Book review: How Do I Decide? Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing

About four months ago, literary agent Rachelle Gardner published an e-book on publishing: How Do I Decide? Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing (A Field Guide for Authors). I just finished my spring semester at Baylor, so I finally got around to reading the book.

Rachelle chose a number of people to help her get the word out, so I received a free copy in exchange for spreading the word. I was not required to give a positive review, but I'm happy to announce that this book is very helpful for anyone who is weighing the choices of self-publishing and traditional publishing.

Here is what Rachelle promises at the beginning of the book:

I will distill the existing opinions and facts into a concise overview of the pros and cons of both traditional and self-publishing. More importantly, I’ll help you define your publishing goals, and from there, help you to determine the criteria you should use in making the decision about which to option to pursue. I’ll start by defining some industry terms to ensure that we’re all on the same page. I’ll include a few real-life stories from writers on both sides of the fence and from some who are balancing a mix of both self- and traditional publishing. I’ve also compiled a list of further resources for you to explore. (4-5)

Chapter 1 looks at the current publishing landscape and defines a number of terms in the industry. Writers who are very familiar with the field might be able to skip this chapter, but I found it to be helpful. In considering what a publisher actually is, Rachelle explores topics such as purchasing rights, royalties, advance, editorial, design, marketing, producing/printing/shipping, sales and distribution, and decision-making.

Chapter 2 provides criteria for helping you make your decision, and the chart at the end of the chapter is very helpful. Things to consider are motivation, organization, audience, marketing, money (profit and upfront costs), reach, time, control, validation, and business sense. Chapters 3 and 4 give the advantages of traditional publishing and self-publishing respectively. Chapter 5 helps you figure out what you're more suited for by providing a checklist, similar to the chart in Chapter 2. And Chapter 6 gives hyperlinked resources for further information.

Overall the book was useful in setting the stage, although it did make me want to know more about how to go about the process of self-publishing. Explaining this is not Rachelle's purpose, so you will have to do your own research to learn how to do this (see Chapter 6). This book mainly helps you figure out which path to choose.

You can buy it here for only $3.99. This book is the first installment of a series, so be on the lookout for more e-books by Rachelle on topics such as successful blogging, getting your writing career off the ground, and finding an agent.

Resisting a tyrant

In 1 Samuel 22:17, Saul commands his guards to kill the priests for helping David, and the guards refuse. Doeg the Edomite ends up killing 85 priests by himself. The Reformation Study Bible note says,

Saul's command that the priests of the Lord be slaughtered is so evil and irrational that his own men refuse to carry it out. At least once before, Saul's men found it necessary to go against him.

That "once before" time was in 1 Samuel 14:45. Saul had rashly cursed anyone who ate any food on the day when Saul was taking vengeance on the Philistines. His son Jonathan had not heard the curse, and he ate some honey. Saul's rage was so uncontainable that he ordered for Jonathan to be killed. The people, however, refused to obey Saul.

In connection with Thursday's post, it was common for Milton and others in that time of political unrest in England to use such biblical precedents to justify their resistance to a tyrant, even though they acknowledged that God ordains authorities (Rom. 13:1-2).

Royalists (those who supported the seventeenth-century Stuart monarchs) also looked to 1 Samuel for precedents, arguing that David refused to lift his hand against the Lord's anointed (1 Samuel 24:6 and 1 Samuel 26:9). Milton responded in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates that David was acting as a private citizen, so vengeance in that case would have been wrong; however, lesser magistrates do have the right and duty to protect their people's liberty. Therefore, David's case applies only to individual citizens, not lesser magistrates.

Zimri and Denethor

In John Milton's The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, published two weeks after the execution of Charles I in 1649, Milton argues for the legitimacy of tyrannicide. Part of Milton's modus operandi, or method of operating, is to use biblical precedent to justify contemporary actions, and Milton uses the example of Jehu in 2 Kings 9.

When Jehu storms the castle of Jezebel, she appeals to the unnaturalness and chaotic consequences of killing a ruler, telling Jehu that tyrant-killer Zimri did not fare well (1 Kings 16). After killing Israelite King Elah, Zimri had reigned for a week before he burned himself and the palace to avoid surrendering to the siege of Omri. But Jehu was undaunted by Jezebel’s reminder, and Jezebel was cast out of her tower; after being trampled by horses, Jezebel’s body—except for her skull, feet, and hands—was eaten by dogs. Obviously, threats of unrest due to deposing a tyrant did not sway Jehu.

