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PRESS KIT
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BIOGRAPHY Nia Jovan Andrews, 31, is a Chicago native, who studied journalism magazine article writing at Columbia College Chicago. She's driven, motivated and inspired by the stories of everyday people. She applies her leadership skills and corporate knowledge from her years of experience in banking and association work to the development of the magazine. Her desire to create the publication started in 2006, while taking a desktop publishing class at Columbia, but her internship at Chicago BeautyPretty City, an online magazine, gave her more insight on the change that was taking place in media and pushed her further into wanting to publish her own magazine. She is currently enrolled at The John Marshall Law School, pursuing a master's degree in Intellectual Property – Copyrights & Trademarks, and honing in on her editing skills to help authors and selfpublishers on their journey into entrepreneurship in publishing. Above all of her professional endeavors her most challenging yet highly fulfilling and rewarding task is being a mother to Daniel Stephen Williams Jr., 11, who wants to follow in his mother’s footsteps and become a published author with his first book titled "All about Me." Nia has had an affinity to write all of her life. She feels that her life’s purpose is to tell stories that will help people get through the vicissitudes of life. Once she discovered her purpose it ignited her passion and she realized that her works can go further than a cubicle and that passion pushed her to take a leap of faith. Her business began with the online magazine. Once she started her works in the magazine she began to realize more and more needs in her community and that made her want to take the magazine a step further and she began "One Purpose Publishing Company." Back in 2011, she realized that her plans were bigger than her and it began to speak to legacy, so she embraced her mother’s maiden name for the company name which is where she got "Jones Publishing & Enterprises." Once she established the foundation, she allowed the other services to be birth out of the needs of people who want to be published and the things they would need to know in order to get there, make money and
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protect their works and her innate desire to be an attorney caused her to further her knowledge in intellectual property that is why she is now pursuing a MS at The John Marshall Law School. Within the next twoyears, Nia’s plan is to have her own memoir released and then begin to focus more on exposing greatness through people in various communities in One Purpose Magazine and become a highly recognized Chicagobased publishing company that offers guidance in publishing literary works and a publishing house for musical works.
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“...As Thyself” by Nia SYNOPSIS ★ Introduction Nia goes into introducing the book by describing why she felt compelled to tell her story and how she got to a place of selfevaluation. This opening allows the reader to understand where she began her relationship with Jesus Christ. ★ Chapter one; Emotional Trauma She talks about family and romantic relationships that went wrong all stemming from the information she received as a child ultimately having to break her pattern of thinking in order to begin getting different results in her life. ★ Chapter two; Identifying Experiences with Rejection she begins by talking about how every girl wants to be accepted, but this chapter takes a turn, because she revisits many experiences in her own life where she felt rejected, causing her to putup a wall. She shares what this taught her about how she currently deals with friendships with women and relationships with men. ★ Chapter three; Learning to forgive In this chapter she discusses how she had to learn how to forgive herself for the decisions she made that impact her and her family. She also discusses forgiving others and how it all helped her move forward in life. ★ Chapter four; Being Single She tries to relay in this chapter, what is the big deal? Convincing the reader that being single is not all that bad and being married is not all it may seem crackedup to be if you are not whole within yourself, being able to make healthy decisions for partnership. ★ Chapter five; I think I’m a Perfectionist The pressure of getting it wrong weighed her down, potentially effecting being a good mother, lover, friend and person to be around period. Although, perception helped create this pressure in her life, but reacting to the perception by creating unreachable expectations will make life more difficult than necessary and she writes how it was important to work toward this issue in her life. ★ Chapter six; What Will my 30’s be Like? All the lessons that she’s learned, this chapter details how she’ll apply them. She expresses how she gets that she’ll still make mistakes, but with all of her former years her latter years could be better, because she understands the importance of having a relationship with Christ and how she now have better information about herself according to God’s unique design of her life.
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PRESS RELEASE
Nia Jovan Andrews, publisher/editor at Jones Publishing & Enterprises, LLC (JP&E) will be releasing her first memoir through her publishing company. JP&E is known for online/digital One Purpose Magazine and editing services. This will be the first book released through the publisher. Nia wanted to write a book targeting the young adult audience she’s already familiar with through the magazine that will help them get through that stuck area in life, where everything from relationships to career seems to be at a standstill. “As Thyself” chronicles many of Nia’s personal experiences that helped her get to a place where she realized that she needed to selfevaluate to live her life selfaware, gaining an understanding that what she brings to any situation or relationship can affect the temperature of that experience. She says, “Many young adults will not take ownership over what they bring, because sometimes they don’t realize that they’re operating in bad behaviors, because they won’t dig deep enough to recognize their issues; that was me!” She added, “I thought I was right about everything, I was very closeminded, selfish and hungry for success, which is a recipe for disaster. I needed to be saved from myself (lol). I see many of my peers on that same path and if I can help them in their early twenties, great, but I see them over thirty making some of the mistakes I made when I was twenty, especially in romantic relationships, I mean, that is still a workinprogress, but since I became more openminded, I’m not making decisions with bad information.” This memoir, will reveal many of those moments where she was operating in immaturity and then she will share the lesson and the areas that she had to evaluate to get the lesson, then apply it to her life now. (Excerpt from the Introduction) My story does not start here, but surely this example began a selfexamination; I went through a very emotional breakup. Not emotional because the person I was engaged to did anything wrong, but emotional because after being disappointed, I had to do some soul searching. I had to evaluate why I allowed that relationship to go as far as to being engaged when I knew it was not compatible for marriage.
