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The Power of Critique

So critique groups. Good or bad?

It's like asking if publishing is good or if a book is good. Of course the answer's yes and no. Like everything else. It always depends on the people in them.

And just like everything else, what you get out of them is largely dependent on what you bring to them. Know someone who didn't like The Shack? Maybe their theology caused them to bring something different to it than someone without that filter. The same people are now angry at Rob Bell for Love Wins even though it's nothing Don Miller didn't say before, a little differently, maybe less pointedly in Blue Like Jazz.

But after I experienced disillusionment as a 19-year-old kid, I wondered if disappointment with God is a universal, that necessary moment when your eyes open and your innocence falls away and you know that God is not always going to save you from the worst attrocities life may bring. Everyone gets to learn this eventually. Even believers and the faithful. Life happens. And the point is to recognize that even still, God is always good.

So I believe it's a "writer fundamental" that what I'm able to bring to my writing is largely dependent on my willingness to accept that life will bring pain. And this is not bad, not to be fought off, but embraced as the gift it is. Fear of pain is instinctual, elemental--those who deny it, deny the very thrust of existence. But facing the fear of that pain, peacefully but forcefully, is at least one essential benefit a good critique group can offer.

This week, I'm working with one of my favorite future authors who's writing a genre western romance (what? That's not strange--one of my favorite books is Redeeming Love. Okay, maybe it's strange). I've encouraged her to trust her abilities, to let herself feel the fear of failure and to courageously believe in her inevitable success anyway. At the OCCWF conference a couple weeks ago, author Simon Tolkien claimed that a big part of his grandfather's success was because he had spent years studying language--words, their meanings and origins--and this allowed him to know how his characters spoke and how that defined them. 

I'd argue that this is what every author has to do--study words, learn, and respect that training. And a good critique group encourages a healthy respect for the symbols of words, their meanings, listening for where your "translation" is inaccurate or not revelatory enough.

Does this involve fear? Yes. But can you face it with courage?

Some authors discredit critiques, which is understandable. It's nearly impossible to find a good group that understands what critiques are and consistently applies their full attention and effort to it. It's often hopelessly idealistic to believe you can find an honest, dedicated, knowledgable group of writers who can regularly meet to thoroughly discuss your work. Especially within 30 miles of you.

Maybe they don't have to be within 30 miles.

A professional editor knows how to fix the things that need fixing. And a good critique group can point those things out. Where it's slow, redundant, and even not fully developed yet, a critiquer who's well-read, knows you, and appreciates the process of writing (through having done it themselves and having read the best books on craft) is worth a fortune. Professional agents are good readers as well, though until you've risen in stature a bit, you won't likely be told what isn't working. You need someone you can trust, who gets both what you're trying to do and what you need to do to pull it off and get peple talking. This could cost you a bit out of pocket. But that's why I started YWG and it's proving that just like a great book, what's truly valuable doesn't have to cost what it's really worth. Is it worth it to you? I don't know. It's not perfect and there's work involved. But I do think it's worth it to check it out--there's no charge to read the critiques.

Pro authors know early feedback is the best "promotional" money you can spend. But what can't a good critique do? It can't replace the need for a copy editor who will look for grammar mistakes, misspellings, wrong words, weak constructions, inconsistent elements like Suzy being 9 on page 4 and 12 on page 37. Critique groups shouldn't waste time on the minor things until the big things have been addressed. So authors, do not skip this step or you will suffer the consequences. If you're a good student of language, you'll save money when it comes time to hire a copyeditor. 

But just like the earlier stages, this one can be painful. It's hard to give up the pieces of ourselves that are holding us back. We fight for our ignorance and call it personality, style, artistic license. Most often, it's plain prideful stupidity. Sure, readers will accept your incomplete sentences. Even love them. But respect the refinement process. It's not just making your book better, it's making you better as well. And that's the big point.

The artist who demands he has nothing to learn soon finds he has nothing to say.

A powerful critique group is about growth, a shared journey of trust, fear, empathy, hope, and faith. It's powerful because it's built on relationships over rules, on embracing acceptance and peace amidst the striving for what's better. I have been in a few of them in my lifetime, and I can promise you the people you learn to write with will remain lifelong friends.

It's about being your vulnerable, wart-covered self and finding it accepted and improved. And as a bonus, you get to discover the true meaning of gratitude.

One of my critique partners, Rob Stennett has a book releasing today called Homemade Haunting. (I know. I'm a lucky dude.) Rob is a one-of-a-kind genius with character comedy and this time he mixed it into a thriller and asked "If evil is real, what happens when someone doesn't have the only true weapon against it?" If you think it was easy to blend comedy with such a serious subject, you're dreaming. But Rob figured it out and critiques played a hand in that. I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you if you asked. Anyway, get the book (it's only $10), read it and ask yourself how many people it really takes to finish a great book.

Editor to Author: Letter to a Memoir Writer

Dearest Author,

I've been thinking about worth lately.

What's your story worth?

At a recent writers conference I taught a workshop on how I saw publishing changing. Modern publishing, the only time in history when we've had separate "markets" for books, has begun to fracture and redistribute. I've shared several times about how The Shack has shifted things. It isn't just a book, of course, it's a bridge. And those bridges are inevitable because it isn't only spiritual people or Christians who recognize God as creator.  

