We’re Publishing a Book. Here’s Everything We Learned.

The honest, unfiltered story of self-publishing — and why you should do it too

For as long as either of us can remember, we’ve wanted to write a book.

Not because it was a smart marketing strategy (though it is). Not because we had a publisher knocking on our door (we didn’t). But because both of us grew up believing that if your name is on the cover of a book, you’ve arrived. And because, like a lot of the women in our audience, we had years of stories, lessons, and frameworks rattling around inside us that deserved to exist in the world.

So this week on the Serendipitous Rebel Podcast, we’re announcing it: we’re publishing a book. It’s called Break Up With Blueprint Business. And we’re sharing everything — the messy middle, the procrastination loops, the AI cover art disasters, and the lessons that every female entrepreneur needs to hear before she talks herself out of doing this.

Everyone Has a Book Inside Them. Most People Never Publish It.

Here’s what we know to be true: almost every entrepreneur we’ve ever worked with has said, at some point, “I’ve always wanted to write a book.” And most of them never do. Not because they can’t. Not because they don’t have something worth saying. But because the same pitfalls that sabotage everything else in business — perfectionism, imposter syndrome, the endless editing loop — show up here too, with extra force.

Writing a book feels permanent. It feels exposing. It feels like something that will be judged in a way that a social media post never will. And so the book stays in the head, taking up space, waiting for some magical future moment when everything is ready.

That moment doesn’t come on its own. You have to make it come.

What Is Amazon KDP — And Why It Changes Everything

The world of publishing has fundamentally shifted. There used to be exactly one path: write a manuscript, query agents and publishers, wait 18 months to two years, and hope someone in a gatekeeping position decided your story was worth it. Countless brilliant, worthy books never made it through that filter.

Amazon KDP — Kindle Direct Publishing — removes the gatekeeper entirely. You write your book, format it to their specifications, upload it, and it’s available for purchase on Amazon. Paperback and e-book. Worldwide. And here’s the part that surprised even us: it costs nothing to open an account and publish. You keep your intellectual property. Amazon doesn’t own a word of it.

The technical side of KDP involves two core files: a manuscript (formatted as a PDF for paperback, or as a document/EPUB for e-book) and a cover file that includes front, spine, and back. For paperback, you’ll need to choose a trim size — we went with a standard 6×9 — set your margins correctly, and export everything precisely. There are also ISBN numbers to purchase if you want to retain full distribution control, which we recommend. But none of this is as complicated as it sounds once you’re actually in it. The jargon is new. The process is learnable.

And the timeline? We went from “let’s actually do this” to a finished manuscript ready for publication in under two months.

The Book Itself: Break Up With Blueprint Business

Our book started as a workshop — one we’ve run for years with clients — about how to stop building a Frankenstein business assembled from other people’s blueprints and start building one you actually love. One that’s aligned with your life, your values, and the kind of business you actually want to run.

Turning a workshop into a book required something the workshop didn’t: vulnerability. We had to add our own stories. Real ones. Specific moments from the last eight or nine years in online business where we struggled, failed, learned, and changed. The first draft was vague. When we read it back, we knew: no one cares about the generic version. They need the real one.

Getting specific was hard. And it was exactly right.

The Messy Middle Nobody Talks About

Here’s what the process actually looked like for us:

• The procrastination loop. Krystal had sections sitting in Notion marked “priority” for weeks. The accountability push came on the SAVOUR™️ Mastermind Retreat cruise, when the combination of blue sky, calm water, and people asking “how’s that coming along” finally unlocked something. She finished her sections on the ship.

• The cover design rabbit hole. Wendy went through more cover iterations than she can count — across Canva, ChatGPT, and Claude — before landing on something simple, branded, and clean. AI helpfully generated covers with seven-fingered people, suggestive shapes, and color schemes that bore no resemblance to their brand. The final version required letting go of perfection and trusting the work.

• The editing loop. There is such a thing as too much editing. When you’re still tweaking, nothing is live, nothing can be rejected, and nothing can reach the people it’s meant to help. At some point, you have to get off the porch.

• The tech overwhelm. ISBN numbers, EPUB formats, trim sizes, margin settings — the technical language of publishing is a new dialect. But like any new dialect, it gets easier the longer you’re in it. We googled things. We asked questions. We fumbled forward. You can too.

Why Publishing a Book Is One of the Best Things You Can Do for Your Business

A book does something that a social media post, a podcast episode, or even a course can’t quite replicate: it establishes you as the authority on your topic in a way that feels permanent and credible. When someone is deciding who to invest in, who to hire, whose framework to follow — a book tips the scale.

It also lives in your sales ecosystem in a way that keeps working long after you’ve stopped actively promoting it. It can be a lead magnet, a low-cost offer, a gateway into your higher-ticket programs, or simply a way to reach people who would never have found you otherwise.

And beyond the strategy? It’s unburdening. There is something that happens when you take the thing that has been living in your head and put it into the world. It stops taking up space. It starts doing work.

The Pull-Out Shelf Principle

Wendy installed pull-out shelves in her kitchen a couple of years ago. She’d wanted them for years, but assumed it would be a major remodel — expensive, technical, requiring a contractor. When she finally just did it, it cost $200 and took less than an hour. She was furious at herself for waiting.

Publishing this book felt the same way. The version of it in our heads was enormous, complicated, gatekept. The version of it in reality was learnable, doable, and — more than anything — worth doing.

If the book has been living in your head, this is your sign. It’s not that deep. You can fix things as you go. What’s the worst that happens? Someone leaves a less-than-stellar review?

(If you liked it, please leave a review. If you didn’t — just keep that to yourself.)

Pre-order Break Up With Blueprint Business at the link in the show notes. And join us in the free SAVOUR™️ Community at serendipitousrebel.com/community — that’s where you’ll get all the launch details first.

Your book is in there.

Venture under your own power.

Get it out.