1. Start with the end in mind
This is a Stephen Covey principle that applies to writing. One of the big mistakes we see daily in marketing, is a tendency to say, “Here is a solution, let’s see if I can find a problem to fit it”, or rather “Lets make your problem fit my solution”.
The counter-view is best described by the story of a man who went to a store to buy a drill, only to be asked, “What do you want to do?” He replied, “I need to make a hole in the wall”, to which the store manager replied, “Ah, well then what you need is a thing that makes holes in walls”. It seems obvious I know, yet many salesmen have spent frustrated careers pushing a product instead of solving needs. A good marketer should start with a blank sheet and ask the customer, “What is your need and what can we do to solve it?” – that is the new marketing paradigm.
It is no less true that a book should satisfy a need. To that end, an effective author would sit down, prayerfully to determine what a book is intending to achieve. Are you writing to satisfy your ego or your needs, or is the need of your audience more important.
Airbus built the A380, the largest passenger aircraft in history. Boeing on the other hand asked what the customer needed - the answer to that was the smaller, Dreamliner. This remarkable plane flies non-stop from point to point, without having to hub via airports like Atlanta or Chicago. It is very fuel efficient and sized to optimize the percentage utilization. It also has many comforts that make long-haul flight a delight. So where did Airbus go wrong? They seem to have set out to please themselves and satisfy their own egos and it blinded them to their customers.
2. Get going
I started writing a journal of my experiences in a time of great personal struggle. That start was analogous to being able to steer a moving vehicle (as opposed to trying the same with a stationary vehicle). Once I had set my sail and cast off, I moved out of my safe moorings into open water and then was able to feel God’s breath fill the sail – the adventure was underway. I had to make the first move. I had to depart and get out of the departure lounge – after all we don’t fly in order to have the lounge experiences, we lounge in order to fly.
As I wrote my journal, God gave life to my words and started to reveal His heart in the context of my pains. I became the pen of a ready Writer who, in His profoundly down-to-earth style, has chosen to reveal His heart through people – it was always that way. He called ordinary souls from ordinary circumstances and when they responded He showed them great mysteries. When He had finished writing those stories, He arranged for them to be bound into a single book and then allowed us to call it “the bible”. It’s a book whose pages are alive with powerful human drama interwoven with deep truth. It was not written as a manual, but as a narrative that progressively reveals His heart to us, a heart that yearns for a personal and rich relationship with His people. The same spirit works to brings significance to all our lives and specifically, in this context anyway, to those who feel called to write about the author of all things.
3. Make it a journey
Once the intent of a book is determined and your passion for the subject is ignited and God’s spirit has filled your sails, set your course and stay with it. Jesus set His eyes as a flint towards Jerusalem, in much the same way that a book embarked on, is a mission that must have a destination.
En route to the cross, Jesus healed people and we are often inclined to see that as the defining feature of His life. Yet He never once diverted from His course to be a man of wonders. He did as many miracles and healings as was necessary to achieve His surpassing purpose and it gave credence to His defining work at the cross. En-route to our own Jerusalem, we also have a journey to walk that will be interspersed with relevant experiences that will complement the greater story and provide it with rich fabric. God will lead you to people, places and events that will help to give the story credence. However, no experience will exist for its own sake, nor will such events be ends in themselves – they must become part of the journey to your destination and be shared as relevant moments along the way.
As a Toastmaster I was taught: Tell the audience where you are going, take them there and then tell them where they came from. The whole story must confirm and validate the passion and inspiration that was the raison d’être for which the book was birthed in the first place. Accordingly, the prologue, back page, introduction and opening chapters should provide a clear indication of where you are going and the content must take the audience there – otherwise you have not fulfilled your promise to them. It is for this reason that I believe content (the experience or story) to be more relevant than style – anybody can learn style, but only you can write your own story and that is the story God wants you to tell, even if it ultimately has other imperfections.
4. Be relevant
The stories of old provided reference points for historians. They highlighted cultural and environmental contexts and helped put the audience in that time and place. That is why we relate to those stories.
Similarly, your story must not be out of touch with your current culture else it will never find an audience. The people that spoke then spoke to “then-audiences”, but we speak now and should address “now-audiences”.
Does that demand a contemporary style of writing? No, I don’t think timeless stories need to go that far, but try and read something written a century ago and you will be bored out of your skull. We must at least speak in the vernacular of our culture and use examples and illustrations that they can relate to. Someone tried to translate the bible into a lesser African language and came to the concept “white as snow”. There was no way to translate it into that culture, so they chose something more relevant – perhaps “as white as the down-feathers of a goose” or “as white as the white of your eyes when you bump into a lion in the middle of the forest”.
