Winter 2023 Update
Hia folks 👋🏻 — it’s ice-cold winter here in South Africa (I’m enjoying it a lot ❄️ 😀)
Hope everyone is doing great and you're enjoying using Pencil Bible more and more. I know I am. Before version 2 (V2) I could not use it for Bible reading. Why? I was just so frustrated with a product that I created being so far from the original vision. All the bugs, errors & features missing irritated me so much I could not enjoy the Word.
V2 changed all that! And I hope for you too. We made another update end of June as well — did you see it?
New Update
For those of you that didn't notice. We uploaded another update end of June. It was a prolonged month development-wise due to not so much revenue coming in the last few months. This update makes me feel much better about the product though. Things are just a little bit cleaner, working better and are more usable.
We have a ton of bug fixes & changes (some took weeks longer than anticipated — as always 😅):
- The search bug is fixed and search results are now sequential (for those that actually use the search feature)
- Some premium features were made free!
- Bible Translation displayed in the header (this solves a frustrating issue of not knowing what Bible I’m reading)
- More onboarding prompts to help new users
- Apple Review Popup (we need those 5 stars so we can get a better app store ranking)
- App checks if users are subscribed or not (there was a bug, that allowed anyone that cancelled their subscription to continue using it for free 🙉)
- Flashing is fixed for pencil strokes (not for the highlighters, unfortunately) — it does feel much better though!
- The toolbar remembers colours and settings (this means your last custom settings are always saved)
- Some other small bug fixes
The pencil strokes not flashing, the translation in the header and the toolbar custom colours, width and transparency stored & saved makes a difference to the overall feel of PB. It feels more professional. I enjoy using it more and more every day 🥹. I use it now for Bible reading.
Marketing
I have been thinking more and more about marketing over the past month as PB is slowly getting into a season where we need to bring on some partners to help market the product. Since we have no budget I will be doing everything myself to start with. My first project will be uploading videos on all the channels on how to use PB. I also have an idea for an ASMR video 😂.
Opportunity
I have what I believe is an amazing opportunity for an intern-type person in marketing. My idea is for someone to do daily scriptures journaling using PB, film it and then upload it to all the channels (FB, Insta and TikTok). As the app grows we can appoint and pay that person full-time. So potentially you can have a job where you read the Bible and journal 😮💰. If that is you or you know of someone — please pop me a mail at erin@pencilbible.com 📧. We preferably are looking for someone that is artistic and creative with the Apple Pencil and enjoys daily Bible reading.
July
This month should give us some significant updates. We plan to get a bunch of things done so we can finally convert to an Android version!
This includes rounding of strokes and a new subscription plan.
I hope you have a great month of July. Thanks for all the support 🙏🏻.
Erin Walker
P.S. Please leave a review on the Apple App Store. A good review helps with rankings => more downloads => more revenue => faster development!
P.S.S. And if you are on socials please share your notes or drawings on Instagram or Facebook #pencilbible