Blue Like Jazz came well before it and created connections between the Christian and secular markets. Lauren Winner's memoir Girl Meets God made some connection points before that, similar to how Eat, Pray, Love did more recently, from the other side of the spiritual divide. Several spiritual/worldly, secular/sacred books have become best-sellers as bridges in the long history of such books since the beginning of print, and some people have traced this line back to the best-selling book of all time: The Bible.

The Secret. The Purpose-Driven Life. The Alchemist. The Celestine Prophesy. The Late Great Planet Earth. Pilgrim's Progress. Books you've never heard of have sold over 30 million copies: Steps to Christ by Ellen White, In His Steps by Charles Sheldon, late-19th century Congregational minister and advocate of the ever-intriguing idea of "Christian socialism." Even Nikolai Tesla wrote about his life a true spiritual man and world-renouned scientist in My Inventions. The Canterbury Tales, The Odyssey, and The Divine Comedy by Dante, written in 1304, has "sold" more than anyone knows and we have no idea how it or any of these books have changed readers and the history of spiritual thought, becoming seeds for the trees of countless theologies.

But of course, we know this is what books are--seeds. And this is what they do: define life and defy death.

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

So this story that's a part of you, that is you, that defines your work and all of your effort and sacrifices to share it completely (or as completely as possible) for others to use--what's it really worth?

Don't answer. You can't. Simply try to see the fullness of the question clearly. Continue on...

Do you know where your worth is really found?

Yes, in God's ownership of the life and love he's created you to embody (1 John 4:7-12). His ownership, creating, protecting, guiding and infusing of his great, unchanging spirit into us. He dies that we might live (parents always understand this principle). And we die that others might live through our sacrifices. This is the daily work of writing.

Do you know what that is really worth?

Intimately known and held, seen and heard and helped in every way, this knowledge is invaluable, isn't it? We can talk of worth and value, and shift our understanding of that from copies sold to readers influenced, but it's the knowledge a reader will have by the end of your story that makes what you're doing truly valuable. And this understanding of how God fills us and dies for us is the greatest wisdom, the most valuable in the world. And if you are practicing that, that makes what you're doing invaluable.

I want to give you, as a witness of your discovery of that unchanging love, my invaluable opinion on it, my affirmation that you've been seen and heard and that what you've written down is completely worthy. And with your assurance that it's been well established and others will see it and respond, you can continue, knowing it's incredible and invaluable. 

So do you see what your story is really worth?

Because there's no true price tag you can put on it. There's no proper estimating the value of my work, my seeing it, or others' receiving it either. It's in-valuable. We have to simply trust together that whatever comes of it is just a small piece of its fullest value as a seed for God to use, and not at all connected to the worth of what you've written, or what I've done to help. I know you've sacrificed and given for your story, and I've been brought into the processing of it, but regardless of how it will be published and the realities of our modern marketplace, you must know:

What's your story really worth?

I remain your solid co-laborer in the process of delivering these invaluable words. Never assign its worth to money, public perception, publication, or anything else. Your heart is here, and that's established and it's something you have written definitively, and just as we have agreed together at the outset here, others will when they read it.

We don't know how it will all play out. But I'm on your side and not looking for specific outcomes big or small. Don't think in terms of what's "fair," but decide you will pay with your life what's necessary to give to this project. What you give is directly proportional to what that seed will be able to produce in readers. And in terms of return and profit, I believe Cohelo is right: the universe will conspire in our favor.

So what's your story really worth?

 

Your Loving Editor,

Mick

Answering Cross-Market Questions

Welcome spiritually-curious readers and writers. If you have questions about the audience of The Shack or wonder about the best ways to reach this nebulous psychographic of readers, you're in the right place.

 

Ready to look at our burning questions from last time?

 

Q: Why are these [spiritually-interested] books without a clear goal or “take-away” so vastly superior for this audience?

 

This is an answer you need when it comes time to pitch your book. Bottom line: the experience of these books IS the take-away. The story is the appeal. Fiction and non-, the point is in the journey, not the goal or destination. This means the emphasis is on allowing the entire progression of the narrative to “teach” the message, and not offering the usual didactic, message-driven approach propped up by illustrations or manipulated scenes in a novel. Authors of these books start at a different place, often intending to discover alongside the reader, not to design a coersive read. Largely, these are writers seeking after mystery and beauty, not answers or reassurance.

 

Q: What's the best way to prove I can reach these readers?

 

By doing it. Reaching this audience absolutely requires a satisfying read like the one I just described. Whether that’s self-help, memoir, fiction, or investigative journalism, you have to get people talking about the amazing and unique experience your book is. And that writing skill goes hand-in-hand with your skill in marketing. The shift toward more author-driven marketing is strong proof of our increased desire to hear an authentic individual’s story as opposed to the familiar hard-sell coersion tactics of ad campaigns and publicity spin-doctors. You either embrace this new-world thinking and feel passionately about it, or you don’t. As I always point out to potential authors, if you’re onto something and you know it, it’s just a matter of time before others know it too. Ultimately, your marketing should be an extension of your passionate search in your writing. How you prove that is by being an authentically passionate connector (We’ll get more specific about this in next week’s post).

 

Q: Should I just self-publish my spiritually-interested book?

