I've worked in the publishing industry for more than 25 years now and have been blessed to have my hand on a number of bestsellers. I tried counting that exact number up the other day and I know I've missed a few - and maybe not accounted for some returns or remainder sales - but I think I've worked directly on at least 18 books that have sold more than a million units and somewhere close to 70 that have topped 100 thousand units. Okay, sounds like I'm bragging, but really, I want to make a point, which is: I have a fairly decent feel for what will work in the marketplace.

That's what surprised me so much about publisher response to a book I represented as an agent, The Runaway Pastor, by a friend from my college days. Responses were tepid at best - and there was definite resistance by some. A few thought it was written as a negative indictment of ministers, the ministry, and the church. One publisher even waggled a finger at me! LOL. I spoke with a few general publishers who weren't aware that anyone in America goes to church, so they weren't convinced there is a market.

I admit, I was a little worried when David first asked me to give it a read. I was afraid that I would find the material poorly written and would have to figure out a diplomatic way to tell him that. But the book was very well written, exceptionally well for a first time fiction author. But what I thought the book really had going for it was a raw - but kind - honesty that gave it a couple of amazing "hooks" for several audiences. Because one thousand ministers leave the ministry every month:

* I thought this book would strike a nerve with pastors - duh!
* I figured most regular church attenders have been impacted by this career exodus, and that would make it a book of acute interest.
* I assumed sociologists - particularly those who observe religious patterns in America - would find it fascinating.
* I was certain that professors at Bible colleges and seminaries - and others who provide academic and professional development for ministers - would consider this must reading for themselves and those they work with.
* I even suspected that some critics and skeptics of the church and Christianity might find the title intriguing.

Now I know the publishing industry is distressed and not as many books are being acquired - and new-author fiction has always been a high risk venture. But I still assumed this book proposal would sell quickly. I've got other projects that have been selling in short order. So when The Runaway Pastor didn't have a taker within three months, David and I got back together and decided I would put this out as a micro-publishing project under one of my imprint names. He made me nervous - again - when he said his wife Shelly could design the book cover. I've seen a lot of author-directed book covers in my day and many have been awful. But I think she did a bang up job!

So voila. The Runaway Pastor is now available on Amazon and I think it is going to do great over time. I think it may get picked up by a major publishing house. I think it will generate a lot of publicity. In fact, David got an extended note from one person who reviews books for ministers:

I read The Runaway Pastor word for word, cover to cover this weekend and as far as realistic fiction is concerned, the book is nearly too realistic. The book reads so well also, causing the reader, especially one who may be prone to run away from it all, to consider the outcomes of running, to consider the options of seeking help, to muster the courage to wake up and tend to his/her inner life, his/her marital life, his/her emotional life. The book is a wake up for the Church as well. To consider its expectations of pastors as real or hyper-unrealistic, to consider a pastors marriage as something to be cultivated, to consider a pastor's life as more precious than the goods and services the pastor offers. David Hayes, in my opinion, has a winner of a book which I hope helps pastors seek the help and guidance they need. The events surrounding Pastor Trent and his wife Natalie's brokenness are all too real.

I'm not going to give a spoiler on how the story ends here. Just let me say that this book is a great tale of loss and redemption. A very clever storyline. Always respectful of the church, the ministry, and a life of faith. By the way, David knows whence he writes of. No, he didn't run away from it all, but he did experience a significant bout of ministerial burnout - and survived it! In fact, he pastors a church today.

The nature of my business doesn't require that I give a sales pitches on this blog - so I'm not real good at this - but I would encourage many who read this to strongly consider ordering a copy of The Runaway Pastor from Amazon right now.

(Publishers who are thinking maybe they should take a look at this ... you know where to reach me! LOL)

Baseball may be America's pastime but football is America's passion when it comes to sports. (I have a friend who has dubbed the summer sport as basebore. Wake me up when the world series starts.)

The NFL finished its preseason - and no one knows why they even held a preseason in the first place (unless it had something to do with money) - and keeps score and counts the games this coming weekend.

