Ep. 49: The Writing Was the Healing: Amanda Johnson on Story and Calling

Amanda Johnson's son was nineteen when he told her they should build their own publishing experience. She had spent years helping other people navigate hybrid publishers — watching their content get stolen, their books get covers that illustrated the subtitle rather than the story, their life's work get treated as a transaction by people who hadn't read a word of it. She had walked out of her office and screamed in the kitchen. She had saved enough projects to know what the process should feel like and had watched too many clients come out of it feeling worse about their manuscript than when they started. So when her son said they should just create something better, she agreed. That's how Saved By Story was born — and that's the shape of the business it became: a writing coaching and hybrid publishing practice built on a conviction Amanda has held since she discovered it watching her first clients write their way back to health. The writing is not the product. The writing is the healing.

Chapters:

0:24 Intro to Amanda & Saved by Story

1:52 From Writing to Calling

7:32 Amanda’s Career Journey

13:23 Messaging Shapes Identity

17:12 The Retreat Breakthrough

20:08 Starting Saved by Story

21:58 Faith and Story Intertwined

33:44 Word Made Flesh

39:03 Books That Transform

42:34 Find Her Online