 

Good question. It follows a more important one: Do I have one book or several? If you are a career writer, you need to put in the time to your craft and learning the business to find a partner you feel best understands you and serves your ambition level. If you have one book or one burning story within you, it might be best to look outside of professional publishing. I make this distinction when it comes to spiritually-interested books because few writers can (or want to) write several. Staying in a perpetual state of searching is hard to keep up (ask Don Miller). There’s something of a life-stage consideration here—an age where self-awareness and spiritual evaluation is where you are, and a possibly more spiritually-mature stage where you are more decided in your outlook. Your comfort with mystery vs. assurance may change over time and that’s normal. Another reason is producing your book on your own can actually be a benefit in reaching this audience since you aren’t affiliated with any established, traditional house and won’t have to cater to them or compromise to fit their assumptions about the audience. Smart readers like yours are very aware of that dynamic and actually like the idea of an undiluted read (The Shack as exhibit A here again).

 

Q: Are some publishers and retailers really actively seeking these books?

 

Absolutely. In fact, I’m not sure you can find an adult general trade publisher in Christian or general market who wouldn’t be open to looking at a book for the spiritually-interested audience. All will have their own particular flavors and assumptions, but again, self-publishing is a great way to prove you have an audience and can connect with them before attempting to find a publishing partner. Of course, you need to consider how well a potential Christian publisher partner is able to reach the general market, because the place these readers are generally not is Christian bookstores or the Christian shelves at Barnes and Noble. If you see yourself next to John Eldredge and Bruce Wilkinson, you might want to reconsider your approach.

 

As always, your questions, comments and complaints are welcome and appreciated. Next time we’ll talk about what you can specifically do to find readers and build a following. Until then, don’t sweat any of this--and keep writing!

Promoting Your Cross-Market Book, Pt 1

Congratulations, you've just finished your cross-market book. So how are you going to increase visibility (and all-important sales) to your audience? Will you choose:

 

A. By reading Mick's brilliant blog post here.

B. What? Promote? That's the publisher's job. Or

C. I figured I'd learn all that once I get a contract.

 

If you answered B or C, give yourself a little slap. Wake up. While you were sleeping, it became your task to prove why your book is important. And the best way to do that is to show how it's a part of a sizeable movement—the "spiritually-interested" movement.

 

The top Christian publishers owned by larger NY parent houses may be positioned to exploit this large area, but their awareness of it and how to reach it is still fairly, well, not always stellar. Some have seen moderate-to-big success with these kinds of books, but whether by accident or intent is largely conjecture. The encouraging news is that many of the authors of these books had modest platforms, or no platform at all before, and whether or not a particular publisher is heavily personality-driven in its philosophy, the appeal of these books is often message-driven, content-driven, and reader-need-driven. In short, there’s a strong “heart incentive” here for readers you can tap into in your marketing. The author best positioned to succeed in winning readers in this audience is the one who proves he or she can lead the way to defining and even shaping this newer category (I like the word “psychographic”) of publishing.

 

And you thought you were just writing a book.

 

Some big reasons to take control of your publicity:

1. This new territory is wonderfully wide open. That means you can largely define the shape of your approach (more on that in following posts).

 

2. This spiritually-curious audience is media-saavy and uber-connected. There's a good reason top-Twitterer Ashton Kutcher found The Shack.

 

3. Existing CBA stores are closing at a faster rate than new CBA stores are opening, and commerce in general is shifting away from brick-and-mortar stores to the Internet. This has been going on for some time, but most CBA retail commerce is controlled (and limited) by just a handful of channels—including FCS, LifeWay, Mardel, CBD, Choice, Parable, and a collection of independents. When you add up all the units typically sold through these channels, first-year sell-through projections are rather low for all but a handful of Christian authors. So publishers are finding it necessary to follow authors' leads who can effectively identify and sell into the new online and viral sales channels (to which, spiritually-interested books are especially suited). This means you're much more likely to find a top publisher if you're already active in promotion.

 

4. Most importantly, you need your message to go to more than book-readers, believers, or any other category familiar to a publicity team. Let's just say these spiritually-interested folks don’t typically shop in CBA stores. Christian and general market retailers are generally averse to new genres (and even to many established genres). They like their usual areas--Christian living, genre fiction, diet books, whatever--and maybe a few others (proven best-selling authors and really cheap books). This limits publishers commercially. Taking on a new mission like this is attractive to a house and spurs greater innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship. And again, authors have a huge opportunity to be the lead entrepreneurs here.

 

In short, as author of a spiritually-interested book, you have the opportunity to identify and test new strategies in sales and marketing, in line with the present and future of book publishing. And that's attractive no matter what kind of book you've written.

 

As authors, we must define this vision and ensure it’s understood in our proposals and manuscripts. We must incite passion in our publishing teams for reaching this large audience. And we need to explore nontraditional ways to “pitch” the appeal of these books.

 

We'll unpack much of this with more practicals in the posts to follow. Some questions we'll answer next time:

 

Q: Why are these books without a clear goal or “take-away” so vastly superior for this audience? 

Q: What's the best way to prove I can reach these readers? 

Q: Should I just self-publish my spiritually-interested book?

Q: Are some publishers and retailers really actively seeking these books?

 

Come on back. I think you'll like the answers.

Crossing Over: Who Is Your Audience?

