Rick Scadden's Four Time Felon Launched a Nonprofit That Puts His Book Behind Bars
“No, like I have a story. And if I don’t share this story, I’m robbing someone else of a blessing or robbing someone else of overcoming what they’re going through.”
Rick Scadden, author of Four Time Felon
Rick Scadden grew up on welfare with a father who was in and out of prison. A high school dropout, he served five and a half years in prison himself. Today he is a pastor at City Point Church in Loveland, Colorado, and the author of Four Time Felon: Finding Hope in the Ashes. On launch night, two guests handed him checks for over $4,000, and the book became Hope Beyond Bars, a nonprofit that puts it into prisons, jails, and halfway houses.
The story had to be finished first
Clip · Rick Scadden on waiting for the redemption · 33s
For years, a business mentor kept pushing Rick to write his story. Rick kept telling him it was not time yet. He was waiting for the part of the story that only time could write.
“A large part of me knew that the story wasn’t finished yet, you know. And so when you have a story like mine, you’re always looking for the redemption side of it.”
— Rick Scadden
By the end of 2024 that piece was in place. In the middle of a sermon, Rick heard the question he had been putting off: when are you going to write your book? He called his mentor, who hosts a podcast, and made the decision public so he could not back out.
“Like I said, I told Matt, I said, dude, I want to sign a contract on your podcast. That’s going to force me to do this book.”
— Rick Scadden
A 10th grade dropout writes a book
Clip · Rick Scadden on writing a book as a dropout · 49s
The other thing holding Rick back was fear. He failed out of English class, he has dyslexia, and he had no idea how a book gets put together.
“As a 10th grade dropout, right? High school dropout who failed out of English class and all those things, right? Like there was always that fear element of going, I don’t know how to write a book.”
— Rick Scadden
Working with Scribe Media changed that. Rick brought the story. The Scribe team helped him shape it.
“With Scribe Media, I mean, [Scribe] really made it easy for me as well. With somebody, like I said, my background of not having good schooling, not having supportive parents that supported me in school. And so, [Scribe] coming up alongside of me to help me write the book, dude, it took a big weight off my shoulders.”
— Rick Scadden
“And so having somebody come up alongside to say, okay, let’s help you organize your thoughts. Let’s help you organize your chapters. Let’s help you organize the direction this book is going to go, who’s your target audience and all those types of things. It really took the weight off.”
— Rick Scadden
The hard part stayed his. To write the first pages of the book, he interviewed his mother about his childhood, and the two of them cried through it. There were days he had to put the work away. He kept going, and he narrated the audiobook himself.
“And so, yes, that was a very painful, painful process, but also good and healing at the same time.”
— Rick Scadden
A title for the reader, not the author
Clip · Rick Scadden on choosing a title for the reader · 31s
Rick knew exactly who the book was for: not churchgoers, but the person behind bars at the lowest point of their life, the one who may never pick up a Bible. The book has one scripture in it on purpose. The working title was Four Time Felon to Full Time Pastor, and Rick pushed back, even against his mentor, because it gave away the ending.
“I don’t want people to know I’m a full-time pastor until they read and finish the book. You know, I want them to be able to look at it, pick it up and say, oh, I can read this.”
— Rick Scadden
The call paid off with exactly the reader he was hoping for. Rick shares what he hears from people who pick it up.
“And I mean, even people who have never read a book in their life are saying, I picked your book up. I’ve never touched a book in my life. I read the first chapter and I was hooked and I couldn’t stop reading it.”
— Rick Scadden
Launch night became a nonprofit
Clip · Rick Scadden on launch night and Hope Beyond Bars · 37s
Back in 2008, while he was the inmate pastor rep in a Colorado Springs prison, Rick believed he would one day come back into the prisons. On the day he signed his book contract, he saw how. The book had a purpose before it had a single chapter.
“On the launch night, I had two people come up to me and hand me checks for over $4,000. And they said, we just want to donate towards that vision of you launching the book into these places to help these people.”
— Rick Scadden
Rick and his wife turned those checks into Hope Beyond Bars, a nonprofit that buys copies of Four Time Felon to hand out to people in prisons, jails, halfway houses, and sober living homes.
“So I’ve given away more books than I’ve actually sold, which I think is just awesome.”
— Rick Scadden
The copies travel through his church, whose volunteers already minister in Colorado prisons and county jails, through a Facebook business page and Facebook ads, and through connections nobody planned. A program director at Tomoka Correctional Facility in Florida reached out to his mentor after seeing an old video, and the mentor passed her to Rick.
“I sent 24 books to 24 life sentence inmates in Tomoka Correctional Facility in Florida, hand wrote them a thank you, told them I was praying for them and the book is impacting their lives and they’re never getting out of prison.”
— Rick Scadden
He also sent 22 copies into Los Angeles County jail. Between donations and book sales, he says he is close to earning back what he put into the book.
The reader who delivered the chairs
Clip · Rick Scadden on the reader who delivered the chairs · 45s
Most of the time, Rick never hears what happens to a copy after it leaves his hands. Then one week his church hired an event company to deliver chairs, and one of the workers recognized the building from the book.
“It turns out the guys in the halfway house here in Colorado, somebody in the halfway house had a copy of my book and they said, you need to read this. He read it. He said it changed his life. And I got to pray with him right there on the sidewalk in front of the church.”
— Rick Scadden
The next Sunday, the man came to church and brought a friend. That is how Rick keeps score.
“I may have sold 15, 20 copies on Amazon that month, but I gave away 50 or 60, and so I count the giveaways as a copy purchased.”
— Rick Scadden
When it is time, go
Clip · Rick Scadden on when it is time to write · 53s
Readers are already asking Rick when book number two is coming. His advice to anyone waiting for the right moment to write their own story is the same thing that got him to sign his contract on air: invite accountability, and do not wait so long that the moment passes.
“And then when you know it’s time, jump over the chicken wire and just do it. Force yourself to do it.”
— Rick Scadden
“Inviting accountability in I think is huge, but timing is impeccable and you definitely want to make sure it’s the right time, the right season, the right hour. But when it is, go, don’t hold back and just let yourself loose.”
— Rick Scadden
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