Andy Unedited

The Wisdom of Solomon

2013-05-22T14:51:23Z

More and more I am convinced that the doorway into understanding the New Testament is the Old Testament. It's not a new idea. I think Jesus had something to do with it. But it's one of the reasons we made this a major feature in our recently released LifeGuide in Depth series, including A Deeper Look at James, that my wife, Phyllis, and I wrote. An example can illustrate the point.

One of the best-known verses in the letter is James 1:5: "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you" (NIV). But almost immediately James jumps to issues of rich and poor (1:9-11) and doing the word (1:22-24) and helping widows and orphans (1:27). And the rich and poor make several more appearances in the letter. Why, after headlining the topic of wisdom, does James make this leap to these other topics?

One well-known Old Testament use of the idea of wisdom orbits around craftsmanship. Bezalel was filled with "wisdom" in making artistic designs, metalworking and woodworking (Ex 31:2-5). It is also evident when people obey God's law: "Observe them [God's decrees and laws] carefully, for this will show your wisdom" (Deut 4:6).

But there is a third meaning that is less well-known, even though it is found in the very famous story of Solomon discerning who the true mother is when two prostitutes come to him with a baby. When he indicates he will give half to each, the true mother pleads with the king to not do so and to instead give the child to the other woman.

And what was the reaction of the people? "When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to figure out who the real mother was." Well, no, it doesn't actually say that. It was "because they saw that he had wisdom from God to really put that wicked woman in her place." Um, no, it doesn't say that either.

What happened was, "When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice" (1 Kings 3:38). Wisdom and doing justice are also equated in Psalm 37:30.

So when James mentions wisdom in the context of rich and poor, and helping the marginalized like widows and orphans, he's not talking about how we can up our IQ or get some street smarts. He's telling us that doing what is good and right for the oppressed is true wisdom.

The Old Testament can help us not only interpret the New Testament correctly but apply it correctly as well. Sounds like a wise thing to do. That's why we wrote A Deeper Look at James.

Nineteenth-century engraving by Gustave Doré.

Remembering Dallas Willard

2013-05-08T16:36:52Z

Dallas Willard went to be with his Lord this morning. Many people will miss his strong, gentle wisdom, remembering him as someone who was soaked in the presence of Christ. He was a beloved friend and writer to many. We enjoyed publishing a number of titles by Dallas (1935-2013), especially one of his signature books, Hearing God.

]]> Perhaps twenty years ago I was with Dallas as he led a two-day retreat for a dozen or so of us. In particular I remember his talking about practicing the disciplines of solitude and silence, something he tried to do for thirty minutes a day. I asked him what he meant by that. And he told us.

"And do you pray?" I asked.

"No."

"Or meditate or read the Scriptures?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"Nothing. I just sit. In the presence of Christ."

What made very little sense to me then has come to mean more and more to me as the years have gone by. As the pace of life has become more abuzz with activity and stimulation and distraction, I have more and more craved time to just sit, and do nothing, except be in Christ's presence. It has become a centering, still point in a topsy-turvy world. It reminds me what is important and who is important, what is a crisis and what is not.

As Dallas taught so many, the Sabbath and Sabbath moments like the ones he described are ways of acknowledging who is in charge of the world and who is not. It reminds us that we are dependent on God and not ourselves. Our activity, our work, our intensity are not god. And by resting from those things, we acknowledge who is.

By giving away money we at once blaspheme the god of Mammon and worship the true God. By giving away time we at once blaspheme the god of Activity and worship the true One.

These I gratefully carry with me, gifts from Dallas Willard.

Mapping the Origins Debate

2013-04-30T14:39:44Z

In an era of extreme, vitriolic rhetoric, when someone offers calm, straightforward fairness, it is like a cool, refreshing breeze on a hot, muggy day. That is what Gerald Rau provides in Mapping the Origins Debate on the very contentious issue of evolution and creation. He offers a model not only of clarity in thought but of civility in presentation.

