Back in high school I heard a pastor teach about heaping burning coals on the heads of our enemies. I don’t remember what the point of his message was, but the idea stuck with me. I often imagined the people I disliked running around like the headless horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Although I never got the chance to heap coals on someone’s head, later that year, I decided to actually read Proverbs 25:21-22, the passage that contained this idea. And while the passage does talk about heaping burning coals on the heads of our enemies, the way to do this, according to Proverbs, is by giving them food when they are hungry and water when they are thirsty.

That didn’t sound quite as satisfying as striking a match to the hair of my enemies.

But I was still confused about the “coals on their head” part. It clearly wasn’t literal. I mean, I couldn’t very well invite an enemy over for a barbeque and while he has a hamburger in one hand and lemonade in the other, stuff his head into the grill. No, I decided that whatever it meant to heap burning coals on someone’s head, the image must only be figurative. But there was one consolation.

Whatever it meant, it sounded unpleasant.

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The Practice of Love is now on Sale!

My contribution for this book tells the story about how I learned to love my enemies. The story revolves around my understanding of Proverbs 25:22 which talks about heaping coals on the head of your enemy.

Have you ever wanted to set fire to the head of your enemy and use this verse as justification?

I don’t think any judge or jury would accept your explanation, and as I learned, neither would God. If you want to learn more about how to love your enemies, and what Proverbs 25:22 means, check out this book.

Of course, even if you don’t care about your enemies, or better yet, don’t have any any enemies, I am not the only contributor to this book. There are numerous other entries from great authors and writers, and all of them tell stories about how they learned to practice love toward God, themselves, and others.

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One of the best places out there to learn about publishing an ebook is Smashwords.com. Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, recently wrote an article giving the seven secrets to eBook success. Here they five of them, which I found on the blog of Tony Eldredge: Marketing Tips.

1. Write a great book – If you don’t honor your readers with a great read, they’ll either give you negative reviews (an instant book killer) or they’ll punish you with the worst fate any author can experience – they’ll ignore you. Readers are in control here. If they love your book, they’ll talk it up to their friends and that will drive sales.
2. Write another great book – Each book you publish affords you the opportunity to reach new readers, earn their trust and admiration, and introduce them to your backlist. Make sure at the end of every book you provide a hyperlinked summary of where fans can discover your other books.
3. Maximize distribution – Get your book in as many retailers as possible. Retailers spend millions of dollars to attract readers to their stores, and all the majors, including Apple, Sony, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Amazon and Diesel, welcome indie ebooks. Don’t limit your distribution to only one or two.
4. Have patience – It can take months or years to build a readership and build sales. In the old traditional print world, if your book didn’t immediately sell through within a few weeks, it was forced out of print. With ebooks, you never go out of print. Your book is immortal. We’ve had authors who experience very slow sales at first, but then they increase over a period of years, and then suddenly their book pops into the best-seller lists at a retailer. Often, these books will pop at one retailer but not another.
5. Marketing starts yesterday – Don’t wait until your book is published for the marketing to start. Instead, start your marketing with social networking the moment you decide to write a book. Build your social network, and most importantly, contribute to the network. If you add value to your networks, and if you help your fellow authors succeed, they in turn will help open doors of opportunity for you. Authors need to help authors. Your fellow authors are not your competition, they’re your partners.

Want more tips and suggestions on publishing an ebook? Check out this guide to writing and publishing your ebook.

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I am pleased to announce that The Practice Of Love, Real Stories of Living Into the Kingdom of God is available for presale.

The Practice Of Love includes 42 authors and 43 submissions. David Fitch, author of The Great Giveaway, and the newly released, The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission (Wipf & Stock, 2011) is contributing the foreword. Each story gives the reader a tangible experience in what it means to step into the Kingdom of God in a very real way.

The contributors include: Lori Wilson, Jason Coker, Alise Wright, Anna Snoeyenbos, Phil Shepherd, Raelene Roth, Kathy Escobar, Kara Maddox, Arthur Dimmesdale, Idelette McVicker, Kathy Escobar, Mihee Kim-Kort, Todd Hiestand, Rhonda delaMoriniere, Trygve Bundgaard, Neal Hager, Jennifer Luitwieler, Amy Moffitt, Dave Everly, Skyler Dresdin, Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Carol Howard Merritt, Cheryl Dack, Beth A. Orchard, Zihna Gordon, Nathan Colquhoun, Martin Turnidge, Annie Bullock, John Martinez, Marian Struble, Alan Knox, Trevar J Simmons, Jarrod McKenna, Brian Ammons, Mike Stavlund, Ron Cole, Naomi King, Jake Kampe, Jeremy Myers, Hugh Hollowell, Melissa Cooper, James Shelley, Neil Christopher, and Kris Socall.

The project is tentatively scheduled for May release. Pre-order it here.