In the closing month of 2008, Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion released these findings:

• 20% of Americans said they have “heard God’s voice”
• 55% feel they are protected by a guardian angel
• 23% say they have witnessed a miraculous physical healing

In a similar survey in 2005, 67% of Americans were convinced heaven exists. Dick Staub made an interesting related commentary recently about all these spiritual seekers (estimates say it’s commonly around 82% of Americans) who perpetually come up empty in their spiritual search. This is not a new audience.

 

But the “spiritually interested” audience is this group. Among their primary interests are a spiritual reality that isn’t immediately apparent to the five senses. They are not necessarily looking for doctrine, Bible studies, or tips on successful living. They are not even necessarily looking for verifiable proof, tangible evidence, or practical application of this spiritual reality. Their interest is more elemental—tracking closely with universal human curiosity. To wit, the spiritually interested are:

• Open to new ideas and possibilities
• Eager to consider new ways of looking at life and reality and the universe
• Concerned about issues such as personal freedom, self-realization, destiny, fulfillment
• Not geared to motivators such as paranoia, shame, legalism, and fear. In contrast to many evangelicals, these motivators are off-putting to the spiritually interested.
• If God exists, they want to know that he/she/it loves them  
• Tuned into invisible reality, which includes spiritual reality, parallel reality, mystical reality, supernatural phenomena, mystery, spiritual power, intersections between the physical realm and the spiritual realm, and direct experience of these things
• Tuned into spiritual power, especially as it helps them live everyday life and achieve their goals/desires/aspirations
• Interested in exerting control over external circumstances through spiritual means
• Driven by direct experience over theory, logic, or arguments
• Open to new possibilities, not bound to dogma, religious systems, schools of thought or worldviews.

This “cafeteria-style” approach to belief, religion, and spirituality is exhibited in the self-improvement fields, which lends itself very nicely to current CBA and ABA nonfiction focused on self-help and a humanistic worldview. In fiction, this is harder to quantify, but redemptive stories that illuminate a benevolent, engaged, and beneficial spiritual reality are aiming at this broad audience. But in fiction and in nonfiction, this audience is interested in information that illuminates:

• Natural laws of the universe and how one can live in harmony with it
• Special wisdom and/or knowledge about those laws, power within them, and often control over them for personal gain and making sense of chaotic life
• The future and what lies ahead
• The other side, heaven, the afterlife, angels, the parallel spiritual realm, non-corporeal experience

In general, the types, genres and categories for these books is broad. They can be fiction or non, straight-forward or deceptive, traditional or quirky, literary or crassly commercial. They may have direct discussion of spiritual reality or opt for organic discussion of spiritual reality woven in. They may speak of Christianity as a supernatural faith, of meeting God & the devil on Haight-Asbury, or finding Heaven in an oil-slicked parking lot. They may be tame or surprisingly wild, serious or funny, artless or crafted, emotional or intellectual, scientific or not. Most will engage with experimental elements that break assumptions and illuminate a supernatural theme (which can include everything from vampires to superheroes to commercial thrillers to literary magical realism).

 

Some comparative titles to this audience:

The Shack, William Young (Windblown Media)

Dinner with a Perfect Stranger, David Gregory (WaterBrook)

The Secret, Rhonda Byrne (Atria)

A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle (Plume)

The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle (New World Library).

90 Minutes in Heaven, Don Piper with Cecil Murphey (Revell/Baker)

The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs (S&S)

Walking the Bible, Bruce Feiler (Harper)

Journey of Desire, John Eldredge (Nelson)

The Faith Club, Idliby, Oliver, Warner (Free Press)

What Jesus Meant, Garry Willis (Viking)

The Traveler’s Gift, Andy Andrews (Nelson)

Closer Than Your Skin, Susan Hill (WaterBrook)

 

Dean Koontz and Stephen King. Francis Collins and Timothy Keller. This audience is not a new one. Obviously, this creates something of a “supercategory” that quickly becomes unwieldy. But for readers of this blog, I hope you see how it may include books that present an indirect gospel essence to those not yet convinced. Books of this nature don’t sound like a typical Evangelical Christian book, largely because they aren’t written by your typical Evangelical Christian. Yet these books can still be completely orthodox and in line with the biblical account while connecting with an audience most Christian books will never reach. This is why publishing to the “spiritually interested” is a significant growth area and we need to find out how best to position ourselves to intentionally and strategically target this market.

 

That is the million dollar question. If your book with spiritual themes can invite anybody in no matter what they believe, and put them on an equal footing, without teaching or preaching, that’s the first step. If you allow readers to draw their own conclusions, if you are comfortable asking “What if ….?,” and allownig your curiosity to guide you, you can write for this audience. If you acknowledge that there is still much to be discovered about the universe, the challenges of life, God, spiritual reality, etc., and you are someone who asks Why me? instead of feeling grand or entitled to your opinions, you have the voice. This makes you valueable to this type of reader. Because these readers are looking for authenticity, an author who knows enough to ask that question and not expect an answer is someone different than those the establishment likes to hype. Nine times out of 10, they’re more real. And readers want their books for that reason.

 

This is how you will open the door wide to the "emerging" readership.

Crossing Over: Writing to the "Spiritually Interested"

"Spiritually interested" is the rather obtuse designation Cathy Grossman borrowed for her article in USA Today speaking about the audience of The Shack. The term comes from Wayne Jacobsen, one of the publishers of the book, attempting to define the larger market for Christian books that Christian publishing is not serving. Since one of my stated goals for this website is to bridge that gap, I think it might be instructive to discuss whether Christian publishing should appeal to more than Christians. After all, like faith without works, or a church that doesn't evangelize, the situation seems unnecessarily restrictive at best, at worst unbiblical.

