Birthing a Book

Indian-fusion dinner to celebrate Book Launch Day!

My Dear Readers,

I gave birth to a book this week. Loving Disagreement: Fighting For Community Through the Fruit of the Spirit “hit the shelves” Tuesday. (And if you see the book in the wild, as in on an actual shelf in a physical store, please snap a photo and send it to me!!)

It was weird because my friend and podcast co-host Matt Mikalatos birthed the book with me, and we just met IRL in August when we recorded the audiobook baby.

It was weird because the last time I birthed a book it was 2018, and so many people said Raise Your Voice: Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up was timely. Apparently things have only gotten worse or didn’t get significantly better because the same is being said about Loving Disagreement: Fighting For Community Through the Fruit of the Spirit.

It was weird because this week has been one of deep divisions, pain, suffering, disagreement, and war – Ukraine and Gaza. I want the celebrate the book, but it’s been a quiet path to hold joy and grief in tension and publicly. Matt and I don’t like that there is an immediate pressing need for our book, but that is not a reason to celebrate.

I’m sure I’ve shared this before, but the work of writing a book finishes long before the physical book arrives. The final edits were turned in months ago, followed by a few quiet weeks before the marketing and publicity push.

The social media landscape has been completely different with each book I’ve authored. More Than Serving Tea was published in 2006 during the time of blogs and when older folks had not yet pushed young people off of Facebook. Twitter had just launched at that point so when Raise Your Voice came out in 2018 publishers were looking at a potential author’s “platform” – the number of followers and maybe the size of the mailing list of your blog. It’s 2023 and Twitter is history but platform is still a thing, even if blogs have now given way to Substack, Medium, and other ways writers can connect with readers. That too has been weird. I am on social media more than the other four members of my family combined, despite the fact that three of those four are in their 20s. 

Launch day was really just another day with the privilege of teaching yoga and an inbox that will never hit zero. I took a walk because the sun was out. I’m pretty sure I did some laundry, and I didn’t post anything on my socials. I liked and maybe shared some posts, but for the most part I was organizing my feelings and thoughts around some words about me and my writing (and about my co-author and his writing, but mostly about me), the impact of those words, and discerning what God’s invitation is to me as I enter into a loving disagreement with all of the power dynamics and emotions and assumptions you can imagine.

That has been the weirdest part, My Dear Readers – to sit with my own words and those of my co-author and the Biblical text as we try to model what we just wrote about. The writing is never the hardest part.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23.

 

 

 

Playing the Name Game of Endorsements

My Dear Readers,

I have a book, written with my friend Matt Mikalatos, that hits the shelves October 17. The process of seeking endorsements – the blurbs on the back, inside, and sometimes on the cover – began a few weeks ago. A PDF of our edited but not typeset manuscript was sent/is being sent to leaders in the Church – progressives, conservatives, authors, pastors, organizational leaders, etc. Because our book, Loving Disagreement: Fighting For Community Through the Fruit of the Spirit, is about engaging in disagreements we are intentionally looking for people with a variety of theological and political views, representing the diversity of the Church. I suspect even I may be surprised at the endorsements because hopefully some will come from people I disagree with but believe in book. 

Recently the topic of book endorsements, particularly within Christian publishing, has come under scrutiny because of a soon-to-be published book containing dangerous theology and uncomfortably weird analogies was endorsed by several prominent authors and pastors. Their endorsements raised questions about those blurbs and the process of vetting both the book and the blurb.

I’ve written elsewhere about Christian publishing – how that process played out for me and how it could play out for other aspiring authors. I thought I’d add my one cent here about the game of endorsements.

It’s a business and a ministry and a business

Please remember that Christian publishing is still a business. Even if the publisher is the publishing arm of a non-profit, book publishing is a business. 

So when it comes to endorsements I have found it complicated. As an Asian American female Christian author, I am often asked if I would read a manuscript and offer an endorsement. When I first started down this road of Christian publishing almost 20 years ago, Twitter + IG did not exist. Smart phones did not exist. But that did not mean Christian authors weren’t building platforms. They were blogging and building email lists. They were speaking at conferences that kept getting bigger with more stage production and building email lists. So when five completely unknown Asian American women were getting ready to send More Than Serving Tea out into the world, we were asked to think about prominent Asian American church leaders and academics to give our book credibility and possibly connect us to more readers and networks.