]]> He carefully maps out four different "origin" questions: the beginning of the universe, of life, of species and of humans. He then works very hard to present objectively six different models for answering these questions--ranging from Naturalistic Evolution (which believes in nothing supernatural) to Young-Earth Creationism (which believes in six 24-hour days of creation), with four other Christian options in between. Remarkably, Rau is able to present all six without deriding or degrading any.

He emphasizes that all six have the same range of evidence to draw on. And they all agree on the evidence. They do, however, clearly disagree as to which evidence is most compelling, which is insignificant, and how it should all be interpreted. One example will be instructive.

Consider the genetic similarity or dissimilarity of humans and chimpanzees. Many textbooks say their DNA are 98.5 percent similar. But there are different ways of counting what is identical and what is not. So scientists' estimates range now from 95 percent to 99.4 percent similar. But if you look at not just what is in a gene but how a gene functions or expresses itself, the dissimilarity rises. In one chromosome, only 17 percent of functional genes produce identical proteins in the two species. Whether one chooses to emphasize the 98.5 percent or the 17 percent makes all the difference. Rau goes on to note that if one nucleotide changes,

causing a change in one amino acid, we could say that 1/300 of the DNA changed (only 0.3%), or 1/100 of the amino acids changed (1%), or that 1/1 (100%) of the proteins changed. Take your pick--all are true. And although the actual numbers may change or be disputed, the principle still holds: which figures a person quotes will reflect what they want their readers to conclude. (p. 140)

All sides do this. Rarely do we hear of anyone carefully acknowledging contrary data and taking the time to deal with it respectfully. Rau's candor about all this is entirely refreshing.

There is much more, but I also appreciate his wonderful discussion on the nature of science and how what definition we start with affects the conclusions we end up with. And because there is no single, objective definition of science, the philosophical starting point of each view is crucial.

And where does Rau end up? What conclusion does he draw? Other than saying that he himself is a Christian, he doesn't tell us. Does he favor one option more than another? I can't tell. If you can, let me know.

Image: Eta Carinae Supernova (NASA.gov)

Remembering Birmingham

2013-04-16T16:51:32Z

Fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. issued his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" responding to local clergy who felt King and others were moving too quickly, too disruptively in advancing civil rights. To mark the occasion, IVP has published Ed Gilbreath's ebook short Remembering Birmingham, which puts King's letter in historical context and offers reflections on its significance then and now.

]]> While King remains respectful in his letter, he never concedes the justness of his cause or his methods. "You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham," King wrote. "But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes." In King's mind, "the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative."

Gilbreath points out that "in the letter's longest and perhaps most condemning section, King registers his deep frustration with 'the white moderate' who supposedly agreed with the goal of integration and equal rights but objected to the nonviolent confrontational approach of his movement."

King asked them if it wasn't the case that Jesus was an "extremist for love," and the prophet Amos "an extremist for justice," and the apostle Paul "an extremist for the Christian gospel, and Bunyan, Lincoln and Jefferson all extremists in their own causes?" After 340 years of limited freedom for African-Americans, was perhaps it not right, asked King, for the time of waiting to end? He answered by quoting William Gladstone: "Justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Ultimately, says Gilbreath, for all his many roles King was a Baptist minister in his core, and this was evidenced in the substance of the letter. After all, what gave King the inspiration and the strength to take pen to paper during those dark days in the Birmingham jail? Gilbreath answers:

First and foremost a man of prayer, King knew that his solitary confinement was only a physical state of being. "God's companionship does not stop at the door of a jail cell," he later wrote about his Birmingham experience. "God had been my cellmate." This probably best explains why "Letter from Birmingham Jail" became such a powerful document. King did not write it alone.

The Silver Lining on Doom and Gloom

2013-03-26T14:16:41Z

Here's a doom-and-gloom article about the publishing industry with a twist: it might not all be doom and gloom.

Despite the continual stream of stories about authors making $10,000 a month or more on self-published ebooks and in the process crushing traditional publishing out of existence, Evan Hughes in Wired magazine (April 2013) says there's another side of the story.