Relevance also relates to the need to convey your real experiences to your audience. Don’t borrow ideas or pretend to be something you are not – that will rob your story of its soul. Tell it from the heart and relate your real world experiences and how God has been relevant to you in those experiences.
5. Touch hearts
A good book, especially a spiritual one, should make them laugh, make them cry, make them sit up and make them act. Never be one-dimensional. God has always filled my life with delightfully amusing moments that were illustrative, yet so useful in holding audience attention. He used the same style.
The story of the man at the pool of Siloam is a case in point. Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath and told him to “take up his bed and walk”. He could have waited another day to avoid a conflict, but Sabbath was the day He chose anyway. The Pharisees, on seeing him walking around with his bed castigated the man, in spite of the fact that he was walking for the first time in his life. That’s like telling a child not to open his presents on Christmas morning.
This poor man was exhibiting his joy in the very spirit of the Sabbath, rejoicing in the love and mercy of God as we all should do, so when they asked him about it, all he could say, whilst grinning like a Cheshire cat, was “Hey guys, I don’t know much, but I do know that Jesus healed me today”. It’s a really funny moment, told with such dry wit that it is easy to miss the moment. Yet as much as it is funny, it very effectively illustrates a powerful point without any need for preaching or elaboration – Jesus had made a point, without having to say much at all. So having made them laugh, maybe even cry when Jesus and the disciples talked about it later, he also made them sit up – he challenged them. His was a very efficient style that provided remarkably teachable moments.
6. Pay attention to detail
The term, “well done good and faithful servant”, is reserved for those who are faithful in stewarding what God entrusts to them.
Cain was a man of original ideas, who showed no sensitivity to the needs of his audience and critic – God. If he had been more in touch with God, he would have taken a lot more trouble to do the right things, which Abel did do. Yet in effect Abel only brought back to God what God had entrusted to him in the first place, even if in so doing he was very careful and thorough in his approach.
Joshua was a steward of Israel and paid great attention to detail in that role. He was careful in everything, resulting in his life work becoming a lasting memorial to his name. The details that we must worry about in writing, include: planning, writing, editing (400-500 times should do), grammar, spelling, layout (I researched books in book stores to get that right), cover design, prologues, back cover text, introductions, referencing, text style and spacing, logical flow, testing, review, packaging, pricing (I researched that as well), etc.
If you want God to bless what really came from Him in the first place, then honor Him in your application and don’t stop working until you know that your book is worthy of someone who has put such significant trust in you. In fact, I don’t think a book is done until He signals that it is done – you will know when that is. Besides anything else, the timing of a book is something best timed by God, who knows the beginning from the end.
7. Manage your marketing channels
Before Jesus was born, the way (channel) was prepared so that when He stood up to speak to the people, his platform would be assured. God actually prepared that platform over a period of 4,000 years so that His ministry would have relevance to that world. Sin and judgment were two primary concepts that were ingrained in the social conscience before He came.
God also prepared the physical distribution channels, by introducing Jesus to the world only once the Romans had completed their roads and the Greek language had universalized communications. This also shows great attention to detail, which reflects how deeply serious God was about the process of salvation and judgment.
Then Jesus built on that platform to establish a higher platform for the cross. Jesus used His three short years of human life to meticulously prepare for the cross, approaching His destiny with absolute single-mindedness.
Once He had made His great sacrifice and written our salvation story in His own blood, God raised up heralds (apostles and followers), who could take the message to the nations and then He kick-started the process by scattering those believers to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. Thus God left nothing to chance – He knew how to prepare for life after the cross and He prepares in advance for the conclusion of those projects that He entrusts to us – things will not catch Him by surprise, but you will need to follow His lead and apply your faith to see your book successfully birthed. He will almost certainly continue teaching you His ways in the process of getting your book to market, but then He is a very good marketer – He executed an effective marketing campaign to disseminate the gospel to the four corners of the earth.
He also used channels that were relevant to that culture, notably the Greek language, Roman roads, Jewish synagogues, Greek debates, etc. Our channels today include the Internet, email, networking, e-books and blogging, amongst others. Paul would have recommended using all of these, “if by any means some might be saved” – I advocate a similar multi-channel strategy. One new writer harnessed all these channels including networking through established networks, like Christian magazines – to get her books to market. She has seen a steady increase in orders and hits for her various marketing channels, a great example worth following.
Conclusion
All of these seven habits involve deliberate and thorough processes to eliminate the chance element – chance rarely begets luck, it normally involve bad luck, so don’t leave something so life-giving, so vital, to chance. A great retailer said, “I worry about the cents and the dollars take care of themselves”. A Great golfer said, “The harder I try, the luckier I get”. A great salesman said, “I work on every aspect of my game, and the payoff pays itself off”. Learn from these things and your will enhance the probability of success until you break through.
