June Newsletter

Hi everyone, it’s been a busy month, with the Big Church Festival, creating the print files for the new version of Judges, finishing off Song of Songs and working hard on the page of Acts for release in 2024.

Here’s this month’s news!

Patreon access to Acts

As you may know, we have a Patreon page, and patrons get early access to the pages of the books as they are created. In about a week’s time, the pages of Song of Songs will have all been posted and we’ll begin to post pages from The Book of Acts. Even though the Kickstarter for this book won’t be until March 2024 and the release will be that September, the work starts now. We have over 30 pages already drawn and coloured and patrons receive 4 pages every 2 weeks and top tier patrons get a video every other week about the historical and biblical elements within the pages (~20-30mins) too.

I recently discovered that out of the top 25 “Bible” Patreon pages mine has the most posts with over 600! When you become a patron you get access to all the previous posts on your tier as well. There are actually over 70 hours of videos there (believe it or not).

Aside from all that good stuff your support really helps us with a stable monthly income to rely on. You can be a patron from just £1/month.

 Go to Patreon Page 

Big Church Festival

We had a good time at Big Church Festival, and added lots of people to this mailing list, so WELCOME ABOARD! Here are a couple of Pics:

The Gathering

At the end of this month I’ll be heading to Gathering, a Christian Men’s event in a field near Swindon. It’s a great event inspiring UK men in their walk. If you’re going along come and say hi and see what deals we have. We’ll be selling two titles which are not yet available in shops!

A Kickstarter you’ll like…

Launched just the other day, I discovered this Kickstarter “Gate Zero – A Bible Exploration Video Game” to create a computer game based on the life of Christ and trying to be historically accurate like us. I backed it and hope we’ll be able to collaborate with them in the future.

 Go to their Kickstarter 

Prayer

Spanish editions: We have some potential leads to getting distribution of our Spanish editions in Latin America and Europe. Please pray we can get these books into the hands of Spanish speakers very soon!

Technical issue: We have had some trouble with the ISBN registration on Amazon and other places for the new books. Some progress has been made since last time but please pray this is miraculously sorted out very soon so it does not hamper sales.

May Newsletter

This newsletter is coming to you a little later in the month this time and I’ve have my head down working on to new book and getting the others ready for print.

Soon we’ll be printing a brand new version of Judges as well as all the Song of Songs books.

Song of Songs backer update

The Song of Songs graphic novel is complete, fully coloured and is now being compiled for print. Once that is done and it has been proofread and updated it will be sent out digitally to backers. The printers will be receiving it in August ready for fulfilment to you in September/October.

Big Church Festival

This weekend we will be having a stand at the Big Church Festival in the UK. So if you’ll be coming along be sure to drop by in the Expo space. We’ll have special offers and more. Here’s an image from last year, with me an Adam who won a competition to be drawn into the comic with his page showing.

(Next month I’ll also be at The Gathering a Christian Men’s Event).

Prison Ministry

With the financial support of the OPTIM trust and connections at Junctions 42 and the 54:2 Foundation, we have now sent hundreds of copies of our Bible Comics into prisons around the UK. We have had great feedback, and below are a few anonymous quotes from inmates:

• “The images enabled me to have a tangible connection with the characters, and therefore the scripture passages were easier to get my head around”.

• “I love this Bible, the pictures really help me to get into the stories, and bring them alive”.

• ‘‘As a life-long graphic novel fan, and a collector of Manga, I was excited to read this series by Simon Amadeus Pillario. When the Chaplaincy was gifted a pile of comic novels I was first in the queue to get my hands on one. The Gospel of Luke has excellent visual representations of the ethereal as well as honest depictions of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The added maps, background and insights are also a nice touch, along with, of course, every NIV-translated word. Amazing!!! Thank you for blessing me with Luke’s Gospel. I look forward to owning the other 65 books!!!!’’

• “The pictures helped me to understand the readings because I could connect with the story and message in a much better way”.

• “I really enjoyed the graphic novel of Matthew’s Gospel. The artwork was fantastic and reminded me of reading comics when I was a boy! I jumped at the chance of reading one when they became available. So, thank you ever so much for this opportunity”

Prayer

Other languages: We are still praying for more foreign publishers to licence the bible comic series and get it out in other languages.

Prisons: Please pray for the books that have gone into the prisons, that they will continue to help inmates connect with God’s word and even help others read the Bible for the first time.

Technical issue: We have had some trouble with the ISBN registration on Amazon and other places for the new books. Please pray this is miraculously sorted out before the end of the month so it does not hamper sales.