In this recent situation I have been reading a lot of comments about how endorsements are an awful game and authors and readers shouldn’t play. I’m not sure how I can fully divest myself from the game when I am months away from publishing another book and waiting to hear from the more than two dozen folks we have reached out to for endorsements. I’m not sure how as a reader I can fully divest myself from not only turning to friends for recommendations but also looking at endorsements to see if others I respect have signed off on a book I’m thinking about reading. I’m not going to only trust the librarians’ or a pastor’s recommendations if the librarian or pastor doesn’t read books written by authors of color. As a reader, I look for endorsements from other authors and leaders of color, particularly women of color. 

But as an author, I have learned that the game is also networking. Don’t roll your eyes. We all do it. How else do you make friends? How do you find out about summer camps for your kids or possible job leads when you’ve had it with your current boss? How do you find a church in a new community? You lean into your network. And as an Asian American female author, my network and my own platform carry a different weight and carry me.

Let Me Explain and Ask a Few Questions

I know that many of you started following me back in 2016 after authors like Scot McKnight and Rachel Held Evans blurbed about More Than Serving Tea on their own blogs. Now I have no idea if those blog posts generated sales, but for me as an author their posts opened up networks. Scot and Rachel became  people I considered friends and allies. Scot taught me about honoraria and how to ask for what I deserved and needed. Rachel connected me to possible agents and gave an endorsement for my book Raise Your Voice. That came about as a result of the game.

But what I have found is that when I, as an Asian American female author, endorse a white author’s book I am offering a level of credibility. In the crudest way possible, my endorsement can be a stamp of Asian American approval. I have consistently turned down requests for endorsement from white authors I do not know. My priority is to endorse women of color, especially new authors, because the game wasn’t developed with us in mind. That is how I play the game. That is how I have chosen to leverage the little bit of influence and power I have and how I manage my time. 

I am also relying on my network of authors of color and white authors I know and trust to be the first ones I ask for an endorsement. Why? I respect them. Their words carry weight and influence. As an author I believe in my work and I want as many reader to buy and read my books. I will always write, but writing a book? That’s a different beast than writing for myself and for the love of my craft. Personally, I want my books to sell and while an endorsement alone doesn’t sell books, it is a stamp of credibility. I don’t know what other ways an author has to signal to potential readers that our words are worth a chance. What draws you into a book? A beautiful cover? A provocative title? Do you read the endorsements? If so, why? If not, why not? Short of reading the book, what helps you, My Dear Readers, decide to buy and read a book?

And one day I may make a mistake. One day my beliefs may change (many of my beliefs have changed since my first book). One day the beliefs of an author whose book I endorsed may change. I’m not sure how to handle that except to say that is part of the risk we authors take when we send our words out into the world. They are frozen in time and do not move and shift with us, which is why we keep writing and we keep reading.

Back to the Game

Some folks have commented that endorsements can be bought. No one has ever tried to buy my endorsement, and I have never tried to buy an endorsement. I can’t imagine making enough money off of a book contract to give some of it away to buy two sentences, but I can see how that might happen. While many Christian authors have gone the way of Substack and other platforms, there was and might still be folks who sell posts on their blogs and platforms. Some of the “guest posts” on other spaces might be paid for, and you will never know. So if we are going to interrogate endorsements, and I think it’s fair, let’s look at it all, including the platforms. Again, I’ve never charged anyone for a mention of their book or for the chance to post on my blog. But I know for a fact there are Christian authors who “share” their platforms for a price. 

Endorsements when done in a perfect world are written after the book is read and some of the outrage in this current situation involving a book about sexuality and the church is that endorsers may not have read the entire book. That is not my personal practice and I suspect many of us will make sure we spend even more time reading manuscripts before we write our endorsements, but I do have a request of you, My Dear Readers. Please consider how you also play into this game with your reviews (or lack of) and words on the interwebs. Did you love the book? Please tweet about it. Review it on Goodreads. Post a photo of the book with your pet. Ask your library to carry the book and then go check it out.