 

So our question from last time was, How does one capture the tone, approach, and appeal in this blossoming category of books for the spiritually interested? Some primary distinctives are that these books:

 

• Do not identify with the Christian subculture or the Christian product and media industries.
• Focus on experiential faith over propositional truth: Not arguments or lessons, but immersion in a direct, story-driven experience.
• Show supernatural experience not “evidence” (natural or biblical): The transcendence of God intervening in everyday life through “dispatches from the other side.”
• Are mysterious over convincing, allowing an experience that’s open-ended, unexplained, and even inconclusive.
• Are timely and timeless, revealing the here-and-now God unbound to traditionalism, and intimately involved in our uncertainty about the present and near-future.
• Reveal love triumphing over law, in relationship-affirming and life-honoring freedom from formal religious dogma, judgment, or mediation.

Before hurrying on, we should talk more about that first bullet. Those looking for books outside the strict confines of popular Christianity generally don’t seem to spend much time looking in places the gatekeepers control, namely Christian bookstores. And though there are several exceptions, the obvious limiting factor in getting these books read is that they are not “Christian” enough for Evangelical Christian readers, and up until recently, were too spiritual for most NY houses.

 

But now you see, that’s changing. These books for the spiritually interested are not coersive, they don't pound principles, which is a major reason they fit better in the general market than the Christian subculture. They aren’t closed to including what doesn’t currently fit modern Christianity. These books are redemptive, but their redemption comes in the jouney, not the destination. The “take-away” is of becoming engaged in an exploration, not to fix something, convert skeptics, or even evoke a quatifiable change, but to enjoy a satisfying read. The Shack, while not high literature, provides an example of book-as-interpretive-experience that causes readers to explore. That exploration attracts many “recovering Christians,” but the transcendent experience is broader and more profound than simple affirmation. The Shack challenges stereotypes about God to present him as a generous, fun-loving, approachable mother/father, with a single agenda of bringing unconditional, sacrificial love into the world. In religion and in larger society, that's an easy reality to miss. And what I find so exciting about this example is that despite its initial rejection by CBA and ABA publishers, it's revealed a huge desire for discussion about this God who doesn't necessarily begin and end in our established categories.

 

So why did Christian or NY editors believe their houses shouldn't publish it? Several possibilities, but "too risky" and "not up to snuff" seem likely to this editor.

 

The Shack proves there's an audience of spiritually interested folks who are not being served either by the so-called Christian ghetto or the ivory towers.

 

Some take issue with the idea of designating books as Christian at all. One result of The Shack's success is that readers now recognize there's something more to God and maybe even this word "Christian" than they realized. Maybe David Sessions wasn't just being bombastic when he said that the divide between Christian and mainstream designations has been the single most damaging idea to Christianity in the modern world.

 

Of course, here are the sticky swamplands. If it's not Christian, how do we know it’s wholesome? Can we really let people be their own judges of that? Many rely on labels in today’s hyper-marketed culture, myself included. Where do we redraw the lines of this demographic? And I don't want to waste time arguing about the morality of blurring this line--hoping for a greater reach isn't a failure of faith. I don't question those who still feel called to be Christian writers, and never anything less. But the challenge remains. There's a big underserved audience out there. How are we going to reach them?

 

The good news is, reaching this spiritually interested audience isn't only possible, it's profitable. So next time we'll take a closer look at some comparative books and content characteristics that should reveal a bit more about how we define this emerging category.

Why Is The Shack Still Selling?

Earlier this year (2009), I led a discussion of The Shack and it’s impact on Christian publishing at the Northwest Christian Writers Renewal. Response to that was overwhelmingly positive from the largely Christian group of writers, but as usual, I didn’t get to much of what I was excited to talk about. Most people were far too busy discussing its theology and the successes and failures therein. And though debate about it seems to have died down to a low rumble now, sales continue to clip along for this “heretical” “life-saving” pseudo-fictional book.

 

Whether you love it or hate it, if you’re interested in the question above as much as I am, you will at least like this post. Because what I was so eager to get to at the NCWR was this question of who is buying this book. Let’s do some quick analysis.

 

In early 2008, an article in USA Today defined the audience of The Shack as the rather broad, unwieldy category of “spiritually interested.” But who are they? This audience is curious about spiritual matters, but especially as found outside of organized religion and the religious establishment, however we might define that. Maybe most significant about readers who recommend this book, they tend to be interested in the uncommon approach to the Christian God, and most, how he responds to our pain. They may or may not be Christian, but they’re attracted to the God they meet here (who IS largely the Judeo Christian God of the Bible: http://bit.ly/5srJo), and they are eager for an honest experience of God’s love and transcendence.

 

We might discuss how much less eager traditional Christian churches tend to be for such “extra-biblical” experience and how that defecit created the chasm for this book. That’s a great topic. Or we could look at the growing dissatisfaction with and breakdown of the modern Christian retail industry being undermined by fundamentalists and the traditional establishment creating a bubble, a ghetto, an ivory tower set apart from the very people Jesus worked so hard to get us to serve. Another great topic. But let’s ask another question instead.

 

How do these “pioneers” differ from the more traditional Christian book market?