The whole burning episode with Zimri made me wonder if J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired by this biblical history. Here's Peter Jackson's rendition of Denethor's death:

From the profane to the priesthood

Calvin on 1 Peter 2:9:

[I]t appears more fully how incomparable is God's goodness towards us; for he sanctifies us, who are by nature polluted; he chose us, when he could find nothing in us but filth and vileness; he makes his peculiar possession from worthless dregs; he confers the honour of the priesthood on the profane; he brings the vassals of Satan, of sin, and of death, to the enjoyment of royal liberty.

Children and books

This is from Joel Beeke's book Parenting by God's Promises (p. 105):

[W]e should be proactive in getting good reading material into the hands of our children . . . . Are there books in your home? Do you read them? Do your children read them? Do you suggest books to them? Do you read with them, especially when they are young? Do you go out of your way to find good . . . books to enrich their minds and inspire their hearts? We should get excited in building libraries with each of our children. Our excitement will rub off on them. Happily, today, there are good places to go.* Getting good books into the hands of our children is a wise investment.

Here's another quote about being secure and satisfied in the covenant.

*Beeke's endnote:

Let me make a recommendation on behalf of Reformation Heritage Books, a nonprofit publisher and bookstore with which I'm involved. We have worked hard to obtain the best Christian books for children. I encourage you to consult our list of several hundred titles for young readers when choosing books for your children. See www.heritagebooks.org.

Not a word failed

Towards the end of the book of Joshua, which is about the conquest and settlement of the Promise Land, there is a declaration that God's promise has been fulfilled. Here is Joshua 21:43-45 (NKJV, bolding mine):

So the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The Lord gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.

Here is the note from the Reformation Study Bible:

The writer speaks of the conquest as completed, while continuing to describe the occupation as incomplete. A country may officially be defeated and occupied before every part of it ceases resistance.

So occupation can occur simultaneously with ongoing resistance. See Luke 19:13 (KJV). As Oscar Cullman wrote in Christ and Time, we live between D-Day and V-Day. Resistance still occurs, but the world does not belong to Satan (Ps. 24:1). The works of the devil were officially destroyed at the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ (1 John 3:8).

The rest is important: Starr and Frost

Almost three weeks ago, in the early afternoon of April 17, I drove away from a little town where I had been teaching a college English course to high school seniors. Several hours later, a fertilizer plant exploded in that town, killing about one percent of the town's population, and wounding about ten percent. This explosion in West, Texas, came only two days after the Boston bombing.

About two weeks ago, on April 25, Governor Perry, President Obama, and others joined Baylor's President Starr in Waco, Texas, to hold a memorial service for those who were killed in the West explosion, many of whom were first responders. In mentioning the fact that there are many differences between individuals, President Starr said, "America’s great Poet Laureate of yesteryear, Robert Frost, wrote that good fences make good neighbors. But today, there are no fences" (skip to 0:57).

Robert Frost did write that. It's in his poem "Mending Wall." However, Frost's point in including that proverb is to question it, not support it. The point of the poem is that if you mend a broken wall without asking yourself what you're keeping in or out, you are like an ancient savage who simply follows in his father's footsteps without internalizing any rationale for your actions.

I heard President Starr's remark and thought, "Ouch. That one stings." Using Frost's quote like that is almost like saying, "As Jesus said, 'Go, and sin.'" Yes, Jesus said that. But that's not all He said, and the rest is important. (Compare with this misquote.)

Tolkien and good, good news

From Finding God in The Lord of the Rings (pp. 116-17):

What "peculiar excitement and joy" would we feel if the Happy Ending (or, as Tolkien called it, the Eucatastrophe) of the archetypal fairy tale were somehow translated into everyday experience? What if the thing you had always wanted, imagined, dreamed of, projected into your loveliest visions of goodness and beauty but still could never quite put your finger on suddenly leapt into reality and stood there looking at you, large as life, in broad daylight? What if the "piercing beauties" of Tolkien's Middle-earth, for instance, were revealed to be something more than a literary invention? If we, like Niggle, should suddenly find ourselves confronted with the solid reality of our fondest hopes and dreams? What if it all came true?

According to Tolkien, it has.

. . .

And so we come to the climax. At a particular and forever-after hallowed point in time, at a small, specific spot on this tiny globe we call home, the stories all come to life. The painfully lovely longings embodied in our most cherished legends leap off the pages and into the light. There in Bethlehem, a door opens in the walls of the world, the veil of eternity is drawn aside, and the desire of all nations—Jesus Christ, God in the flesh—steps into our midst.

That, as Tolkien saw it, is evangelium.

Good, good news.

