Welcome to a new dimension of my blog: interviews. I’d love to highlight friends of mine who’ve written some fantastic books, books I can wholeheartedly recommend to you and your friends. As you know, I believe in clean and meaningful Christian fiction, so I’m careful about who I endorse. My new guest is Deb Brammer, an author friend I’ve known for several years. Without further ado, join Deb and me as we sip our coffee and chat about Christian publishing. So, Deb, how long have you been writing for Christian publication? For about thirty-five years. I had my first article published by Regular Baptist Press in 1979. How many books have you written? I’ve had eight books published. Peanut Butter Friends in a Chop Suey World and Two Sides to Everything are written for preteens and involve cultural changes made by an American in Taiwan and New Zealand. Moose is fiction…
Welcome to a New Year! And a new publisher I’m excited to be working with. Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas is reissuing my first novel, Fatal Illusions, with a special Kindle sale. You can now purchase the Kindle version for only $3.99. And if you once purchased the print edition, you may now purchase a digital copy for only $1.99. Check it out here. Stay tuned. The paperback version will be available soon.
Yes, it’s official. Kregel Publications recently informed me that Fatal Illusions, my first published novel, is officially out of print. Out of print? What exactly does that mean? That means sales have not been sufficient to warrant a reprint, and all remaining copies of the novel, once kept in a warehouse, have been sold away (though if you go to Amazon.com you’ll still see some copies for sale). Kregel basically “bought” ownership of my book for five years, and now the book is back in my hands: lock, stock, and barrel. Is this reason for despair? Not at all. This is pretty routine in the publishing industry. While every novelist would like to see his or her novels being published and going through countless reprints infinitum, let’s admit it: most novels just don’t sell like hotcakes forever, if they sell decently at all. Is this disheartening? Well, yeah, it can…
When my first novel came out, I had no notions of being a best-selling author. My goal was simply to sell enough copies to make my publisher happy and ensure future contracts. An odd thought struck me. Hey, I know how to be a best-selling author. I just need to be rich enough. I could give tons of money to a friend, who could then buy up all my copies. Then my publisher could proclaim that I have an instant best seller! Does that idea sound fanciful? Not so fast. It appears that others have entertained the same idea. I recently saw an article in World magazine about Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, who authored the book Real Marriage. According to the article’s author, Warren Cole Smith, Mars Hill Church paid a marketing company up to $210,000 to ensure Driscoll’s book made the New York Times best-seller list. How exactly the marketing…
