Married couple of twenty-two years, Edward and Christina Sledge wrote and published their memoir, The Story of Christina and I and Our Marriage: An Essay during the COVID-19 pandemic. The high school sweethearts met in Brooklyn, NY. Their romance was predestined from the start since they were both born in the same hospital and their families lived within blocks of each other. Their memoir is about triumph over tragedy.
Edward lived through early trauma as a child. His mother suffered with mental illness and committed suicide while holding Edward as an infant. He lived in poverty, his father suffered from alcoholism, and he was surrounded by drug use and crime. His stepmother suffered from breast cancer and died when Edward was 14 and then his father died when he was 22.
Christina was born to teenage parents and was born 3lbs 1 ounce premature. Christina and her family later grieved her brother’s death after being killed by gun violence. They got engaged when Edward was a soldier in the U.S. Army while Christina was a senior at Temple University. They eloped two months later and have been married for twenty-two years. Both persevered and became a first-generation high college graduates. They were also the first to obtain master’s degrees in their families.
Christina holds an undergraduate degree from Temple University and a graduate degree from The George Washington University. Edward holds an undergraduate degree from Georgia Southern University and a graduate degree from Towson University. Edward and Christina founded their company, Sledge House Media in 2021 to publish their own books and to share the untold stories of the average person through films, and TV Series. Collectively, they have published four books and one short film together with many more on the way in 2022. We tell diverse and compelling stories that highlight unique experiences, and backgrounds. Additionally, all of our books are 200 pages or less to reach readers that are limited on time.
What is Sledge House Media all about?
Sledge House Media is a cross-platform entertainment company created to share diverse and compelling stories that highlight relationships, unique perspectives, and experiences. We focus on producing books, films, audio, and digital projects.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
We are a husband and wife publishing and production team. We have been married for twenty-two years. We started our marriage with only two quarters. In the beginning, we were a military family which required us to navigate and learn how-to balance military obligations while raising a family. Also, at one point in our marriage, we both were unemployed.
Those early struggles taught us resilience. We decided to take those hurdles to motivate us to set goals and plans to accomplish them. When obstacles come our way now, we dust ourselves off and keep moving. When more than one obstacle comes in our path, we just tackle each one at a time. We realized that we could survive anything by working as a team.
We founded Sledge House Media in 2021 to publish our first book, The Story of Christina and I. After publishing our memoir, we knew it was important to share more content and stories.
What are your plans for the future, and how do you plan to grow this company?
We recently released a short film, Maryland Closed for COVID. Our short film provides a glimpse of the pandemic’s impact on Maryland businesses and the many lives that were affected. We recently released Andre’s Confessions the Desire Family Saga: Part Two (Book 2). Andre’s Confessions picks up where Ricardo’s Collisions Desire Family Saga: Part One (Book 1) left off
Additionally, we are scheduled to release two more books and another short film in 2022. We plan to continue to expand our market reach through our refined marketing strategy. We also plan to expand into audiobooks and screenplays.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
The pandemic provided the opportunity and time to finish writing our first book in 2020 and ultimately start our business in January 2021. Since it is a predominately home-based and e-commerce business it required minimal start-up capital. Even during the lockdown, we were able to continue selling books virtually via social media and the internet.
The only obstacle that we were presented with due to the pandemic was the inability to attend in-person events. We were creative by working with podcasters, having IG Lives and virtual events to promote our products and connect with readers and our audience. We learned how to pivot and collaborate with others that were also learning to adapt to an all-virtual world. We believe communicating virtually presented an opportunity for us to learn the best ways to reach our readers and consumers. We started a virtual book club to create a forum for our readers to communicate directly to us about our books.
Additionally, we recently released a short film, Maryland Closed for COVID. Our short film provides a glimpse of the pandemic’s impact on Maryland businesses and the many lives that were affected.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
Sledge House Media as an imprint publishes multi-genre books. We have published books in the non-fiction, fiction, romantic suspense, thriller, essay, and entertaining book genres. All of the voices of our project diverse and compelling stories that highlight relationships, unique perspectives, and experiences. Additionally, all of our books are 200 pages or less to reach readers that are limited on time.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
After publishing our first book we struggled with marketing and promoting it. Since it was our first time, we encountered a few starts and stops with finding the right marketing strategy. We decided to reach out to other independent authors and small business owners that we respected to obtain their guidance. In some cases, those strategies were very helpful and other times they were not applicable to our company and products. We realized the key was applying strategies that were relevant and made sense for us. We have since refined our marketing strategy to fit our brand, niche, and target customers.
We also experienced a challenge with obtaining the right mix of service partners. Some partners did not understand our vision for our brand. We were not afraid to communicate when our vision did not match our service partners. We had to keep searching until we found the right providers that we could partner with. We decided not to give up or rest on our vision.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
Providing quality content to satisfy our consumers. We enjoy receiving positive reviews from our readers. We are also motivated to turn our books into screenplays and films. We are driven by new content ideas that we have in our pipeline. Ultimately, seeing our projects go from a premise to execution is exhilarating and fulfilling.
What is your favorite quote?
“If you push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking a risk, really amazing things can happen.”
-Marissa Mayer, Former CEO of Yahoo
This quote is impactful because starting any new endeavor can be extremely scary. That fear and risk can prevent you from taking the first step. Once you push through it you tend to find out that it is not as scary as you may have expected it to be.
What is your definition of success?
We believe success is achieving the goals that we set for ourselves while also being pleased with the outcome. We learned over time that our ideas of success change over time as we change. It’s important to reassess your goals and what success means to you. Success is very much individualized. It is also acceptable to have a different definition of success than someone else.
How do you personally overcome fear?
We have faith in our success and each other. We take each goal step by step. We also believe as long as we have each other there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
We are learning more about social media marketing and being our authentic selves while selling our products. We are also learning more about being true to our personal brand. It is crucial to understand yourself, your brand, and your target customer It is important because with all the trends on social media it is easy to get overwhelmed with how to market on each platform. Trends are fun and cool but, they may not apply to your specific brand, products, and story that you want to tell.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- We use Canva for creating graphics for my company. From presentations, media kits and social media posts CANVA has tons of templates to help a small business owners with digital marketing.
- We use Constant Contact for managing our email marketing and newsletters. Constant Contact offers tools for growing your email list and to assist with CRM.
- Calendly is a time management and efficiency tool. We use Calendly for allowing clients to book meetings with us. It is easy for someone to find a time that works for them and then set up an appointment.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
If we started our business again, we would focus more on developing our marketing strategy early on. In the beginning, we were entirely focused on producing a quality product and didn’t think about how we would get the word out and what strategies would be most appropriate for our product and brand.
How can readers get in touch with you?
You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn @sledgehousemedia and Twitter @house_sledge, and on our website sledgehousemedia.com.