 

Pioneers value                                 Traditionalists value

Mystery over certainty           Certainty over mystery

Experiential faith                    Propositional truth

Freedom from structure         Structure to their freedom

Personal authority                  Authority figures

Love at the expense of truth   Truth at the expense of love

Authenticity over status          Status over authenticity

Relationship over rules                   Rules over relationship             

Maleable, interpretive            Concrete, quantifiable

A story over principles          Principles over a story

Seeking over knowing           Knowing over seeking

 

Pioneers have been conquering this literary frontier for a while. John Eldredge and Brent Curtis took this experience-based, non-propositional approach in The Sacred Romance and Journey of Desire. Meanwhile Henry Blackaby wrote Experiencing God for the church set and Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez revealed a God who longed to bless. Lauren Winner followed suit with her memoir Girl Meets God, quickly followed by Donald Miller’s meandering Blue Like Jazz and somewhere in this Brian McLaren released A New Kind of Christian. Soon, an unlikely pastor named Rob Bell jumped in with Velvet Elvis and the territory began to get fairly well carved out by various other new voices. One of my personal favorites—Closer Than Your Skin by Susan Hill (WaterBrook, 2007)—uses Susan’s amazing personal journey of discovery to show how to truly know the creator of the eternal reality all around us. No bubbles in there.

 

So to help these pioneers move closer in their journey toward God through authentic spiritual experience, and to encourage them to explore and process new questions about God, the Bible, and faith, we need to understand how to capture the tone, approach, and appeal in this blossoming category. More on that next time.

What does The Shack really mean?

It’s hard to think of a book as significant for religious publishing in recent times as The Shack. I believe a good portion of its success comes from the spiritual hunger that the public face of Christianity has forced so many believers to accept and endure. Many people believe the true cause of Christ and his love has been relegated to the background. Others—including some strong Christians—don’t always see that. But in The Shack, the love and acceptance of God comes back to bear on our human failings, answering not only our personal shortcomings, but our corporate ones as well, as part of this fractured and frustrated movement created in his name.

What most people love about it is what some people hate: it’s a deceptive little nut of a book. One of the things you notice in reading The Shack is that it’s open to interpretation. Much like the Bible. You can read it and interpret it differently by your own emphases and background. That was apparently intentional. Part of the revision process was removing any overt messages that might have taken over the story and made it into a theological argument rather than an engaging experience. The power of this book is certainly due in part to this intentional commitment. Fiction is by nature relational, not propositional, and just as grace is not a theological argument when it’s experienced in relationship, coming to The Shack as a story is intended to be incarnational truth, beyond arguments and words on a page. And however you feel about the writing itself, a lot of people are getting it.

To me, what’s most significant about The Shack is that it is meeting this great hunger for an authentic experience of God’s love, sans Christian “answers.” Many Christians believe they have all the answers and end up building pens around themselves and others, focusing on doctrine and orthodoxy instead of the real point. How many people have been looking for a book to say what they’ve been thinking for so long? How many feel vindicated by a book that points out the failure of church programs to replace personal relationship, that shows the inadequacy of “hating the sin, but loving the sinner,” and that portrays the real, humble love of God that’s bigger than any orthodoxy, right or wrong, or doctrinal superiority. How many have been waiting to hear the truth of God’s love in a way that doesn’t condemn them for it?

Some famous Christian detractors have said that The Shack is not serious enough about how we think of and worship God, one even going so far as to say that we should be “overcome with despair at our own unworthiness before God.” Overcome with despair? Really? And fretting over the too-familiar portrayal of the Trinity in the book, it is not appropriately high enough for The Godhead. Interestingly, the argument takes the same issue those who defend The Shack take: both believe the other side misses the truth of who God is, making real relationship impossible.

As an editor, what I struggle with is the fact that we live in an incredibly diverse world full of different audiences for the almost 400,000 books produced every year. Would those who encountered the truth of God’s love for the first time in The Shack ever have done so without it? I believe that unless you live in an isolated, primarily-Christian environment, you can’t make statements that relegate The Shack to “unnecessary.” In one sense, of course it’s unnecessary. God doesn’t need a fictional story to get his message across. The better question is, Is it of God? Is God using it? And if so, am I in danger of opposing God by speaking out against it? Setting the record straight about differences in theological interpretation is one thing. But to dismiss the book because you quibble with a few points of interpretation? That’s treading dangerously close to the sin of the Pharisees. And I won’t even start with those who condemn it without even having read it.

I’m not trying to defend The Shack. Or maybe, not only The Shack. All creative fiction about God is subject to the possibilities of story. No question, God is not who our creative imaginations make him to be. And yet, it’s only through imagination that some people can even begin to conceive of a God who loves so recklessly, so inappropriately, so unGodlike. At what cost do we hold to our interpretations of creative works? Is it our job to ensure that everyone interprets it “correctly?” Or do we trust love to overrule our limitations and indeed all restrictions on it but the one of our own acceptance? In this light, The Shack poses the ultimate question: Can we accept this inconceivable love or must we build barriers and intellectualizations around it? Any of that is ultimately our own choice to bring to the art, or leave off. As a story, the Bible requires interpretation. Does God’s love transcend the mistakes we make on the way to deeper understanding? And can we ignore the lessons of history when it comes to Christians demanding exclusionary control on orthodox beliefs and the damage that has caused?