College football came out of the corner swinging last Thursday - literally if you check the video below - with Oregon visiting Boise State and losing on BSU's smurf-blue football field that makes TV screens beg for mercy. By now everyone in the world that watches ESPN highlights has seen the sucker punch thrown by a frustrated Oregon player at the end of the game as players were exiting the field. Not quite the punch CFB wanted thrown on a weekend dedicated, ironically, to sportsmanship. (Note: Now this is real irony, not just the bad luck and tragedy masqueraded as irony by Alanis Morissette in her song Isn't It Ironic?). But I digress. And despite a black eye administered to sportsmanship, there was plenty of on field highlights for football junkies who have been suffering withdrawal pains for the past eight months.



My Buckeyes played a less than impressive game against the Naval Academy - putting in the second string quarterback in the second quarter is not a recipe for maintaining momentum in what looked like an emerging blowout - but before the game, in the spirit of sportsmanship, the two teams ran onto the field together. This was a first ever happening in storied Ohio Stadium. All week leading up to the game head coach Senator Tressel had let it be known that he did not want servicemen being booed - a friendly tradition in Ohio and a couple hundred other venues each Saturday afternoon of CFB season - and, in fact, wanted Navy's players to be given a standing ovation. Apparently he didn't have total faith in his fan base so he set things up to insure the standing O. I don't know. We've booed the home team before, too.

Based on one week of results, the sports guru pundits are pretty sure who is really good and who is really bad already. They'll be wrong a fair amount of the time and by season's end express indignation that the season didn't unfold as they pronounced it would. (Note: Only a few of the pundits predict any more. Most now pronounce. Better ratings.)

Not surprising, Lou Holtz has already declared Notre Dame as national champions. The term "SEC speed" was used no less than 300 times on ESPN. And then a thousand more times once the games started. Oklahoma got upset by BYU and lost their Heisman winner QB, Sam Bradford, for an indefinite stretch of games. Michigan looked like the Wolverines again - maybe they've been practicing extra - and speaking of which, I am all for eschewing the tie and deciding games in overtime, but it doesn't mean I can't still hope and pray that when Michigan and Notre Dame play next week, "they" - maybe we do need the pundits on occasion - deem both teams losers after a 0-0 final score highlighted by 20 fumbles.

So who is going to win the national championship? And who do I think is going to be really good and bad this year? Rather than separate the sheep and the goats and impute or impinge character on the basis of winning, as a spectator, I'll hide behind the words of Teddy Roosevelt:

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never tasted victory or defeat.

On that note, all I can say is "Go Bucks. Beat USC!"

Ken Follett. Penguin. Published in 1989.

My first exposure to Follett was in the early 80s with a trio of spy thrillers, Eye of the Needle, Triple, and The Key to Rebecca. I like the spy genre and though I didn't think Follett had the nuanced political and psychological depth of a LeCarre or Deighton, he delivered intrigue, twists, and turns at a Frederick Forsythe (Day of the Jackel) level. Smart, action-packed escapist reading!

Follett wrote The Pillars of the Earth in 1989 and I completely missed it. For 20 years. Once I've read an author a couple times and like him or her that usually doesn't happen. But it should have come as no surprise. In Pillars, Follett switched genres from international political thrillers to historical fiction with this 973 page tome. I'm sure his publisher was aghast when he brought the proposal to the table. Follett was undoubtedly told that this was a bad "self-branding" move for any author, that he would confuse and lost his core audience. I'm Exhibit One that his publisher was probably right in a business sense. But if Follett had listened, we would have missed out on a literary treat. It hasn't turned out too bad for Follett either, as Pillars is his backlist title that continues to sell the most copies every year.

So what prompted Follett to write a book that features a devout and godly monk who dreamed of building a cathedral to God's glory; the ups and downs of a couple of stone masons and their families; and some really rotten earls, barons, sherrifs, bishops and priests? Was it Follett's own act of devotion and religious fervor? In his preface he claims to be atheist despite a Plymouth Brethren upbringing. But he did have what can be described as a near religious experience on a business trip to Peterborough for the London Times. He had recently read a book on European architecture and was fascinated with Nikolaus Pevsner's description of all that went into the building of Gothic cathedrals. With an hour to spare before his train left for London, Follett took a tour of the Peterborough Cathedral and says he was instantly "enraptured." This began a personal hobby of visiting and studying cathedrals all over England and Europe.