Nia has written a number of articles in her magazine addressing these issues for her peers and other young adults, like “Manifested Behavior; Buried Issues” & “Building Healthy Unions” (Rebel Issue 2013) “Overcoming Rejection” & “Discerning Motives in Dating” (Unbox Me Issue 2014). Along with BlogTalkRadio on topics like, “They meant well but…: Good Deeds.” All the topics that she has been focusing on along with this new memoir “As Thyself” allows the reader to see the importance of personal ownership, accountability and mostly selflove. She believes that it is not impossible to love thy neighbor as thyself if you do not love yourself, but she believes that if you can see the value in yourself and your purpose you can learn to appreciate the same in others and begin to treat them “As Thyself”
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Q&A Why did you title your book “As Thyself?” It’s from the Bible verse, “Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself.” I’ve heard so many sermons, read many articles and lessons on Love Thy Neighbor, but I wanted to find a way to focus on selflove. I wanted to explore that understanding from a biblical position. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” was Jesus’ second command and we always hear it I think with others in mind, but I think it included the ability to love yourself as well as others. What made you want to write a book about selflove? I had to get there. I had to get to a place where I loved everything about me. Not that I was taught not to love myself. I was just shaped by so many experiences and most of those experiences came from making moves with bad information, so I had to dig deep to find out what I learned wrong to remove it, what I learned properly to enhance it, and what I did not learn at all to learn it. That all started with learning who God created me to be. How did you decide which stories to share from your experiences? The ones that had the most impact. The ones that caused me to dig and evaluate. I’m not that old so most of the stories happened in my 20’s and they stemmed from childhood brokenness and I was able to connect the experiences to the buried hurt. How long have you been a writer? All my life. I was born to do this. I’m still growing as a storyteller, but I can remember being very small and sitting against a closed bedroom door escaping by writing in my mickey mouse journal. I’ve always been able to express my thoughts better through written word. There’s a joy I cannot get from anything else like when I write. Excitement, eagerness, happiness, imagination, and recollection all hit me at once. It’s a great feeling. When did you discover you were a good writer? I don’t think that I am “good” I feel like I’m okay and growing. I recall two moments when I knew I was really called to do this. Once, in sixth grade when the teacher would always use my papers as examples to the class, then
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again my senior year in high school when the teacher read my paper aloud calling it perfect. After that I knew it would be a long journey to me becoming a great writer, but I believe I am on my way. What have you had published prior to this book? I have two guidebooks "Shattered by Violence; Mended by God," an administrative guide, but mostly articles. I have spent years working on my craft and cultivating my thoughts and plans, so I started my magazine. I never wanted a big company to benefit from my hard work and debt accumulated from investing in my higher education. Nor, have I wanted to water down my message. So, i’ve written freelance for a few publications, but I am most proud of the articles I have written for my own publication, because I wrote from my heart in my truth. I can recall writing an article about celibacy, but it was really about choosing to abstain, but the publisher did not have a full understanding of what celibacy is and the commitment it required. I wrote the article from the perspective of the publisher, but it still bothers me because I feel like I failed in truly educating people when I knew better. That’s one article, I could not imagine feeling that way with an entire portfolio of work. I have few, but I’m proud of my work, because it’s me, my truths and transparency. Is that why you decided to selfpublish? Absolutely. I could not see it any other way. I don’t like being lied to or told someone is capable of doing something for my dreams that I cannot do for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine being taught or mentored, but I don’t believe in other people controlling my vision. I understand some people don’t have time, so they need publishers, but I decided to make time, because I am tied to the entire idea of writing and publishing is the biggest part, so I wanted to master that part for myself. Will there be another book? Ehhhh...I don’t know yet. I really want to spend some time focusing on my magazine and making it a community go to publication for a source of impartation on current cultural spirituality through accounts of everyday people. We are suppose to be living epistles I want to capture that. I started a piece about a prostitute in the magazine, so I might turn that into a fiction novel, but I haven’t decided yet.
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PRINT WORK CLIPS
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FUN FACT Nia and her brother Charan appeared on the first season the Steve Harvey Show for a sibling food fight‌and she won!