Thankfulness for the might-not-have-beens

G.K. Chesterton on existence (Orthodoxy, Ch. 4—"The Ethics of Elfland," bolding mine):

Crusoe is a man on a small rock with a few comforts just snatched from the sea: the best thing in the book is simply the list of things saved from the wreck. The greatest of poems is an inventory. Every kitchen tool becomes ideal because Crusoe might have dropped it in the sea. It is a good exercise, in empty or ugly hours of the day, to look at anything, the coal-scuttle or the bookcase, and think how happy one could be to have brought it out of the sinking ship on to the solitary island. But it is a better exercise still to remember how all things have had this hair-breadth escape: everything has been saved from a wreck. Every man has had one horrible adventure: as a hidden untimely birth he had not been, as infants that never see the light. Men spoke much in my boyhood of restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it is a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been.

. . . The trees and the planets seemed like things saved from the wreck: and when I saw the Matterhorn I was glad that it had not been overlooked in the confusion.

WORLD update (April 2013)

April 6
Hardboiled fiction: "Dennis Lehane is definitely not for some readers." Marvin Olasky writes,

Have you encountered two types of Christian readers and movie-goers? Christian No. 1 won't read or watch a novel or film that contains any violence or especially any sex. Christian No. 2 will put up with some of that if he sees compensating virtues—or what the Supreme Court in Miller v. California 40 years ago called "redeeming social value."

Each type could lord it over the other. Christian No. 1 could say, "I'm pure, never touching what lesser Christians tolerate." Christian No. 2 could say, "I'm mature, able to eat meat while others need milk."

Each could claim Paul. Christian No. 1 could quote the wonderful passage in Chapter 4 of Philippians: Think about what's true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, praiseworthy. Christian No. 2 could note that Paul, in walking around Athens, Corinth, and other idolatrous and decadent towns, couldn't help wallowing in muck.

Having witnessed these debates over the years, I hope we are all willing to make this one of those times when we agree to disagree. Instead of pointing fingers we might examine our own motives. If I'm Christian No. 1, am I hiding from reality? If I'm Christian No. 2, am I enjoying evil?

R-rated libraries: "The U.S. library establishment is ideologically committed to providing inappropriate material to children, but citizens are not powerless to stop it."

Choices grow: Scroll down to read about "at least 15 states [that] are considering new or bigger voucher programs, and another six the same with charter schools."

Charming Croods: "DreamWorks' new animated film is perhaps the best the studio has produced for families."

The Technicolor life: "Rep. Michele Bachmann on marriage, feminism, Christianity in politics, and the need for conservative candidates to be a virtual Wikipedia."

Duck Dynasty: "[C]onsidering that the Robertsons are Bible-believing Christians, the clean humor and family-focused plot are likely to entertain without offending too much." Read more here about ducks, beards, and Jesus. See video below for a presentation of the gospel.

April 20
A work of art: Edith Schaeffer, 1914-2013

Historic number: "42 faithfully tells a powerful American story."

Tyler Perry's Temptation: "[T]he film holds merit for no other reason than it affirms marriage and the immutable boundaries of God’s law, affirmations that are rare in Hollywood. ."

Notable books: Including Galatians For You (Keller) and C.S. Lewis: A Life (McGrath).

Jungle journalism: "The Daily Caller's Tucker Carlson says he's not out to the change the world–but he’s on a mission to cover stories the liberal media have ignored."

Gettin' on board the gay marriage train: "Same-sex advocates ruled the public arena surrounding Supreme Court arguments for two landmark cases. But it’s far from certain the legal locomotion on marriage is ready to roll."

Countercultural warriors: "Some Christian millennials are very publicly standing apart from their generation to defend marriage."

Default position: "Students are taking on massive debts without thinking of the future. One result: Default rates, even at Christian colleges, have grown." Bob Jones University mentioned (second lowest default rate among schools listed), along with a high school classmate.

Braggin' on their King: "Trip Lee and Andy Mineo are Christian rappers taking different paths to serve their Lord."

Taxing humor, Part 1: Willie stopped at Joe's house one day and was surprised to find him watching MSNBC. "You're as right-wing as they come," Willie said. "Are you a masochist?" Joe responded, "Not at all. I used to watch Fox News, but the commentators kept complaining about the mistakes conservatives made. On MSNBC, though, I'm always hearing that conservatives control this and that and are on the verge of taking over. It makes me feel so much better."

Taxing humor, Part 2: Did you hear how North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un gave an American reporter permission to interview four North Koreans: a poor worker, a soldier, a top Kim assistant, and Kim himself? The reporter said to each of the four, "Excuse me—can I get your opinion on North Korea’s vegetable shortage?" The poor worker asked, "What's a vegetable?" The soldier asked, "What's a shortage?" The top assistant said, "What's an opinion?" Kim asked, "What's 'excuse me'?"