Do you want to get your Christian book published? I know the secret to doing so, and it only takes 10 simple steps. Here they are, in order:
10 Simple Steps to Getting Your Christian Book Published
1. Have some HUGE sins in your past. The worse the better. Like a devil-worshipping, drug addict, psycho-killer porn star.
2. Plant a mega church. You probably need a minimum of 4000 people attending your 17 weekend services.
3. Become best friends with Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and Oprah.
4. Write a blog that gets about 2 million pageviews a day.
5. Get 5,000,000 of your best friends to “Like” your page on Facebook.
6. Ask 10,000,000 of your friends to follow you on Twitter.
7. Get interviewed on a couple Morning News shows and Late Night Comedy shows.
8. Write a book that is absolute crap. It should say nothing, mean nothing, and challenge nothing. Just make sure it has a bunch of tear-jerking stories with a few funny stories mixed in for good measure. To make the book “Christian” through in some remarks about Jesus, a few Bible quotations, and a crap-load of Christian platitudes and clichés (How about some of these?)
9. Send a query letter to an agency or publisher talking about #1-8.
10. Get published and enjoy the glory of being a Christian author. Seriously. People will think you’re Jesus.
Does all that sound impossible?
Well, publishing these days is not quite as hard as that. I have recently started seeing books get published by authors who skip steps 1-7 and just focus their hardest on Step 8. They’re quite successful at it too. Then they get published and people think they’re Jesus … and they think it too.
Ok, ok.
I’m just having a little fun with the Christian publishing industry. There are lots of really great books out there, and you can’t fault the publishing industry for only publishing books that sell in a day when people are reading only 2 or 3 books a year.
Having said that, I still sometimes scratch my head when I see what they are publishing. I occasionally read a book that “sells,” and I think, “Why does this book sell?”
Of course, now I’m a bit worked up.
So let me rant a little bit…
While I am on the subject of the publishing industry, let me make one little tiny suggestion to publishers and book agents: Please, out of respect and courtesy to the authors who submit books to you, don’t you think it would be wise to create a little form letter that you send to authors whose books you reject? These authors slave over their books, and then put them out there with fear and trembling hoping they picked for publishing, and when you reject their manuscript, you don’t even have the courtesy to send them a letter which says,
Thanks for sending in your book. We looked it over and have decided that it does not fit our publishing needs at this time. Best of luck in your future publishing efforts!
No, that would be too hard and too kind. Instead, on your websites you say, “If you don’t hear back from us in 8 weeks, just assume that we don’t want to publish your book.”
WHAT? Really? That is how you treat authors?
No wonder so many of us are deciding to just self-publish. It would not be that hard to send out a simple form letter to all authors whose books you reject. It’s the least you could do for the, rather than leaving them in rejection limbo land.
And they wonder why the publishing industry is in trouble … between crap books and publishers who just don’t give a crap, it’s a wonder they’ve survived this long.
End rant.
But not the end of my attempt at humor…
Now that I’ve trashed the publishing industry, let me show you that I know what I’m talking about. Here are my own writing credentials:
Jeremy Myers is an internationally unrecognized Bible scholar, the leading theology expert in his own family, author of many #1 best-selling books (in the category of “Books by Jeremy Myers), and his podcast was recently voted the best Bible teaching podcast of 2016 by his wife and three daughters. Rick Warren recently said absolutely nothing about Jeremy Myers, and N. T. Wright has never consulted Jeremy about anything. Jeremy also writes a blog, along with every other person on planet earth.
(N. T. Wright, by the way, writes very, very good books. There is never any crap in his books. I doubt he has ever even written the word “crap.” I’ve written it 6 times in this one post. So I guess that just goes to show that I also write crap. There’s 7.)
As a side note, you might have noticed that my personal blog post quality has slipped over the past couple months. The post above is a perfect example. Ha! This is because I am working on something very big, quite exciting, and extremely time-consuming. It is something I have wanted to do for a very long time, and am finally taking the plunge. I will share more in the weeks ahead. Stay tuned!
(Oh… by the way, if you want to self-publish your book, I lay out exactly how I do it in my Book Publishing Instructions. I published this book for me so I don’t forget how. Seriously. I have a copy next to my desk which I work through every time I publish a book. But you are welcome to get a copy for yourself as well. There are more than 10 steps though…)
Want to get your book published? Do you have a manuscript and are seeking a publisher, or are thinking of writing a book, but don’t know where to begin?
Through my brainstorming, I think I found a way to “redeem the press,” that is, to remove some of the negative elements of the publishing industry, and add in some elements and principles of the Kingdom of God, specifically, elements of truth, generosity, and grace.
This is the situation in the current publishing world. The gatekeepers think they still control the bridge, but Amazon, Google, Apple and a legion of self-published authors and independent publishers have hacked off the legs and arms of the traditional publishing methods. As we trot off into the publishing sunset, they yell after us, “Come back here! I didn’t give you permission to get published! You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what’s coming to ya!”
Originally, I wrote this guide for myself, so that I would remember all the steps involved to taking my book manuscripts from a Word documents, all the way through editing, typesetting, and design, to the ultimate goal of putting the books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple iBooks.