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If you’d like to support the project on a regular basis from just $1 a month. Head to www.patreon.com/WordforWordBibleComic

April Newsletter: Last few days to back the Kickstarter

The Kickstarter got off to an amazing start thanks to so many of you getting in and backing at the start! As a result we became a “Project We Love” and held the top ten more popular comic slots for the first week.

The minimum goal was hit in the first 18 hours, but there is still a few days left to finish strong and hit our final stretch goal of £22,500!

The last day is Easter Sunday, so don’t miss out!

Premier Christianity Article

The project has been covered in Premier Christianity Magazine this month too. Click the image to see the article online.

Interview: Systematic Geekology

I did an interview with Christian and Joe all about the creation of the Song of Songs comic which you can view here:

Prayer

Kickstarter: Please continue to pray we get lots of new folk to discover the project and back the Kickstarter!

New financial year: Please pray for us to have an excellent financial year ahead, and to make the right choices and partners this year.

Other languages: During April our books will be featured at a few different book licencing events, please pray we can share the Bible Comic with more languages and find good partners to work with!

MARCH NEWSLETTER: Song of Songs Kickstart is live!

MARCH NEWSLETTER

It's finally time for the Kickstarter to begin! 

Back the Kickstarter now! 

The Song of Songs KS is live! Head to the page to find out more about how we will be presenting the story in the text and videos on the page. You can even download a 17-page sample. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: This year we are charging the postage after the campaign ends, so your pledge will just be the site cost and not have postage included. 

4 reasons to back at the start

1) Early Bird and unique rewards go extremely quickly! 
2) The faster a Kickstarter funds the more highly it is ranked for being "popular". This gives "social proof" to the project and can also lead to getting featured on Kickstarter's top projects page!
3) Stops us stressing about whether the project will fund
4) We are utilising a marketing agent this time and I'd like for all my existing supporters to back early using this specific link so we do not pay a commission on your pledge. 

Prayer

As we embark on our new Kickstarter please pray that it will fund really well, will be a KS "project we love" and that lots of new people discover the project because of it.

FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

Happy February, we have a new book out now and we are gearing up for the next Kickstarter in March! 

The Book of Joshua: NIV released! 

This month sees the release of our newest instalment, the Book of Joshua: NIV Translation. You can order yours now on the website in paperback or digital formats!

Song of Songs Kickstarter starts March 9th

This time next month we'll be launching the newest Kickstarter campaign for The Song of Songs! We'll email you as it launches. As in previous years, we'd love to encourage you to pledge right at the beginning if you plan to support the campaign as funding quickly attracts attention from Kickstarter itself and helps show up on "popular campaigns" and is great social proof to help newcomers to have the confidence to back it, also we often have unique items and limited offers, so... be ready! 

Help promote? Also if you have a blog, podcast or youtube channel and you'd be happy to give the book a shout-out or initial review please get in touch

Below is an example of a post from our social media, follow us on FB, Instagram, Twitter etc to see more posts like this one. (Links at the bottom of the email).

SONG OF SONGS IDIOMS: Mare (1:9-11): It's believed that Pharaoh's chariots would have been drawn exclusively by stallions, so a mare among them implies she is extremely diverting. A battle tactic attested in Egyptian literature was to release a mare in the vicinity of an enemy's chariots so that the stallions pulling the chariots would become distracted and chaotic. An alternative interpretation that supposes a mare 'is' pulling Pharaoh's chariot suggests she looks majestic in the finery of a chariot horse.

Purim is coming

At the start of March, Jewish people across the world will be celebrating Purim. The holiday celebrating the deliverance of Israel by God in the time of Queen Esther. It is also traditional to celebrate the festival by reading the Book of Esther, so we'd like to offer 30% off from now until March 7th on this graphic novel. Perhaps you'd like to buy a copy for yourself or Jewish friends in time for the celebration. 

USE CODE: PURIM2023 

Prayer

Well-being: Please pray for our family's well-being and health, we've had a lot of stress with kids out of school and things changing due to ill health recently, so please pray for us. 

Kickstarter: As we move towards another Kickstarter please pray that it will fund really well, will be a KS "project we love" and that lots of new people discover the project because of it.

JANUARY NEWSLETTER

Happy New Year! And with a new year comes a new graphic novel in development...

Song of Songs

I started considering the Song of Songs as the next comic because lots of people jokingly said "Haha, you should do the Song of Songs", and I thought that I'd like to take up that challenge and started exploring the idea.

Now that the book is done I've been really pleased with how much value is added by including pictures with the Song. The book read as plain text is very confusing regarding who is speaking and what their words really mean. Some words that sound very sexual are not, and others that sound innocent are sensual.

