A couple of weeks ago, I was on a retreat with a handful of people who earn their living from the platform. That platform could be writing, public speaking, or doing music professionally.
At one point early in the retreat, somebody said something along the lines of,
“Self-promotion is the opposite of the character of Jesus.”
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Given I had just written about my hesitation on how to market and promote a book, this statement made my stomach churn.
The group shared some thoughts on that – the difficulty of realizing the complete truth of that statement (I mean, how many times in Scripture did Jesus actually say, ‘DON’T GO AND TELL ANYONE I DID THIS‘…um…a lot!) and also feeling the tension of having to let people know about whatever message and platform we have to share.
My confession: The last two weeks I have not been healthy. I have tucked myself away for twelve, fourteen, and at one point seventeen hours in my little office. If it weren’t for the one window I have, it would be like a casino and I’d never know if it was day or night and would probably somehow grow a beard (or more likely really long leg hair) and look like a lesser tanned version of Tom Hanks on Castaway.
Tomorrow, my book Permission to Speak Freely: Essays and Art on Fear, Confession and Grace OFFICIALLY releases. Yes, I realized Amazon shipped it two weeks ago and I can’t say thanks enough for your kind feedback.
But tomorrow, it’s official. There will be blog tours and I’ll probably tweet a few times more than normal and then, over the course of the next three or four months, will be traveling almost every week to talk about it at a church or a conference or a retreat or over coffee. (More coffee? Really? My hands are twitching because of the amount of espresso I have consumed in this two week period.) There are interviews and airports and hotels and shaking hands with strangers and wearing my grown up clothes in order to look my age.
I still battle.
I love this book. I love that people are responding the way they have so far and the message of it, the redemption of the broken pieces of my past and my present, are being used to help others find confession, transformation, healing, and hope. People are learning they are not alone. And if any statement was one my heart beat for, it would be that:
You are not alone.
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People often imagine a book release day is a grandiose day and that you get flowers and balloons and as you walk down the street people stop and say, “Congratulations!” Or maybe I give too much of my guilty pleasures away when I say the illusion of being on a street in New York City and seeing a bus go by with your face and your book on it (i.e., Carrie Bradshaw) is what we authors dream of. But nothing could be further from the truth.
I’ll wake up. Shower. Put on my jeans and probably a grey tee-shirt (my summer wardrobe), battle myself on how much coffee I need, give in to a double, drive to my office and walk up the stairs. I’ll check my email, wish there were more messages from people with names instead of “Google Alerts” in the sender’s field, and keep tabs on my Amazon sale ranking – which means absolutely nothing in the publishing world. It’s simply a time-waster for authors who need their egos fed. I’ll work on editing a project, writing an article, making some phone calls, and check my Amazon sales rank again. And again. And then I’ll lock up my office, walk downstairs, get in my car, and go home.
Having a book release is a special thing. It’s a privilege I don’t take for granted. At all.
But, is it the end all? The one thing that fills the void when you close your eyes and go to sleep?
No way.
Does it even help fill that void?
Nope.
As poet and author Mary Oliver says,
“Writing is only writing. The accomplishments of courage and tenderness are not to be measured by paragraphs.”
Referring back to my post earlier, the measure of a man is the love by which he engages with humanity. I suppose in a small way, sharing words from my heart with others is a simple act of that. But just know, the tension is there. It’s a tension I’ve yet to understand or even be able to balance in a healthy way all the time.
All of this semi-sensical rambling to say I would love your prayers for the launch of this book.
I would also love for you to buy it. But I’m not going to hold a social media gun to your head and blast you in the face with that very often.
So, more than anything, your prayers.
That people will be helped.
That people who are hurt will be able to open up and share and have their weight lifted.
And that people will realize they are not alone.
That it’s okay to speak freely.
I appreciate each of you.
Thank you.