I wrote a column in the Christian Online Fiction magazine dealing with self-publishing for about two years. Last month I decided to hang it up to pursue more pressing matters (hopefully movies/television) and gave notice when I turned in my last editorial. I just found out my final article will not be published. Since I spent several hours framing it, I decided I’d post it myself to various outlets. Buckle your seatbelt and read on.
If you are not aware of the tremendous warfare going on between the forces of good and evil for the minds of the people of planet Earth, especially the young people, pardon me for suggesting that you are living in a bubble. God might want you to pop that effervescent armor and realize that your efforts are needed as a soldier of the Lord who wields a pen as your weapon of choice. I might be out to brunch here, but it seems to me that the mainstream publishers have avoided rocking the boat by publishing materials that might be too radical or too edgy or too hardcore Christian. As a result, the mainstream leaders often abandon the battlefield so they can generate lucrative profit producing Amish assemble-by-number novels, detective stories without any cussing where the name of God maybe mentioned and one of the characters may utter a prayer, but not in the name of Jesus, and sentimental romances where courting is adorned in Christian apparel and language but below the surface still reeks of worldly focus on external glamour, materialism, and shallow sentimentality that masquerades as love. So exactly what do these observations mean to a self-published author? It means that there is a niche to fill. Since you don’t have publishers to please and agents to feed, you can do God’s work unimpeded by the external forces that put people and their work into boxes of diminutive size. You have the luxury of being free to go where God wants you to go–if you have the courage to enter the lion’s den and the strength to swim upstream against white water.
I have tried to champion the cause of self-published writers in this column. My goal has been to encourage, enlighten, and empower those who God has placed a seed within, so that the seed may germinate and mature into something lovely and inspirational. Unfortunately, I’ve been operating in a void here and have no clue if I’ve made any impact. Perhaps I won’t know until Heaven. What I do know is that my season of writing for Christian Fiction Online Magazine is drawing to a close. The arrival of bills to be paid and writing deadlines to be met causes the calendar pages to fly off. There is nothing I can do about the bills, but one less deadline will give me more time to focus on projects that I feel are critical. It’s been wonderful to be a part of CFOM, but the curtain must close. Perhaps sometime I’ll resurrect my crusade to aid self-pubbed authors in their quest to fulfill God’s call in their lives.
Statistics indicate that few people are actively engaged in the art of reading. And even a smaller percentage of those are seeking Christian fiction. In the final analysis of the matter, if I really want to impact the culture, I must spend my time on things that will grab the attention of the masses. And I believe the audio-visual media is the ticket to have the ability to grab someone by the scruff of their soul and unleash unknown desires and misunderstood emotions that lead people to question their superficial human existence. And thus my new focus in life will be to write and produce movies that will combat evolution, the occult, the sexual revolution, injustice and any other crusade that God might add to my target list as my vision expands.
So I take my puny weapons which hopefully God will endue with His power and move on to a new battlefield. I want to leave you with a plea to join God’s army. Use any talents He has given you to enhance His kingdom and not your own. Almost an entire generation of young people are lining up to enter the gates of Hell. What will you do to help God rescue some of them?
If you are not aware of the tremendous warfare going on between the forces of good and evil for the minds of the people of planet Earth, especially the young people, pardon me for suggesting that you are living in a bubble. God might want you to pop that effervescent armor and realize that your efforts are needed as a soldier of the Lord who wields a pen as your weapon of choice. I might be out to brunch here, but it seems to me that the mainstream publishers have avoided rocking the boat by publishing materials that might be too radical or too edgy or too hardcore Christian. As a result, the mainstream leaders often abandon the battlefield so they can generate lucrative profit producing Amish assemble-by-number novels, detective stories without any cussing where the name of God maybe mentioned and one of the characters may utter a prayer, but not in the name of Jesus, and sentimental romances where courting is adorned in Christian apparel and language but below the surface still reeks of worldly focus on external glamour, materialism, and shallow sentimentality that masquerades as love. So exactly what do these observations mean to a self-published author? It means that there is a niche to fill. Since you don’t have publishers to please and agents to feed, you can do God’s work unimpeded by the external forces that put people and their work into boxes of diminutive size. You have the luxury of being free to go where God wants you to go–if you have the courage to enter the lion’s den and the strength to swim upstream against white water.
I have tried to champion the cause of self-published writers in this column. My goal has been to encourage, enlighten, and empower those who God has placed a seed within, so that the seed may germinate and mature into something lovely and inspirational. Unfortunately, I’ve been operating in a void here and have no clue if I’ve made any impact. Perhaps I won’t know until Heaven. What I do know is that my season of writing for Christian Fiction Online Magazine is drawing to a close. The arrival of bills to be paid and writing deadlines to be met causes the calendar pages to fly off. There is nothing I can do about the bills, but one less deadline will give me more time to focus on projects that I feel are critical. It’s been wonderful to be a part of CFOM, but the curtain must close. Perhaps sometime I’ll resurrect my crusade to aid self-pubbed authors in their quest to fulfill God’s call in their lives.
Statistics indicate that few people are actively engaged in the art of reading. And even a smaller percentage of those are seeking Christian fiction. In the final analysis of the matter, if I really want to impact the culture, I must spend my time on things that will grab the attention of the masses. And I believe the audio-visual media is the ticket to have the ability to grab someone by the scruff of their soul and unleash unknown desires and misunderstood emotions that lead people to question their superficial human existence. And thus my new focus in life will be to write and produce movies that will combat evolution, the occult, the sexual revolution, injustice and any other crusade that God might add to my target list as my vision expands.
So I take my puny weapons which hopefully God will endue with His power and move on to a new battlefield. I want to leave you with a plea to join God’s army. Use any talents He has given you to enhance His kingdom and not your own. Almost an entire generation of young people are lining up to enter the gates of Hell. What will you do to help God rescue some of them?
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