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"In one week, people . . . bought half a million copies of a really long book called Steve Jobs," a book about the man who famously said in 2008 that people don't read anymore.

Nearly 3 billion books are sold every year.

"Amazon likes to point out that new Kindle buyers go on to purchase almost five times as many books from Amazon, print and digital, in the ensuing year as they did in the prior one."

Self-publishing mega-successes are the exception. "In general, new writers gain much more than they lose by signing with a major house. Most self-published authors have trouble selling a copy outside of their immediate family."

Fifty Shades of Gray, rather than defining self-publishing success, is evidence of the opposite. "The book became a massive commercial success only after Random House got involved."

"Few writers relish the work of being their own publisher."

Of course, landmines still abound for publishers.

"The industry is plagued by what indie-publishing entrepreneur Richard Nash has called the 'pathology of unearned advances.' "

Ironically, in its attempt to suppress collusion between various publishers and Apple at the launch of its iBooks, the Department of Justice has put Amazon.com in an even stronger position to monopolize the industry.

Big-ticket authors with established audiences are well positioned to abandon traditional publishers and go solo.

So those who believe publishing is full of doom and gloom still have something to cheer them!

Good Prose 4: Being Edited

2013-03-19T14:29:18Z

Once I was harassing (in a good-natured way, of course) an editor I knew well from another publisher about a book she had put out. It was a biography that was overwritten and frequently lapsed into a sentimentalized caricature of the main subject. How could she have let that go through? "Oh," she said, smiling. "You should have seen it before we edited it!" I knew exactly what she was talking about.

]]> I had fallen into the trap so many reviewers do when they bemoan how poorly edited a book is. As editor Richard Todd says in Good Prose, "I always wince when a reviewer says, 'This book needed an editor.' Often it had an editor, but the writer prevailed."

Certainly copyeditors and proofreaders have a responsibility to clean up spelling and grammatical errors. And the job of an editor goes farther: keep the author focused on the audience and the topic, help shape a structure that is compelling, encourage an author to show not tell, cut out anything that distracts, rework awkward or confusing sentences, show what needs to be added and more. Sometimes an editor isn't up to the job. Sometimes, however, the author doesn't agree with the editor.

Authors may not appreciate that an editor has successfully developed dozens, even hundreds of books, and has something worthwhile to offer an author who may have written two or three. An author, however, needs more than respect for the expertise of an editor. As Todd writes:

The author must set aside that natural self-protectiveness that any work in its early stages inspires. A 'thick skin' doesn't begin to describe the necessary virtue. [Accepting editing] is essentially an act of generosity. The editor needs only some tact and the willingness to read things repeatedly. (p. 165)

In addition, authors at times don't appreciate how close they are to their own work and don't have the distance, the perspective needed to see it objectively. That's why, after an author turns in a draft, I will say, "Don't look at the manuscript for the next two months. Don't revise. Don't work on it at all. Take a break and take some well-deserved satisfaction in finishing. We'll read it here and get back to you on the next steps."

It takes distance and perspective to follow the advice of Stephen King to writers: "Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings."

Finally, Todd raises a further difficulty facing authors and editors. "Sometimes a book arrives at an editor's desk too late for the editor to make a substantial difference. The writer is exhausted and committed to his errors, the publishing schedule is set, it is simply too late all around. To repeat: a writer should try to involve the editor early in the process" (p. 166).

Different publishing houses work differently. I believe most would want an author to interact with an editor at key junctures so a course correction is possible long before a complete 300-page manuscript arrives that has, unfortunately, taken a wrong turn into a sentimental journey.

For the first installment in this series, see: Good Prose 1: Talking to Strangers

Good Prose 3: The Business of Writing

2013-03-12T13:56:20Z

Writers and publishers have always had a love-hate relationship. Mark Twain once offered "the perfect recipe for a modern American publisher" as follows: "Take an idiot from a lunatic asylum and marry him to an idiot woman and the fourth generation of this connection should be a good publisher."*

]]> In Good Prose Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd depart from their routine of providing excellent advice on writing to consider the business of publishing itself.