I think of the kindergartener in the familiar illustration. He’s coloring and his teacher points out that he can’t really draw God because “No one knows what God looks like.” And the boy goes on drawing. “They will in a minute.”

The boy, the artist, can draw anything. He believes, reaching beyond his limitations. And God will accept him, suffering the little children to come, where his fathers saw only planks and stones.

Interview with Wayne Jacobsen, publisher of The Shack

For over a year now, people have been asking me what I think of The Shack. Mostly, I'm fascinated by how it's gotten people talking—believers and regular folks, liberals and conservatives, long-time Christians and the disenfranchised. And it hasn't even gone to mass market paperback yet. As a result of it all, The Shack is the little, unassuming book that continues to sit atop the bestseller lists and create controversy.

No denying it’s a fairly unusual book. Even with all its visibility, it’s difficult to call it a sensation. At first glance, most everything about it—from the book’s style, to its author, to the way in which it was published—looks as common as dirt. Yet its unusual success story belies the unusualness beneath the pages. I admit, I was predisposed to give the book my usual surface treatment and be done with it. But as I started reading, I realized I couldn’t dismiss it so easily. In fact, I had to finish it, not just to see what all the fuss was about, but to experience something I rarely get to—a transporting experience. I read with increasing excitement and emotion. The possibility of something momentous seemed to be opening up between the lines.

So once I finished, I decided I needed to know the truth about all the rumors and accusations I’d heard, so I contacted Wayne Jacobsen, the man William P. Young claims largely inspired the book. Wayne’s own book, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore is a fictional speculation about what would happen if a disillusioned pastor began getting advice from a modern-day apostle who knew the true Jesus. It skewers much of the same religious baggage Young deliberately sought to unburden himself of in his book, and targets readers Jacobsen calls the “missing middle” who exist between the mainstream Christian book houses and North American publishing. That's significant background because I'm convinced this is one of the biggest and most under-served readerships worldwide: the group I call the "post-religious." How to reach this elusive audience is the subject of much study and debate, but The Shack provides what I think is the best case study to date. Beginning outside both ABA and CBA and succeeding, at the very least, it testifies to the hunger for something beyond the typical Christian fare.

YWG: I understand The Shack underwent fairly extensive revisions and rewriting. Can you talk about that?

Wayne: Yeah. Paul (Young), Brad (Cummings) and I worked for about 16 months bringing out the more dramatic elements, the essence of the story, and cutting back on some of the more theologically loaded or simply curious elements. Through the restructuring, we wanted to be as faithful to Paul’s original idea as possible. The natural result of putting the story first was that the book catches the interest of a spiritually hungry reading public. By allowing the books’ statements about God to be experienced organically as story rather than as propositional truths or systematic theology, The Shack has resonated with a diverse audience, building bridges between all sorts of people.

YWG: What did you see in the original manuscript of The Shack that made you feel you should commit to 16 months of work to it?

Wayne: We actually did a podcast with Paul on this where I talked about that very thing.

YWG: I’ll include the link : "A Visit to The Shack." Was it ever difficult to remain committed to it during that time, especially given your many involvements?

Wayne: It wasn’t a commitment at the outset, but I felt he had a great book here and Paul wasn’t motivated to do the rewrites we thought needed to be done. At one point the three of us and Bobby Downes of Downes Brothers Entertainment sat down to storyboard the movie and suggest changes in the book. Even with that, Paul wanted me to help. Eventually I felt a nudge from the Spirit to do so and rewrote a chapter to show him what I was talking about. Then I did another, and then Brad got involved and it started to grab him, so we kept going. At one point each of us had written a version of the chapter with Sophie in the cave, and we just put them all together and kept the stuff we agreed on. A lot of it was like that. Paul was so generous with his gift, and I was using Paul’s words and working to keep it his vision. I’d never done that as an editor—I’d always just been a writer—so the commitment was more something that evolved relationally.

YWG: How many people in Christian publishing—authors, agents, and editors—have contacted you about working with Windblown?

Wayne: Oh, more than I can count now. Christian publishing people want to do it. The Shack is hitting the middle ground, but transcending it—church people, Jewish people, the spiritually curious, etc.—all having the conversations as it relates to their spiritual interests. It doesn’t necessarily identify that middle ground because it’s more diverse than that. It’s the reality of Paul’s pain and how he deals with it. It’s more an experience not a theology thing. Jesus says, “My sheep know my voice and they won’t follow a stranger.” We don’t have to take on the mentality of gatekeepers. The push-back from the religious Taliban is that they’re making it about “them and us”--like there’s those who are in and those who are out. But that isn’t what Jesus came to do. Jesus came to serve, not to be served

YWG: One of the most exciting things about The Shack to me is that it provides hope to so many people who haven’t been served in the Christian mainstream for whatever reason. This “spiritually interested”  audience is not only receptive, but responding to the truth that God is loving and boldly relational. And the implications—of the message of the book, and the reception it's received—is that He’s forceful in breaking down the very walls the religious establishment wants to build in their preference for safe, non-confrontational literature. I think there’s much to be said about how Jesus used some parables that were offensive to the religious establishment he was denouncing.

Wayne: People are definitely trying to defame and marginalize the message. This argument about feminizing God, for instance. The book explains very clearly that God shows up as a black woman because that’s the image that puts Mack at ease. God could have shown up as whatever he wanted, but the people who say he can’t be a black woman don’t seem to accept that. There are also some people saying it’s promoting universalism, that all paths lead to God. Even though Jesus says very clearly and repeatedly that he’s the only way, the detractors want to insist that Paul really meant something else.