(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com
This is a Stephen Covey principle that applies to writing. One of the big mistakes we see daily in marketing, is a tendency to say, “Here is a solution, let’s see if I can find a problem to fit it”, or rather “Lets make your problem fit my solution”.
The counter-view is best described by the story of a man who went to a store to buy a drill, only to be asked, “What do you want to do?” He replied, “I need to make a hole in the wall”, to which the store manager replied, “Ah, well then what you need is a thing that makes holes in walls”. It seems obvious I know, yet many salesmen have spent frustrated careers pushing a product instead of solving needs. A good marketer should start with a blank sheet and ask the customer, “What is your need and what can we do to solve it?” – that is the new marketing paradigm.
It is no less true that a book should satisfy a need. To that end, an effective author would sit down, prayerfully to determine what a book is intending to achieve. Are you writing to satisfy your ego or your needs, or is the need of your audience more important.
Airbus built the A380, the largest passenger aircraft in history. Boeing on the other hand asked what the customer needed - the answer to that was the smaller, Dreamliner. This remarkable plane flies non-stop from point to point, without having to hub via airports like Atlanta or Chicago. It is very fuel efficient and sized to optimize the percentage utilization. It also has many comforts that make long-haul flight a delight. So where did Airbus go wrong? They seem to have set out to please themselves and satisfy their own egos and it blinded them to their customers.
2. Get going
I started writing a journal of my experiences in a time of great personal struggle. That start was analogous to being able to steer a moving vehicle (as opposed to trying the same with a stationary vehicle). Once I had set my sail and cast off, I moved out of my safe moorings into open water and then was able to feel God’s breath fill the sail – the adventure was underway. I had to make the first move. I had to depart and get out of the departure lounge – after all we don’t fly in order to have the lounge experiences, we lounge in order to fly.
As I wrote my journal, God gave life to my words and started to reveal His heart in the context of my pains. I became the pen of a ready Writer who, in His profoundly down-to-earth style, has chosen to reveal His heart through people – it was always that way. He called ordinary souls from ordinary circumstances and when they responded He showed them great mysteries. When He had finished writing those stories, He arranged for them to be bound into a single book and then allowed us to call it “the bible”. It’s a book whose pages are alive with powerful human drama interwoven with deep truth. It was not written as a manual, but as a narrative that progressively reveals His heart to us, a heart that yearns for a personal and rich relationship with His people. The same spirit works to brings significance to all our lives and specifically, in this context anyway, to those who feel called to write about the author of all things.
3. Make it a journey
Once the intent of a book is determined and your passion for the subject is ignited and God’s spirit has filled your sails, set your course and stay with it. Jesus set His eyes as a flint towards Jerusalem, in much the same way that a book embarked on, is a mission that must have a destination.
En route to the cross, Jesus healed people and we are often inclined to see that as the defining feature of His life. Yet He never once diverted from His course to be a man of wonders. He did as many miracles and healings as was necessary to achieve His surpassing purpose and it gave credence to His defining work at the cross. En-route to our own Jerusalem, we also have a journey to walk that will be interspersed with relevant experiences that will complement the greater story and provide it with rich fabric. God will lead you to people, places and events that will help to give the story credence. However, no experience will exist for its own sake, nor will such events be ends in themselves – they must become part of the journey to your destination and be shared as relevant moments along the way.
As a Toastmaster I was taught: Tell the audience where you are going, take them there and then tell them where they came from. The whole story must confirm and validate the passion and inspiration that was the raison d’être for which the book was birthed in the first place. Accordingly, the prologue, back page, introduction and opening chapters should provide a clear indication of where you are going and the content must take the audience there – otherwise you have not fulfilled your promise to them. It is for this reason that I believe content (the experience or story) to be more relevant than style – anybody can learn style, but only you can write your own story and that is the story God wants you to tell, even if it ultimately has other imperfections.
4. Be relevant
The stories of old provided reference points for historians. They highlighted cultural and environmental contexts and helped put the audience in that time and place. That is why we relate to those stories.
Similarly, your story must not be out of touch with your current culture else it will never find an audience. The people that spoke then spoke to “then-audiences”, but we speak now and should address “now-audiences”.
Does that demand a contemporary style of writing? No, I don’t think timeless stories need to go that far, but try and read something written a century ago and you will be bored out of your skull. We must at least speak in the vernacular of our culture and use examples and illustrations that they can relate to. Someone tried to translate the bible into a lesser African language and came to the concept “white as snow”. There was no way to translate it into that culture, so they chose something more relevant – perhaps “as white as the down-feathers of a goose” or “as white as the white of your eyes when you bump into a lion in the middle of the forest”.