Follett may have left modern politics behind in Pillars but not the politics of 12th Century Europe. With the death of King Henry, Stephen and Maude wage a civil war for the throne spanning decades, with a constant and ensuing political fallout for earls, cities, and counties. Even the building of a castle or cathedral became a political roller coast ride with access to lumber, stone or labor determined by which combatant won the last battle of the season and which barons and earls had the right allegiance to be rewarded or punished.

Follett shows Medieval churchmen at their superstitious and barbaric worst - and their enlightened, progressive, spiritual, and charitable best. I think he is very fair to represent the true spirituality of the Medieval - and modern - believer. He doesn't succumb to the temptation to paint crude caricatures. My own reading of Medieval history is cursory but from what little I know, Follett actually helps dispel the myth that these were simply "Dark Ages." Watching Jack - a stone mason and master builder - wrestle with how to make his cathedral roof taller but still safe and finally discover the pointed arch is a marvelous glimpse into the technological developments of the day.

Pillars is set around the building of the Kingsbridge Cathedral, but Follett takes us on a historically plausible side journey through France, over the Pyrenees, and into the Iberian Peninsula, where Medieval monks traveled to the library of Toledo, Spain, and were introduced to Euclid (his algebra and geometry play a role in the building of cathedrals), Plato, and other great writings from antiquity. Throughout the story Follett introduces the historical seeds that blossomed into the modern political mind and arena, from worker's and women's rights to the question of whether kings and nobility must answer to the law.

Toward the end of the book, Prior Philip, the stern, austere, kind, hard nosed, fair, loving hero of the story witnesses the assassination of Thomas Becket at Canterbury - carried out under the urging of his nemesis, Waleran, a bishop who made Machiavelli seem like an author of positive thinking and encouragement titles. Philip faces his ultimate test of faith, namely whether he will keep his faith in God and whether that faith in God has the efficacy to make the world a better place. As a reader, we have followed his life as orphan, monk, reformer, and builder for sixty years up to the year 1174 A.D. But the question he must face in the closing pages of Pillars is just as relevant today!

As a footnote on a blog I wrote a month ago about the decision of whether to euthanize the family pet, our 12-year-old black and silver miniature schnauzer, the dreaded day finally arrived yesterday.

After long lunch meeting with a publisher and potential author, I settled into my office and figured I’d deal with Colby another day. I finally had to man up when I looked at him on the back porch and saw how incredibly awful he felt. I had to force myself to face the fact that an occasional good day didn't mean he wasn't miserable.

Colby did have one great day the past week. Zach and I took him to the park on Saturday. Zach and two of his friends and I were passing the football. Colby trotted after the boys a little – though no mad dashes like the old days when he thought he was a defensive back. He then found some shade and and watched the boys run routes with his trademark little smile. He kept his head up the whole time, scanning left and right. I think he wanted to jump in the game one more time.

He never ate again after Saturday morning. He hardly moved the last day and a half. Despite efforts to get him moving and clean him up, he was lying in urine and vomit most of the time. So Monday afternoon it was time to end the work day early and take care of a different kind of business.

I had to carry him to the car, which in a sad way made the task at hand easier. I talked to him about old times on the drive over. He’d flick his eyebrows up when he heard his name, but otherwise didn’t move a muscle. When we got to the Williamson County Animal Control Center, I decided to stay in with him for his last shot. I don't think he quite noticed as he really was already gone.

I think it's Tim McGraw who sings the lyrics, 'I don’t know why they say grown men don’t cry.' That's what happens when you lose a pet who has been part of the family for 12 years.

When self-publishing is done right, the same things go into as traditional publishing. A unique and compelling idea; great writing; author promotion; a good looking cover that fits the tone and genre of the book; the right price point; and places to sell the book.

I have tried to keep this blog strictly editorial and haven't gotten into promoting my company. But on this topic I'm going to make an exception and post a slide presentation that covers what I think is a new era of self-publishing - what I am now calling micropublishing - which also introduces a new service area for my company.