When writers convene they tend to talk in general ways about the business of writing. Partly this is to avoid telling each other what they really think of each other's work. But they do also seem genuinely unhappy with the institution they depend on, griping to each other about the malfeasance of publishers. No ads. No books sent to reviewers, or books sent to the wrong reviewers. No publicity. Or great publicity but no books in the stores. (pp. 129-30)

Kidder and Todd give a balanced perspective. They are able to see things from both sides. Publishers are not trying to be bad guys (well, most aren't). There are just some hard realities they have to deal with. As they put it:

The book business is changing rapidly and unpredictably. For years it was accused of being old-fashioned, even ossified. Now people who work in publishing say they have no idea what it will look like in even a few years. But one essential truth is likely to endure. About 80 percent of the books that are published lose money. It may be that 80 percent deserve to lose money. Only a fervent believer in the sanctity of the market would imagine that it is the same 80 percent, but it is hard to imagine a future in which financial success will not be the exception.

So publishing seems bound to remain a gambler's business. Publishers, particularly of nonfiction books, are generally buying manuscripts that don't yet exist. They are taking a chance. . . . When a book doesn't sell, support for it in the publishing house tends to wane quickly. Editors cut their losses and turn their attention to other titles. Writers grieve when this happens, and sometimes they howl, sometimes with justice, crying, "If only, if only, they had tried a little harder to promote my book." It is cold comfort, but always worth remembering, that the alternative was for the publisher not to have taken a chance at all. (p. 132)

Even in such a world where self-publishing options abound, many writers still need help from skilled editors, knowledgeable marketers, well-connected rights departments and the lift that the reputation of an established, quality publisher can bring. And yes, what would publishers publish if there were no writers?

Perhaps their blogs.

Next Installment: Good Prose 4: Being Edited

*John Tebbel, Between Covers, p. 138.

Good Prose 2: The Problem with Memoir

2013-03-01T16:11:37Z

I've read more than one memoir and wondered, "Did this really happen? Is the author remembering correctly or perhaps just making things up entirely?" Memoir is a knotty genre. Can we trust it? Should we? Can a book be truthful even if it isn't factual?

]]> Scandal in the genre of memoir has made a comeback. In 2011 well-known author Jon Krakauer wrote that Gregory Mortenson's much loved bestseller Three Cups of Tea was fiction presented as fact. In 2005 Oprah excoriated James Frey as he confessed that A Million Little Pieces (part of Oprah's book club), was full of exaggerations and lies. Then in 2008 Oprah was duped again with "Love and Consequences" by Margaret B. Jones, a self-described half-white, half-Native American foster child and former drug runner. We (and Oprah) found out it was a fictional story written by a white woman, Margaret Seltzer.

So it's not surprising that in Good Prose Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd take a hard look at the genre. Certainly writers and readers seem to wink with a boys-will-be-boys attitude at some of the tales told. How often I've come across reams of dialogue from decades back that the memoirist can't possibly have remembered. Kidder and Todd say a reader has "only two options: to stop reading most memoirs, or to accept remembered dialogue as artistically licensed in this genre, as a convention of the form, like a papier-mâché sky at the back of a stage or the propensity of characters in an opera to break into song" (p. 57).

While affirming subjectivity, they reject using it as an excuse for unfettered literary license.

Subjectivity properly understood is really just another name for thought. Subjectivity simply acknowledges the presence of a mediator between the facts and the truth. That mediator is you, the writer. Acknowledging subjectivity absolves you of nothing. On the contrary, it makes you the one who has to explore the facts, discover what you can of the truth, and find the way to express that truth in prose--knowing as you look for the way to do this that you cannot be complete, that every inclusion implies countless exclusions, that you must strive to do no violence to those facts and those truths that compete for your attention. (p. 85)

Long ago I heard of a situation in which a man on a street pushed a nun to the ground and began beating her. Those were the facts, I was told. But they weren't the truth. The truth was that her clothes had caught on fire and he was trying to put out the flames.

