As a published author, one of my duties includes marketing and promoting my book. I do this through social media, through speaking events and through this blog. I also work hard to find new outlets for my book and use every tool imaginable to market the words I write.
Sometimes it seems as if I’m trying to push myself on other people, just for the purpose of sales. I hate that. But the truth is…I worked hard to write my book, and I feel the words have meaning and purpose. I want the message about faith while dealing with Alzheimer’s to spread across the globe.
The main reason Christian authors work so hard is to promote the truth of the Gospel. Yes, of course, we want our books to sell as we continue to publish our words. Yes, of course, we want readers to ask for more. We long for agents, publishers and distributors to beg us for another book.
But the main purpose is the message. Always. We want more sales, because that means more and more people read about Jesus.
In our nonfiction, they find encouragement in their faith journey. In our fiction, they place themselves into the story and root for the hero or heroine, while waiting to see how faith impacts the outcome of the book.
In articles, poems, scripts – all sorts of genres, Christian writers become messengers of the Light as we hope and pray that somewhere in that vast configuration called the internet – someone reads the truth and finds peace.
As authors, we know that sometimes you tire of reading our promotional material. You skip over our Facebook posts because you’ve seen them before. We understand.
But we also hope that someone new sees the post for the first time. Maybe that person will buy our books, turn to a page that counsels her about God’s love and find the answer to her questions.
Whether our readers find us through books, blog posts or tweets, we thank God when we market His message and send it into the world.
Someday I hope to meet a soul in heaven who read my book and found it encouraging, helping him or her through the dark ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.
Someday I hope a reader sends me an email and says, “You helped me find my way back to God.” Someday I want to meet that great crowd of witnesses who cheered me on as I sat for hours in my cold office and typed out the words that burned in my heart.
This is why Christian writers promote our work. It’s because at the core of it all, we’re marketing Jesus Christ and his message of love.
We do it for Him, and we do it for you.
©2013 RJ Thesman