Tag Archives: Love Without Walls
What books do publishers read?
I thought this video from Laurie Beshore was fitting for today for two reasons:
1) Today is the last official day of the Love Without Walls Blog Tour
2) Laurie talks about how if she didn’t read books would see “only a part” of “reality.” She says that she like books don’t just “describe what is, but what can be.”
The same is true for publishers (and I imagine any profession). If we don’t read about our profession we won’t grow in our profession. If we don’t continually read on how to be more innovative marketers, thoughtful editors, and committed Christian professionals, then eventually our books will suffer and our authors and consumers will be under-served.
So, for this series of posts on the publishing process I thought it might be fun to post a list of books publishers read. These are books I’ve read, my colleagues have read, industry standards, and other goodies.
- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King – This book is hugely popular among writers, regardless of what type of books they write. The same is true for publishers. It’s just a compelling read about writing and King’s tumultuous career.
- Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers by Scott Norton – I discovered this book at the national meeting for the Society for Biblical Literature, oddly enough. It’s great reading for aspiring editors.
- ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income, Second Edition by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett – A fellow marketer at Z gave me this book when I first start blogging. It is an excellent resource for growing your online presence. I’ve recommended it to numerous authors, colleagues, and friends.
- Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future by Jason Epstein – This is a book written by a major New York publisher. The big takeaway for me from this book was that publishers must ‘acquire for the back list’ as a way to ensure a sustainable business.
- What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis – Our publishing team read this book together a few years back. It helped all of us wrap our minds around the digital revolution we’ve been through the last few years. Especially in regards to SEO, it really got our wheels turning about how we title, market, and sell our books. We know regularly use terms like “Google juice” and “Googley” as a result of reading this book.
- Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt – I’ve not read this book yet but it’s on my short list. Others around Z are already reading it. Mike Hyatt’s wisdom and experience in publishing is just too good not read and implement.
- The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White – This little handbook is the bible of self-editing and professional writing. If you’re a writer you must own and heed this book.
- Get Known before the Book Deal by Christina Katz – This is a book I stumbled on a few years ago and have recommended to many new writers who are trying to build a platform for promoting their work.
This list is far from exhaustive, but it should give you a good idea of some of the books that float around our offices.
Until next time, may you know the joy of reading a good book that energizes you in your vocation.
-Andrew
How “Love Without Walls” can help your ministry serve the global church better
Here’s a short video interview with Laurie Beshore, founding outreach pastor at Mariners Church in Irvine, CA and author of Love Without Walls.
After watching this video I took Laurie’s advice and read chapter 9 of Love Without Walls. This chapter is called, “Oops, We Did it Again.” In it Laurie talks about how their successful, twenty-five year old outreach ministry began to fail to make an impact, and what they eventually did to make changes and realign their vision.
She writes that they had “too many ministries” and that it was “diffusing [their] impact in the community.” She later says, “certain ministries were sliding away from the original vision.” In order to realign their vision and values they eventually had to eliminate “40 percent of [their] ministries and a third of [their] staff.” (132)
How hard that must’ve been. Have you or someone you know ever been through a “realignment” like that? It can be very difficult to handle for all parties involved.
But as Laurie says in the video above, she’s excited about the future. Why? Because of what God showed them.
Love Without Walls – A practical tool for developing your Outreach ministry
Laurie Beshore has lead the outreach ministry at Mariner’s Church in southern California for over 25 years. Her new book, Love Without Walls: Learning to be a Church in the World for the World, tells the story of how she and a handful of volunteers started an outreach ministry to the needy in Orange county that eventually grew to be a global ministry reaching people all over the world. (Some of you probably joined the blog tour for this book last week.)
But it’s not just their story, it’s also filled with practical ideas for other churches to use and adapt to their context. This book is one that I hope outreach pastors and community volunteers will find and love. One of our hopes as a publishing team is that the resources we produce will be transformational for ministry leaders and ultimately a blessing to the church. If you’re a staff member or volunteer in the outreach ministry at your church, or if you’re just interested in learning about how to do more effective ministry on your own, then don’t miss this book.
You can learn more about Laurie and the book in this article from the Newport Beach Independent. Here’s a quote from her:
“’Love Without Walls’ certainly isn’t my story – it’s God’s story of using all of us to do something far greater than we could ever do ourselves. It’s also a story that has taken 25 years to tell. One of my goals in writing the book was to include many of the mistakes we made along the way to help a new generation of church leaders trying to serve communities that are skeptical, if not outright suspicious, of the intentions of the 21st century church.” (read the full article here)
The book is available tomorrow on Amazon.com and today on BN.com & ChristianBook.com.
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Love Without Walls – Blog Tour Sign Up
During the week of June 25-29 we’ll be hosting another blog tour. This one is for Laurie Beshore’s new book, Love Without Walls: Learning to be a Church in the World, for the World. This book is the newest book in our Leadership Network Innovation Series and it tells the story of how Mariner’s Church began and grew a unique outreach ministry to their community in Orange County, CA. As with all of the books in this series it is also packed with transferable ideas for other churches to use.
To sign up for the blog tour please fill out this form. (This sign up is closed! Sorry!) We’ll send a free copy of the book to the first 50 people to sign up in exchange for a review posted on your blog and on a book site (Amazon, BN.com, CBD.com, Goodreads, or others) during the blog tour week (June 25-29). During the blog tour week we’ll be tweeting the links, putting them on Facebook, and digging deeply into the content of Love Wihtout Walls.
I hope you can join us! I love reading the reviews and the authors do too.
Best!
-AR
Love Without Walls by Laurie Beshore is in! (Or, How Heroes Inspire us)
Laurie Beshore’s new book, Love Without Walls: Learning to be a church in the World, for the World just arrived at Zondervan. I consider it a unique privilege to show up at my job only to find new books laying on my desk. It’s a book nerd’s dream come true.
I’ll be talking more about Love Without Walls in future weeks here on the blog. It’s the newest book in the Leadership Network Innovation Series. You can look for it in stores in early June.
Following is an excerpt from the introduction, entitled “Going Boldly”. And although “going boldly” is a Star Trek reference, because of the new Avengers movie I couldn’t help but think of Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man as I read this passage. Take a look and you’ll see what I mean….
We all love stories of heroes. Of great battles fought and won. The “Cinderella story” of coming from behind and claiming victory. Whether fictional or true to life, these stories capture our attention, emotions, and hearts. They inspire us to do great things. They give us hope and faith in our world and humankind.
No one is inspired by no-win scenarios. The lost cause makes us drop our hands to our sides and walk away.
Looking objectively at the world around us, we can put much of what we see in the second, less desirable category. I’ve spent the past twenty-five years confronting situations many would consider no-win. The challenges in our society are great and seemingly hopeless. We see generational cycles of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, inadequate health care, child abuse, elder abandonment – the list goes on. These issues seem insurmountable, and we sometimes want to turn our heads and hope the problems go away. What difference can we make?
And yet.