We all have an obligation to the facts. And we must begin there. But facts do not guarantee truth, which is our ultimate obligation.

Next Installment: Good Prose 3: The Business of Writing

Good Prose 1: Talking to Strangers

2013-02-19T17:06:56Z

"To write is to talk to strangers."

Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd practice what they preach by starting their book Good Prose quietly, with a sentence at once disarming and muscular. Indeed, the whole book is about this one, deceptively simple, nearly passive, seven-word sentence. Its rhythm is as beguiling as its substance is vital.

]]> All writing and editing comes down to the fact that you don't know your readers. And if you want to transform your readers from strangers into friends you must trust them, treat them with respect and, of course, not bore them.

And if you want to make friends, it's also best not to be too aggressive.

Writers are told that they must "grab" or "hook" or "capture" the reader. But think about these metaphors. Their theme is violence and compulsion. They suggest the relationship you might want to have with a criminal, not a reader. Montaigne writes, "I do not want a man to use his strength to get my attention."

I've read a lot of good books on writing. Good Prose is one with a twist. A writer and editor who have worked together for forty years on multiple articles and books talk about the craft of nonfiction from both sides. They don't wow you with literary pyrotechnics. Rather, they gently walk writers through some very practical issues, but in such a way that by the end of the stroll you found you enjoyed the journey as much as you did arriving at your destination.

They cover the genres of memoir and essay with effective examples from the authors' own work and that of others. They consider style, point of view and structure along with less common subjects like the tension between art and commerce. In the closing chapter, the authors focus on their experiences of editing and being edited as they fill out more of the story of how their decades-long relationship grew.

As a result, not only are we guided in how to write to strangers, we see how these two themselves became friends.

Next Installment: Good Prose 2: The Problem with Memoir

A Visit to Our Lawyer

2013-02-13T16:31:43Z

Recently my wife and I were revising our wills. (Don't worry, kids. You're still in.) You see, we figure every twenty years or so we ought to take a look, you know, whether things have changed or not. And, of course, we got all the standard boilerplate stuff from our lawyer. And that was good.

]]> But I'm a writer, and--more to the point--an editor. So I know what happens when an author dies and it's not clear who controls the author's copyrights. Too often it's a mess. So now it was time for me to take the advice I've been doling out for several years. I asked our lawyer to put a clause in our wills that designates who will inherit our intellectual property (meager as it is). So he did.

Now we can rest easy at night knowing that all our brilliant prose, heartbreaking poetry and highly imaginative, realistic, magical, narrative, postmodern, anti-realist, traditional fiction (not to mention patents, inventions and all manner of artistic works) will have a secure future. We will not have left them destitute, homeless or orphaned, but will have provided a happy home that will serve them through their full term of copyright.

Cut the Clutter

2013-02-05T16:09:47Z

For thirty-five years I've been recommending William Zinsser's On Writing Wel. It is the essential book on the craft, especially for new writers. Zinsser zeroes in on all the myths, bad habits and misunderstandings people have when they start writing.

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His chapter on clutter is worth the price of the book. "Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds--the writer is always slightly behind" (p. 13). Consider the adjective personal. It keeps popping up, as in "my personal opinion." What possible difference in meaning is there between that and "my opinion"? If you've got my" in the phrase, personal is redundant. (Maybe it's there to distinguish it from "my impersonal opinion.")

Why do people insist on writing, "I have another point to make," or "Let me give an example"? Just give us the darn example, please! Cut the clutter, ruthlessly.

Yes, I know why people write like that. They are taking time to gather their thoughts, get a running start on an idea before they jump. Fair enough. Just clean up your mess afterward so readers don't have to wade through your half-formed prose.

"Clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed socioeconomic area, garbage collectors into waste disposal personnel and the town dump into the volume reduction unit" (p. 13). Jargon and hackneyed phrases are the bane of every profession. We can drown in scalable, vertical ecosystems that take us to the next level, crisiswise.

So this word to the wise: After you write, Zinsserize.