However, as you'll see, in our comic the song is sung at a wedding. So even where there is sensual language, it is not about what is happening but playful innuendo. There's no nudity, except a few cases of silhouettes (like on this page).

I'm really pleased with how this book has come out and how the message of the book is now much easier to understand. At the end of the book, I also explore other interpretations (the three-person view, analogies etc) in the appendix articles too.

Can't wait? 

We will be holding a Kickstarter for this new book in March and you'll see a few more images between now and then via our social media, but if you'd like to see the pages first you can become a patron. Patronage hugely supports the project and tiers of just $3 or more receive 8 pages of the new material each month. Patrons of $5 a month receive bi-weekly videos about the historical and biblical research involved in the books. 

PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/WordforWordBibleComic
 

Kickstarter Backers discount expires soon

If you ordered a Christmas book on Kickstarter you'll have received a discount code to use or give away. These discounts expire soon, so be sure to use them or remind your gift recipients to use them before then. 
 

Prayer for prison ministries 

If you've been following the prayer requests for a while you'll know we've been trying to get the comics into the UK prisons for a long time now. We felt there was some spiritual opposition, but with your prayer, we have now started to make strides. At Easter, we have 20,000 gospel colouring posters going out to prisons and right now the chaplains are also being offered up to 25 copies of the Bible Comics free (funded by a charity called OPTIM) for their study groups and libraries. This is an excellent opportunity to get God's Word into prisons, so I'd love it if you could join us in praying that the chaplains will read the email and take us up on this offer!

DECEMBER NEWSLETTER

Christmas is on its way and we are giving you some Christmas cheer!

Please note, there are several postal strikes in the UK at the moment so please don't leave ordering your graphic novels to the last minute!

Free Matthew Kindle eBook

To celebrate Christmas being on the way we have made our Gospel of Matthew Kindle ebook completely FREE for 5 days! (Ends 6th Dec). The book includes the nativity story so if you've got friends who don't know about the comic this is a great time to get them into it. Send them the link and they can download the whole book.

USA: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KLX7Z7G
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08KLX7Z7G

Metal Christmas Playlist

Last year I sent you a playlist that focused on the Nativity, this year I'm giving you my selection of the best Christmas songs but heavy metal covers.

PLAYLIST: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4blnUIKLARtMjVpTsf7DWw?si=f7aadd35a9a04e96

Christmas Cards 

No Rudolfs or penguins here! We've got two sets of Christmas cards available. Each pack has six cards with three different designs. Each one has a Bible verse and a picture on both the front and the inside of the card that make a little 2-panel comic :)

It's a great way to remind people what Christmas is all about and introduce them to the Bible comic.
https://www.wordforwordbiblecomic.com/buy

Prayers 

Christmas Books: Over 1000 Christmas books went out with the Kickstarter last month. Please join us in praying that these gifted copies bring many people to God's Word and ultimately to salvation!

NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER

Christmas is on its way and so we've got some offers to help you on the way.

(Sorry, I forgot to repost the newsletter here on the blog for the last 2 months. If you want to have it emailed to you sign up here: https://squarespace.us11.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=326ea81d61b23ca05be019dea&id=54f0e1c961)

BLACK FRIDAY DEALS

We are giving 30% off our brand-new release The Gospel of Luke for a limited time only! Ends Dec 1st. Also available for the Spanish: El Evangelio de Lucas

For Luke use Discount Code: BLACKFRIDAY22
For Lucas use Discount Code: BLACKFRIDAY22ESP

Christmas Cards 

No Rudolfs or penguins here! We've got two sets of Christmas cards available. Each pack has six cards with three different designs. Each one has a Bible verse and a picture on both the front and the inside of the card that make a little 2-panel comic :)

It's a great way to remind people what Christmas is all about and introduce them to the Bible comic.

The Next Book and Patreon

I've been working hard on the new title and its pages and explainer videos will soon start to be posted on our Patreon page. Aside from early access, patrons get to comment and give their suggestions on the developments of the book and the pages before they are officially published.

Next week we are also having a Patron Hangout on Zoom, so if you'd like to join us you can become a patron today from just £1 a month.
https://www.patreon.com/WordforWordBibleComic

Prayers 

Christmas Books: Over 1000 Christmas books went out with the Kickstarter last month. Please join us in praying that these gifted copies bring many people to God's Word and ultimately to salvation!

Youthwork: This weekend I'm off to the national youth workers conference in the UK. I have a stand and every delegate will receive a colouring poster from us. Please join us in praying that many doors will be opened into youth ministries across the UK and beyond as a result.