Ambassador International Opens Warehouse for Haiti Supply Drive

LifePoint Church in Greenville, South Carolina is launching a donation drive to help Christian charities currently serving in Haiti. Relatives of one of LifePoint’s members operate the Jean Cadet Restavek Foundation, a group that serves some of the estimated 300,000 Haitian children enslaved in child labor. The organization’s founder, a former Haitian slave, is currently in Haiti along with several other staffers working to bring relief to the poor people he serves in the wake of the recent earthquake. This donation drive will also support the First Haitian Evangelical Wesleyan Church in Mauldin which needs supplies to send to Haiti. To aid these organizations’ efforts, LifePoint Church is asking the Greenville community to donate the following:

• Baby Food
• Baby Formula
• Non-perishable Food Items
• Blankets

All donations may be dropped off at Christian publishing house Ambassador International, located at 427 Wade Hampton Blvd, on the corner of Chick Springs Road, across from CVS. Items will be collected from January 25 until February 5. Donations may be dropped off Monday through Friday between 9am-5pm or on Saturday from 10am-2pm.

Tags: Ambassador International, Christian, church, event, Haiti, publisher

Christian Publishing Tips Supports Twestival Local

CPT Silent Auction Donation

From September 10-13 133 cities around the world held events to raise money for local charities. It’s called Twestival Local and it was started about a year ago by some Twitter users in London. Christian Publishing Tips was pleased to support the Greenville Twestival by donating autographed Christian books by bestselling authors for the silent auction. All of the money raised by the Greenville Twestival supported the Miracle Hill Boys’ Shelter, a Christian organization that cares for abused and neglected boys. Christian Publishing Tips is thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this great event that supported a wonderful cause.

Photo by Liz Morrisey

Tags: Bestsellers, charity, Christian, Christian books, Marketing, twestival

Book Awards for Christian Authors

Entering yourself for a book award can seem like trying to buy popularity or tooting your own horn. But winning is oh so nice, isn’t it? But is it worth forking over the entry fee and taking the time to fill out the application? There’s no doubt that winning an award is an honor that brings prestige, credibility and recognition along with it.

In this article about winning an IPPY Award from the Independent Publisher, past winners explain the benefits that come with the award. “The Independent Publisher Book Award is an honor, absolutely!” says Mark Hemry of Palm Drive Publishing in San Francisco. “The publicity sold out the hardcover version of What They Did to the Kid.” Author Sadie Allison has this to say about her 2002 win, “having that IPPY sticker on the book opens doors, both with buyers and with the media,” she says. “It was a struggle at first, as a self-publisher pitching a book on a difficult, taboo topic. But I’m a warrior, and I’ve carved out a niche that people seem to respond to.”

So bottom line, an award may not do all of the work for you, but it can give you credibility that is hard to come by in the competitive world of publishing. The deadline for entries for the 2009 IPPY awards is March 21, 2009. Feel free to share other book awards open to authors, including Christian authors.

Tags: book awards, Christian, publisher, writer, writing

The Story Behind “The Shack”

The Shack

Reading the news updates on The Shack website is like reading a list of every author’s dreams coming true:

April 8, 2008:   In the past week The Shack has climbed to #33 on the USA Today Top 50 Books, and has risen as high as #7 at Amazon in all books and #6 at Barnes and Noble for in-store sales. We are blessed at the wide-ranging success of this title as we have distributed almost 500,000 books in 11 months, mostly by word of mouth.

November 1, 2007: We are setting up for the third print run of the paperback version and we are working on the audio version.

October 15, 2007: Barnes and Noble offers a pre-publication purchases of a Limited Hardback edition at a great price.

September 11, 2007: Windblown Media announces its affiliation with a new publisher in South Africa for distribution throughout the continent.

August 23, 2007: First printing of The Shack has almost sold out. We have had to order a second printing to maintain adequate supplies
The book continues to hold its spot as a New York Times Bestseller. But it wasn’t easy for author William P. Young. In fact, friends had to start their own company just to get it published!! Christian publishing houses thought it was too controversial and secular ones thought it read too churchy. Here’s the explanation found on Windblown Media’s site, the company that started just to make sure Young’s book was published:

A funny thing happened on the way to helping a friend with his new book.  We couldn’t find a publisher who would treat it the way we felt The Shack needed to be treated to find its audience. Christian publishers thought it too controversial and wanted to dull its edgy side so as not to risk alienating their core audience.  Secular publishers shied away because they felt the content put it clearly in the ‘Christian’ marketplace.

We have long been frustrated at the divide between Christian publishers and secular ones, feeling it an artificial one of convenience and consumerism rather than a true service to readers. We are convinced that there are a lot of people who are seriously asking questions about their spirituality and want thought-provoking and artistic books that neither pander to the religious audience nor dilute the powerful yet simple message of the Jesus of the Bible.

So we did the only thing we could think to do—start our own company!  Now we’re pleased to announce the publication of our first book, The Shack by William P. Young and in doing so launch a new publishing company committed to providing inspirational reading for people on a serious spiritual journey. The Shack offers as engaging a look at the reality of God in the midst of human tragedy as any we’ve ever read and can stimulate hours of discussion about spiritual life.

We are also reprinting So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore by Jake Colsen (a pseudonym for the combined work of Wayne Jacobsen and David Coleman), an incisive look at the failure of many religious institutions to engage people with the reality of God’s life and love, and Wayne Jacobsen’s, He Loves Me: Learning to Live in the Father’s Affection.

We’re not trying to fool anyone here.  Windblown Media is designed to publish books for the spiritually hungry and we are convinced that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only true God and source of life for those seeking spiritual answers.  But we are interested in having that discussion with people who may not agree with us, but want an intellectually honest and artistic approach to how we live life in his reality. We also realize that a lot of Christians are growing disillusioned with the religious constructs of our day that too easily rob people of the depth and vitality of the life that Jesus meant to offer us.

We publish for hungry hearts and minds looking to sort out spiritual realities amidst the fast-paced and often shallow world in which we live.

We are not accepting unsolicited manuscripts or agent submissions at this time.  We are just a couple of guys who are convinced that there is a market for spiritual discussions outside of the Christian publishing ghetto and not fully addressed by nonChristian publishers who think the mention of Jesus puts the book in a religious category.

It’s a good thing William P. Young believed in his book– and that he had friends surrounding him that believed in it too. Do you believe in your work enough to go to such great lengths to get in the hands of readers? Why? Why not?

The next time you are feeling discouraged just think of The Shack. Publishers didn’t believe in it. But the author did. And that’s what matters most.

Tags: author, books, Christian, New York Times Bestseller, publishing