Les Misérables You Never Knew

2013-01-30T15:49:49Z

With the release of the movie version of the musical Les Misérables, friends and foes alike have debated its merits, demerits--loving it and hating it for being and not being faithful to the original stage production. Here's an excerpt from A Deeper Look at James, forthcoming from IVP this spring and from my wife, Phyllis, and me, that considers what's behind both versions of Victor Hugo's famed book.

]]> The musical based on Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables begins in France in the early 1800s. An ex-con, Jean Valjean, is on his way to see his probation officer after nineteen years on a chain gang. He stops at the house of a bishop, where he is welcomed warmly with a hot meal and a night's stay; Valjean repays this kindness by stealing the bishop's silverware. The next day he is captured by the police and returned to the bishop for confirmation of his thievery.

Yes, the bishop confirms, this man stayed with him the previous night. Then the bishop turns to Valjean and asks why he didn't take the candlesticks too. They could have been sold for two hundred francs. He should have taken them along with the flatware. The police are shocked. What Valjean told them was true? He hadn't stolen the silver? It had been given to him, an ex-con, by the bishop? They can hardly believe it. But the bishop insists and sends the police on their way without the thief.

Before Valjean leaves, however, the bishop tells him, "Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil but to good. It is your soul I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!"* As a result, Valjean's life is radically transformed, and we see him sacrificing dramatically for others through the rest of the story.

The over sixty million people worldwide who have seen and heard the musical based on Hugo's novel are just as astonished as the police at the bishop's amazing act of grace. In the face of being clearly wronged, the bishop does not call for punishment but literally redeems Valjean, buying him back from imprisonment and darkness and setting him free for a new life. We wonder if we could ever have done such a thing. How could the bishop have suddenly had this stroke of wisdom, courage and strength to give and forgive so generously?

The answer is that this was not a spontaneous act of mercy. It was behavior shaped and honed over years. This encounter between the bishop and Valjean is where the musical begins, but it is not where the novel begins.

In the novel we learn that years before, the bishop had opened his spacious residence to the patients from the overcrowded hospital next door, while he himself moved into the tiny hospital. He walked to make pastoral visits so he could distribute his own carriage allowance to poor mothers, widows and orphans. When a subordinate refused to visit a murderer on death row, the bishop did not rebuke the subordinate but went to the murderer and showed him how to be reconciled with God. He even convinced a gang of thieves he once encountered to make contributions to the poor.

For over fifty dense pages Hugo chronicles dozens of similar episodes in the bishop's life before he ever meets Valjean. The dramatic act did not emerge from nowhere but was consistent with a lifelong pattern.

This is the very point James seeks to make in his New Testament letter. Character does not result from a single dramatic act of wisdom, and grace is not fully constructed overnight. Rather, they are built, brick by brick and board by board, throughout a life.

*Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (New York: Signet, 1987), p. 106.

Taken from A Deeper Look at James by Andrew T. and Phyllis J. Le Peau.
Copyright(c) 2013 by Andrew T. and Phyllis J. Le Peau. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com

Subtitles, Drama and the Rule of Three

2013-01-22T15:57:39Z

Titles are without a doubt one of the most vital elements for a successful book. But subtitles, while clearly "sub," still matter a lot.

One way (not the only way) to construct an effective subtitle is by using the Rule of Three. Offering a list with three items gives a rising sense of movement, climax and direction. Consider these subtitles:

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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

The Blood Sugar Solution: The UltraHealthy Program for Losing Weight, Preventing Disease, and Feeling Great Now!

God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist?

The subtitle for Unbroken clearly shows a progression. The subtitle for The Blood Sugar Solution doesn't move chronologically but rather develops in terms of emotional benefit. For God Behaving Badly the subtitle makes a cumulative impact.

Titles or subtitles with two items can be helpful for purposes of comparison and contrast. But they tend to be (though aren't always) less effective because the items balance each other. On the positive side this gives a sense of stability, but negatively it can be less interesting because there is no sense of change. Consider two titles with paired items:

Empire and Honor

Kinsey and Me

Those are fine, serviceable titles. But they lack drama.

