Kingdom Writers: A Podcast for Christian Writers of All Genres

CJ and Shelley Hitz: Writing Mentor, Author Coach, Christian Writers
  • 4.9 (138)
  • Books
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Welcome to Kingdom Writers where CJ and Shelley Hitz help you take a step of faith to finally finish your book. This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters! We believe that you have a specific role to play in the kingdom of heaven to impact lives for eternity. And because of this, we will pour out our lives encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories but to take the courageous step of self-publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by our membership Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers!

  1. 1d ago

    Hitz Blitz: Sometimes We're Quick to Give Up or Discard Something

    New live series: Writing Wins, every Tuesday at 11am Eastern (9 Mountain) on the Kingdom Writers YouTube channel through December 8. Each week CJ and I share one simple win to help you finish your book when life is busy, and the replays are waiting if you miss one. Watch the Writing Wins playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCv2_QZJjAHg Shelley nearly returned a fountain pen to Amazon because it would not write. One flush of the ink later, it worked fine. That is the question for your manuscript and your marketing both. Before you discard the thing, is there one intervention you have not tried yet? Maybe the book is not wrong, just the chapter you are stuck in. Maybe the strategy is not wrong, just untested and untweaked. She also shares what happened to Broken Crayons Still Color, which started as a 12 week study and became a 6 week one. Twelve chapters got cut. Save what you cut. You never know what it turns into later.

  2. 6d ago

    Used AI in Your Christian Book? What to Tell Amazon KDP

    New live series: Writing Wins, every Tuesday at 11am Eastern (9 Mountain) on the Kingdom Writers YouTube channel through December 8. Each week CJ and I share one simple win to help you finish your book when life is busy, and the replays are waiting if you miss one. Watch the Writing Wins playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCv2_QZJjAHg You could write every word of your book yourself and still have to tell Amazon you used AI. You could also run AI over every page and not have to tell them anything. The line between AI assisted and AI generated isn't where most Christian writers think it is. In this episode, Shelley reads Amazon KDP's own guidelines on AI content, then walks through seven examples: editing help, brainstorming, AI drafts, covers, children's book illustrations, a mockup handed to a designer, and translations. See if you can guess each one before she answers. CJ shares why we still hire a cover designer and an illustrator, and why Amazon's 35 percent royalty for public domain books gives us pause. Then we talk about whether AI content can be copyrighted, why Shelley now recommends registering the copyright for your books, and the privacy setting in ChatGPT and Claude to turn off before you paste your words. This is episode two of our three-part series on AI for Kingdom Writers. Things change fast with AI, so always check KDP's current guidelines. Have a thought on this episode? Share your comments on YouTube here.

  3. Oct 27

    Hitz Blitz: Seasons of Acceleration

    New live series: Writing Wins, every Tuesday at 11am Eastern (9 Mountain) on the Kingdom Writers YouTube channel through December 8. Each week CJ and I share one simple win to help you finish your book when life is busy, and the replays are waiting if you miss one. Watch the Writing Wins playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCv2_QZJjAHg Sometimes God is not asking you to wait. He is about to accelerate things. Shelley talks about being ready to walk away after more than a decade of mentoring writers, and how every door to selling Christian Book Academy closed on her instead. What followed was the most fruitful season she had ever had. She points to Galatians 6:9 and to the compound effect, that long flat stretch where almost nothing looks like it is working, right up until the tipping point. She also names the other risk. Acceleration is not meant to run forever, and knowing when to ease off the gas is its own kind of obedience.

  4. Oct 22

    Should Christian Writers Use AI to Write a Book?

    New live series: Writing Wins, every Tuesday at 11am Eastern (9 Mountain) on the Kingdom Writers YouTube channel through December 8. Each week CJ and I share one simple win to help you finish your book when life is busy, and the replays are waiting if you miss one. Watch the Writing Wins playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCv2_QZJjAHg Should Christian writers use AI to write a book? Every conversation about AI and writing comes down to one question: who is holding the pen, and who is holding the plan? CJ and I share where we have landed. We don't recommend writing your book with AI, and I use AI almost every day. Both are true. I tell how I resisted AI until God got my attention through two conversations in the same week, and CJ talks about good ideas versus God ideas, and why AI is a tool, not a compass. We also walk through what Amazon KDP means by AI generated versus AI assisted, a simple way to let AI interview you when a chapter won't come, where AI goes wrong, and what it looks like when AI serves your calling instead of replacing your voice. Scripture mentioned: 1 John 2:26-27 and Habakkuk 2:1. This is the first episode in a three-part series on AI for Kingdom Writers. Have a thought on this episode? Share your comments on YouTube here.