For too long there’s been a fear of offending the establishment. Publishing people don’t love the books they’re publishing. Our publishing The Shack was never about being commercial or pleasing people. It was meant to be honest and truthful, to find passionate readers who were looking for this. We want to do books that resonate with people’s hearts. It was never intended to be the full orthodoxy of the gospel, whatever we may have believed that to mean.

YWG: That's a really important point. When people talk about "biblical orthodoxy" what they're really talking about is a bunch of different historical traditions of interpretation of a bunch of theological concepts that really have very little to do with the uninterpreted Bible. The concept is deceptive and notoriously divisive in the ways it's applied. And I guess when you put words in God’s mouth and have him saying things that sound a little too out of the box…

Wayne: You get whacked! Yeah. People say they believe in things all the time, but they really don’t. Some Christians don’t believe in the Incarnation—the in-dwelling spirit of God in everyone who believes. And it isn’t that they don’t want to believe, they’ve just never experienced it. And I think it’s sad that so many can’t allow themselves to have that experience. But those who want to explore that and experience it shouldn’t be judged for it.

YWG: Well said. It seems to me a big difference between those who embrace The Shack and those who denounce it are divided between understanding faith as an intellectual construct based in the interpretation of theological concepts, and faith as an experience of these things--one is mental, the other physical. And certainly we need a balance there, but how can faith be experienced if the familiar barriers of judgment and condemnation are always there? Do you think this is why there are so many disillusioned Christians and “spiritually interested” folks not finding much in mainstream Christian publishing?

Wayne: I’m sure that’s part of it. There are many reasons. Publishing is slow, expensive, and risky. But it’s pretty difficult to keep true to the edge--of actually living out these theological concepts--while you’re worried about offending the mainstream.

YWG: Can you talk about the way forward for Windblown Media?

Wayne: We’re currently contracted with Hachette to do 4-6 books a year, fiction or non. And we don’t have to do any if we don’t want. That lasts 5 years and then we’ll see where we stand. But we’re not taking manuscripts (see specifics here) and we don’t have a staff. We’re beholden to no one but God. No employees. No sales quotas. No requirement to pay back anyone.

YWG: Wow. Pretty cool situation. Sounds like the way to change CBA.

Wayne: Well I don’t know about that, but we’re going to try to have fun.

YWG: Thanks, Wayne. And thanks for inviting so much challenging discussion through this book. I know I'm not alone in just being grateful for the opportunity to finally explore this stuff in a larger way.

The Shack Shake-Up

There’s so much to discuss in this book. I’m not sure I realized when I started, just how many different discussions we could open up about it, all meaningful and worthwhile probably, but not all equally helpful to the stated goals of this group. And I think Susan Meissner’s comment from last time is the question I want to focus on now.

Why are so many people interested in this book?

I find myself agreeing with most who commented here and I’ve done a lot of thinking and talking about the reasons for this book’s uncommon popularity. Why are people so eager to talk about this book that most agree needed a good editor and breaks many rules about overindulging in attempts to philosophize and pontificate on points of theology in fiction?

When I first read the book, I only half-heartedly wanted to. I wanted to see what the big deal was (this was in December, 2007 before it really became a big deal). My buddy Mike Morrell was going apey about it and I figured I’d give it a shot. But still, I put it off, knowing it was probably the sort of self-published thing I normally rejected (you think I was being cynical here, but sadly it takes a lot for a book to push its way up my stack. Hmm. The Stack could make a good book. Anyway…). I actually asked my overachieving assistant to read it and tell me if there was anything worth discussing in it (I know, but like I said…sadly). She thought it was cool, little wiggy, but definitely not CBA material, so I let it slide a while longer until someone told me it was being released in hardcover and included the story of how it was initially published. I checked it out. That quickly became my favorite part of the book.

     “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

We live in a nation that’s weary of heavy-handed, guilt-laden messages about God. Everywhere are examples of people wounded by the condemnation that comes from supposedly biblical sources. We talk about a personal relationship with Jesus, but we can’t allow ourselves to believe God really wants us to have that with him. We experience fear far more than we understand joy. I’d recently worked on Susan Hill’s book, Closer Than Your Skin (Buy it. Now.) in which her story says largely that: “there is more to this spiritual fulfillment stuff than what you’ve currently seen.” (Last chance.) Her book had a similar effect on me of opening my eyes to something I hadn't considered before. So I thought, That’s pretty cool. These guys had a message to get out that didn’t fit the gatekeepers, so they went around them. And that’s basically what got me through the book.

So now, all of you who have read the book, I want to hear what you think. And those of you who haven’t read it, think about the dialog it’s creating in the Christian community. Sacrilege, heresy, a breath of fresh air, or the best book ever, I see it opening up a conversation that was skimming beneath the surface for a long time. Who is God really? What’s he really like? And what does he really want from us? What’s required? And can we talk about this in fiction, or do we need to keep it strictly within Bible studies and church?

I think talking about this here may help us figure out some things, mainly, what is happening in CBA and some of the ways in which this book is creating a sea change for the way the gatekeepers do business.

Remember, there are no bad comments when phrased as a question. So let your voice be heard.