When using the Rule of Three in a subtitle, the longest item should almost always go last. Why? Rhythm overrides significance. Try reading (especially aloud) any of the following subtitles with the last item in the first or second place. Those options are always flatter. They lose their punch.

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat

It's not impossible to have a title with three items in a list. Guns, Germs & Steel was very successful. But as important as the Rule of Three can be, it can be trumped (especially for a title) by the Rule of Memorability. If people can't remember the title of your book, that's trouble. And a sequence of three can be elusive.

On the other hand, while the Rule of Three isn't the only way to achieve an effective subtitle, it can be the road to impact, grabbing attention and a successful publishing venture.

John Stott's Peace Offering

2013-01-15T15:27:47Z

"Fie upon you, IVP."

I'm still shocked, fifteen years later, that John Stott uttered these words at our office gathering during an event in which we honored him in 1998 for fifty years of publishing with us. We had at that point sold over five million copies of over forty of his books, booklets and Bible study guides. Many present had said what his books had meant to them. He voiced his appreciation. Then toward the end, even with a slight tinge of humor, self-consciously overstating his sentiments, he clearly expressed that, nonetheless, he was upset with us.

What had we done? Published heresy? Wandered far from our publishing mission? Perhaps we had altered some of his writing without his consent? Insulted the Queen? No, none of these.

]]> Rather, we had turned down the book (OK, I had turned it down) that was closest and dearest to his heart--The Birds Our Teachers. Stott was a birder from his youth, and a serious one. Over the decades he had traveled to the four points of the globe to see, for example, penguins on South Georgia Island and the Snowy Owl of the Canadian Arctic. No book was more personal than this one. And I had cast it aside. Had this consummate diplomat, this scion of British reserve ever rebuked anyone else more sternly? If so, I would not like to be that person.

How do you tell an author that you may be doing him or her a favor by turning a book down, that another publisher might do better with it? How do you explain that four-color books are not a strength of our program and that there are others that have ready markets and an established track record with such a genre? How do you say that the decision really has nothing to do with its quality or worth? How do you deal with authorial disappointment in the near term to fend off deeper disappointment after a weak or failed publication? Obviously, we did not succeed (OK, I did not succeed) in explaining any of these things convincingly.

Nonetheless, a year later, when the book came out, I received a bound copy from Stott inscribed with his wide-nibbed pen as follows:

To Andy

I promised to send you
one of these when published,
as a peace-offering, and
with my heartfelt good wishes

John
Stott

Oct. 99

It was an offering of peace I gladly accepted.

Surprised by Self-Publishing

2013-01-11T18:55:55Z

Jennie Nash tells us there is a thrill when an author can pick her own cover, set her own prices, decide on special editions and more. She also tells us there's terror.

]]> When I do something well, I feel like a rock star entrepreneurial author on the cutting edge of the brave new world of publishing. But book publishing is a detailed, complex enterprise requiring a range of skills completely different from writing a book. There are a thousand opportunities to screw up. Suddenly, it's not just my writing that's out there being judged, it's my eye for design, my sense of how readers behave, my business acumen. I used to wonder why it took traditional publishers nine months to produce a book. Now I get it; it's a lot of work.

My friends who have self-published recently all tell me the same thing. It's a lot more work and more complicated than they expected. As I've said here and here, self-publishing may be the right solution for authors--or not. It all depends. One person commented on Nash's blog:

This is a very balanced view, and I thank you for it. Knowing myself, my strengths and weaknesses, this helps reinforce my belief that traditional publishing is what is best for me.

Others might look at their strengths and weaknesses and decide self-publishing is the route to go. The point is, take a look and assess as well as you can ahead of time.

Of course, sometimes authors don't have that choice. Sometimes no traditional house will have them. Then it is self-publish or don't publish. Even so, doing your homework is key even to that decision too.

Nash knows her stuff, though. She manages to get herself as a guest on Rachelle Gardner's blog and actually thus promote her self-published book under the guise of telling us about the problems with self-publishing.

Clever author!