  5. Oct 20

    Hitz Blitz: Dare Greatly: Be in the Arena

    New live series: Writing Wins, every Tuesday at 11am Eastern (9 Mountain) on the Kingdom Writers YouTube channel through December 8. Each week CJ and I share one simple win to help you finish your book when life is busy, and the replays are waiting if you miss one. Watch the Writing Wins playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCv2_QZJjAHg Shelley reads Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 arena speech, the one about how the credit belongs to the person whose face is marred with dust and sweat, not to the critic in the stands. It is easy to be a spectator of other people's books. Watching someone else finish, publish, and market theirs while you stay in the shadows, where nothing can go wrong and nothing can happen either. There is no shame in having been on the sidelines. Today can simply be the day that changes. She prays over you at the end that you would step forward in his power rather than your own.

  6. Oct 15

    Why You Haven't Written the Book God Gave You

    New live series: Writing Wins, every Tuesday at 11am Eastern (9 Mountain) on the Kingdom Writers YouTube channel through December 8. Each week CJ and I share one simple win to help you finish your book when life is busy, and the replays are waiting if you miss one. Watch the Writing Wins playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCv2_QZJjAHg If you have been carrying a book God gave you to write, and you keep calling it procrastination, Shelley wants to challenge you on that. After fifteen years of helping over 1,000 writers move from stalled to finished, here is what she and CJ have watched happen over and over. When God gives you a message that will reach people for eternity, you should expect resistance. That is not a sign you heard Him wrong. Most of the time it is a sign you heard Him right. In this episode Shelley walks through the three things that may actually be holding your book back. Waiting for a season when writing will feel easier, when the truth is that the writers who finish are the ones who learn to write inside a loud one. Trying to write it in your own strength, which will exhaust you physically, emotionally and eventually spiritually. And waiting until you feel qualified, when Moses, Gideon and Jeremiah all said the same thing, and God never once called someone who felt ready. He calls, and then He equips. Shelley also shares an invitation to the twelfth Kingdom Writers Conference, the Write with God edition, a free online event on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, with a handpicked lineup of speakers on prayer, listening, rhythms and rest. Get your free ticket at https://trainingauthors.com/conference You are not behind. You are not disqualified. And you were not meant to do this alone. Want a community of Kingdom Writers who notice when you go quiet and pray you back to the page? Learn more about Christian Book Academy: https://christianbookacademy.com/ Have a thought on this episode? Share your comments on YouTube here.

  7. Oct 13

    Hitz Blitz: God is Our Provider

    New live series: Writing Wins, every Tuesday at 11am Eastern (9 Mountain) on the Kingdom Writers YouTube channel through December 8. Each week CJ and I share one simple win to help you finish your book when life is busy, and the replays are waiting if you miss one. Watch the Writing Wins playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCv2_QZJjAHg A partnership that made up a large share of Shelley and CJ's income ended when the company behind it went out of business. It was a shock to them. It was not a shock to God. This is the testimony side of that story. Looking back, Shelley can trace how God had been building the replacement income a full 18 months before they knew they would need it, including through a stretch when they had actually tried to sell Christian Book Academy and every door stayed shut. She ties it to Zacchaeus and the tree. That tree took years to grow, and it was already standing there on the day he needed to climb it.

  8. Oct 8

    How to Hear God's Voice for Your Book (Without Overthinking Every Idea)

    New live series: Writing Wins, every Tuesday at 11am Eastern (9 Mountain) on the Kingdom Writers YouTube channel through December 8. Each week CJ and I share one simple win to help you finish your book when life is busy, and the replays are waiting if you miss one. Watch the Writing Wins playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCv2_QZJjAHg Is this idea from God, or is it just me? What if I spend two years on the wrong thing? Asking looks like faithfulness, and it feels like waiting on the Lord. But if you have been asking the same question for three years and there are still no words on the page, something else is going on. CJ and Shelley give a practical way to hear God's voice for your book without second-guessing every idea. One shift in how you think about it, and four things that actually look like something on a Tuesday morning. Clarity in scripture usually comes while people are moving. Abraham left before he knew the address. The Jordan did not stop until the priests had their feet in it. They walk through the weekly business meeting with God, what goes in the notebook and in what order, why capturing an idea and judging it are two different jobs, and a test you can actually repeat: scripture first, wise counsel, peace that is more than excitement, and fruit that survives a few months. And the last one, which is where a lot of overthinking lives. You may already have your answer. The next thing you need may not be more information, but obedience to the last clear thing he showed you. Have a thought on this episode? Share your comments on YouTube here.

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About

Welcome to Kingdom Writers where CJ and Shelley Hitz help you take a step of faith to finally finish your book. This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters! We believe that you have a specific role to play in the kingdom of heaven to impact lives for eternity. And because of this, we will pour out our lives encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories but to take the courageous step of self-publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by our membership Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers!

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