I’m not sure what if anything will change with endorsements, but I want to remind all of us that Christian publishing is still a business.

The cover. I love it.

 

 

Before the Book Launch Comes a Million Waves of Doubt

  This is a rushed blog post because I don’t want it to run tomorrow. You know. April Fool’s. Or is it Fools’? Whatever. I don’t want to publish something tomorrow because publishing and getting a book published is no joke.

There are many avenues to self-publishing available and viable to those who choose that route. I am actually a co-author of a devotional that was self-published, and you are more than welcome to let me know if you are interested in buying a copy God’s Graffiti Devotional from me.

But the other book I co-authored with four other amazing women just entered its 8th printing. More Than Serving Tea is not going to be a NY Times best seller, though IMHO has more wisdom in it that some of the self-help stuff that makes that list, but as I posted a photo celebrating the fact that the book is still in print I was engaged in a short FB conversation with a friend about the lack of writers of color in the recent InterVarsity Press catalogue – the same publishing house that took a risk on and supported More Than Serving Tea.

The road to getting a book published is longer for some than others, and it is connected to privilege as much as it is connected to actual writing talent. It drives me berserkoid when Christian authors say things like, “God opened the door” because it’s weird how many more doors are opened for white authors. Just sayin’. I’m pretty sure God isn’t sitting in heaven waiting for more authors of color to pray, “Lord, open those publishing doors for me.” I am not saying that all white authors have those connections. #notallwhiteauthors I am saying that Christian publishers are still set up within the cultural norms that were established for and by white authors and readers and for their success and reading pleasure.

This post isn’t about all that needs to happen to dismantle that mess. I can’t do that in one post just like we can’t dismantle white supremacy in one post.

This post is about full disclosure, authenticity, honesty, vulnerability so that you, my truly dear readers and folks joining me on this ride, get the whole story, which is more than a lovely IG post celebrating the 8th printing of a book that came out 10 years ago. In the publishing world that isn’t even a drop in the bucket. But I contributed to that drop and it took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

So I’m writing this post to share with you a secret I have been keeping because this will help people who are dreaming to keep dreaming, others to start dreaming, and maybe others to support us dreamers.

I have a book proposal.

It’s public now. Usually authors don’t share that part. We share the reprint notices. We post photos of our contracts. We invite you to be a part of the launch team. I’m here to invite you into one of the scariest parts: rejection. I just sent the FOURTH version of my proposal to my editor today, the same day I got the 8th printing notice. I won’t lie. I’m hoping that was a good omen. But I won’t lie. I didn’t think I’d be on my fourth version of a proposal when I started the first version in OCTOBER. At this rate, my daughter will graduate from college before I publish another book. Before the launch is a million waves of doubt. Do I have enough for an entire book? Will I get a contract? Will anyone read the book? Will anyone actually LIKE the book?

One of the reasons this female author of color hasn’t been published again is because I am afraid. Rejection is part of the process, and I don’t know anyone who enjoys repeated rejection. Writing and all other art requires a degree of confidence, ambition, humility, and a sense of humor. It requires more things, but those were the first things that come up for me. As a soon-to-be graduating college student applying for reporting jobs, I kept my rejection letters on the apartment refrigerator numbered and complete with corrections in red ink. That was my sense of humor. But I kept applying and that is where confidence, ambition, and humility come together. You keep trying even though it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. You keep writing because you did get some good feedback. You write because that is what you know to do.

So I’m sharing the secret of my yet-to-be-accepted book proposal to invite more of you into this journey, so that more of us can silence the fear of rejection a little bit, just enough to sit down and write and put together a proposal that has to be revised. I’m letting you know that I’m trying because I think it’s in my DNA, the way God created me, and I’m not going to wait as if the immaculate conception could take book contract form. It’s not glamorous. It’s rather tedious. It’s not waiting for inspiration to hit. It’s sitting at a blank screen day after day after day.

I’m letting you know because some of you need to know you are not alone. Tomorrow is another day in front of a blank screen, and we will love most minutes of it.