Well, that's Wasn't How I Planned the Book Launch

It has been a while since I’ve written a blog post, and I think I owe you an explanation.

Actually, I owe you the truth.

My Facebook page got hacked.

And I don’t mean someone simply got into my account, changed my password, and caused me a few frustrating days trying to get back in. The person who took over my account began contacting people I knew—my friends and family—while pretending to be me. And people lost money.

That was the part that got me. It was one thing for someone to steal my Facebook page. It was another thing entirely to realize that people who trusted me were being approached by someone pretending to be me, and some of them sent money because they believed they were dealing with someone they knew and trusted.

I was angry. I was embarrassed. I felt violated. And, even though I knew intellectually that I wasn’t the person who stole from anyone, it was difficult not to feel some sense of responsibility because my name and my account were being used to do it. And did I mention that all of this happened right in the middle of launching my book?

Because of course it did.

The Timing Could Not Have Been Worse

I had worked for a long time to get The OOPS Factor: From Failure to God-Given Purpose to this point. We had a launch plan. I had been building the social media presence around the book. We were creating content, recording the podcast, promoting the book and finally beginning to put all of the pieces together.

Then—boom.

The Facebook page was hacked. The platform I had been using to communicate with people was suddenly gone. Friends and family were being contacted. Money was stolen. I was trying to warn people, report accounts, recover access and figure out what had happened. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I also had ankle surgery.

You really can’t make this stuff up. So there I was trying to launch a book about navigating life’s OOPS moments while sitting in the middle of a pretty significant OOPS moment of my own. There is probably some irony in there. At the time, however, I wasn’t particularly amused.

I Needed a Minute

I’m a fixer. When something goes wrong, my natural instinct is to start figuring out what needs to happen next. Make the phone call. Send the email. Solve the problem. Keep moving. But this time, I needed a minute.

I needed time to recover physically. I needed time to deal with what had happened online. I needed time to rebuild what had been disrupted. And I needed to get my head back into the launch of a book that means far too much to me to simply throw it out there because a date on the calendar said I was supposed to.

Besides, I reasoned: My initial launch date did not work with the Lord. Yup.....He had another date in mind.

So, We Have a New Date

November 24, 2026.

That’s the new official launch date for The OOPS Factor: From Failure to God-Given Purpose. And strangely enough, I think I’m approaching this launch differently now.

The book was already deeply personal to me. But after everything that has happened, the message feels even more real.

Life does not always cooperate with the plan. Businesses don’t always cooperate with the plan. People certainly don’t always cooperate with the plan. And apparently Facebook doesn’t either.

We can spend all of our energy wishing the OOPS hadn’t happened, or we can decide what we’re going to do with it now that it has. That’s really what this book has always been about. It isn’t about pretending failure doesn’t hurt. It isn’t about putting a Bible verse on top of something painful and acting as though that makes everything instantly okay. And it certainly isn’t about getting every decision right. It’s about what happens next.

I’m Ready to Try This Again

So yes, I’ve been a little quiet...and ow you know why. I’ve been recovering from ankle surgury. Rebuilding. Regrouping. And continuing to work behind the scenes. The podcast is moving forward beautifully.

After all, I couldn’t very well write a book called The OOPS Factor and expect the launch to be perfect. Nope. We have had our own OOPS Moment to consider.

So We're going to try this again on November 24, 2026.

Shelta