Relevance also relates to the need to convey your real experiences to your audience. Don’t borrow ideas or pretend to be something you are not – that will rob your story of its soul. Tell it from the heart and relate your real world experiences and how God has been relevant to you in those experiences.
5. Touch hearts
A good book, especially a spiritual one, should make them laugh, make them cry, make them sit up and make them act. Never be one-dimensional. God has always filled my life with delightfully amusing moments that were illustrative, yet so useful in holding audience attention. He used the same style.
The story of the man at the pool of Siloam is a case in point. Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath and told him to “take up his bed and walk”. He could have waited another day to avoid a conflict, but Sabbath was the day He chose anyway. The Pharisees, on seeing him walking around with his bed castigated the man, in spite of the fact that he was walking for the first time in his life. That’s like telling a child not to open his presents on Christmas morning.
This poor man was exhibiting his joy in the very spirit of the Sabbath, rejoicing in the love and mercy of God as we all should do, so when they asked him about it, all he could say, whilst grinning like a Cheshire cat, was “Hey guys, I don’t know much, but I do know that Jesus healed me today”. It’s a really funny moment, told with such dry wit that it is easy to miss the moment. Yet as much as it is funny, it very effectively illustrates a powerful point without any need for preaching or elaboration – Jesus had made a point, without having to say much at all. So having made them laugh, maybe even cry when Jesus and the disciples talked about it later, he also made them sit up – he challenged them. His was a very efficient style that provided remarkably teachable moments.
6. Pay attention to detail
The term, “well done good and faithful servant”, is reserved for those who are faithful in stewarding what God entrusts to them.
Cain was a man of original ideas, who showed no sensitivity to the needs of his audience and critic – God. If he had been more in touch with God, he would have taken a lot more trouble to do the right things, which Abel did do. Yet in effect Abel only brought back to God what God had entrusted to him in the first place, even if in so doing he was very careful and thorough in his approach.
Joshua was a steward of Israel and paid great attention to detail in that role. He was careful in everything, resulting in his life work becoming a lasting memorial to his name. The details that we must worry about in writing, include: planning, writing, editing (400-500 times should do), grammar, spelling, layout (I researched books in book stores to get that right), cover design, prologues, back cover text, introductions, referencing, text style and spacing, logical flow, testing, review, packaging, pricing (I researched that as well), etc.
If you want God to bless what really came from Him in the first place, then honor Him in your application and don’t stop working until you know that your book is worthy of someone who has put such significant trust in you. In fact, I don’t think a book is done until He signals that it is done – you will know when that is. Besides anything else, the timing of a book is something best timed by God, who knows the beginning from the end.
7. Manage your marketing channels
Before Jesus was born, the way (channel) was prepared so that when He stood up to speak to the people, his platform would be assured. God actually prepared that platform over a period of 4,000 years so that His ministry would have relevance to that world. Sin and judgment were two primary concepts that were ingrained in the social conscience before He came.
God also prepared the physical distribution channels, by introducing Jesus to the world only once the Romans had completed their roads and the Greek language had universalized communications. This also shows great attention to detail, which reflects how deeply serious God was about the process of salvation and judgment.
Then Jesus built on that platform to establish a higher platform for the cross. Jesus used His three short years of human life to meticulously prepare for the cross, approaching His destiny with absolute single-mindedness.
Once He had made His great sacrifice and written our salvation story in His own blood, God raised up heralds (apostles and followers), who could take the message to the nations and then He kick-started the process by scattering those believers to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. Thus God left nothing to chance – He knew how to prepare for life after the cross and He prepares in advance for the conclusion of those projects that He entrusts to us – things will not catch Him by surprise, but you will need to follow His lead and apply your faith to see your book successfully birthed. He will almost certainly continue teaching you His ways in the process of getting your book to market, but then He is a very good marketer – He executed an effective marketing campaign to disseminate the gospel to the four corners of the earth.
He also used channels that were relevant to that culture, notably the Greek language, Roman roads, Jewish synagogues, Greek debates, etc. Our channels today include the Internet, email, networking, e-books and blogging, amongst others. Paul would have recommended using all of these, “if by any means some might be saved” – I advocate a similar multi-channel strategy. One new writer harnessed all these channels including networking through established networks, like Christian magazines – to get her books to market. She has seen a steady increase in orders and hits for her various marketing channels, a great example worth following.
Conclusion
All of these seven habits involve deliberate and thorough processes to eliminate the chance element – chance rarely begets luck, it normally involve bad luck, so don’t leave something so life-giving, so vital, to chance. A great retailer said, “I worry about the cents and the dollars take care of themselves”. A Great golfer said, “The harder I try, the luckier I get”. A great salesman said, “I work on every aspect of my game, and the payoff pays itself off”. Learn from these things and your will enhance the probability of success until you break through.
(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com
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