers, other voices in your space.
That's not going to change.
But there is no one who carries exactly what you carry,
and the world needs what is specifically, irreplaceably yours.
I want to close this episode today with a question I've been sitting with personally.
If God has placed a message in you, and I believe he has,
and if he has given you the ability to write, which again, I believe he has,
then clarity about your brand is not optional.
It is stewardship.
Because a message without clarity is a message that doesn't reach the people it was meant for.
A calling without definition is a calling that gets lost in the noise and the people. God intends your books to reach the specific reader he has in mind when he placed that story or that teaching in you.
She deserves or he deserves. Your best effort at getting clear enough to to actually find them.
That is not worldly thinking.
That is the parable of the talents applied to your writing life.
You have been given something.
The question is whether you are burying it or investing it.
Friend, hearing from God is the beginning,
but it is not the whole journey. The unsearchable things he tells you need a vessel.
They need a voice that is defined clearly enough to carry them. They need a message, a reader, a direction that is specific enough to be stewarded well.
That work is not a distraction from your calling.
It is your calling expressed with the intentionality and clarity it deserves.
Go grab the Discover your Christian Author brand guide. The link is in the show notes.
Work through it prayerfully. Take every question back to God and let him be the one who confirms the answers.
And when you're ready to go deeper to do the foundational work that brings all of this together,
my Revive to Thrive Way™ program is waiting for you. The link is also in the show notes.
Friend, may your pen stay faithful, your roots grow deep, and every word you write bear fruit for his glory.
If you've been building your author business feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and unsure of your next steps, the Revive to Thrive Way™ was made for you. Three shifts that replace the overwhelm with peace, the confusion with purpose, and the hustle with overflow.
And they're ready to do the same for you. Check it out at anointedscribe.com/ReviveToThrive link is in the show notes.
