IVP - Addenda & Errata - October 2009 Archives

How Do You Get to Barnes & Noble? Platform, Platform, Platform

If you are an academic and you feel that general, or “popular,” authors haven’t done sufficient homework to write on their topic, and you can do it better, or if you just have a great idea for a general book, you need to step up to the plate—well before you write that book.

Before working on the book you need to apply yourself to building your platform for reaching that general audience. If the publishing gatekeepers don’t know who you are, you aren’t going to get your show into Carnegie Hall, no matter how much you’ve practiced. You need to work the local spots, the equivalent of your local clubs and county fairs, and earn your creds with the “popular” audience. (An important benefit of this is that you can learn how people outside academia think and what questions they ask—which can dramatically refocus your writing.)

That notion of the learned doctor, taking a break from monographs and journal articles to dash off a tract for the times or a meditation on life—while the publisher does the rest (you know, promotion, advertising and that kind of stuff)—is gone. If it ever was here. The watchword today is platform.

The Multiple Values of Multiview Books

Around IVP we call them multiview books. We were the first evangelical Christian publisher to get into this business, with The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views in 1977, over thirty years ago. And we think of these books as signature IVP items because they are like microcosms of our editorial approach, our brand.

Christological Gold

Here is a sulphurous discharge from the fumaroles of hell:

Infinity is all around, so wherever you are, you are in the center of the universe. Deepak Chopra

Here is fine gold, worked into a christological setting:

But following the holy Scriptures I believe that there is one God and his only-begotten Son or Word, who ever exists with the Father and has never in any sense had a beginning of existence, truly having his being from God, not created, not made, but ever being with, ever reigning with God and the Father, “of whose kingdom,” according to the testimony of the apostle, “there shall be no end.” Marcellus of Ancrya

A few months back I blogged about my reading of Ancient Christian Doctrine, Volume 1, We Believe in One God, edited by Gerald Bray. (And I’m pleased to find that David Neff also finds it good devotional reading.) Having finished reading that volume, I turned with much anticipation to Volume 2, We Believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, edited by John Anthony McGuckin. I have not been disappointed. If anything, this volume is better yet!

A Civil Tongue

I think that was the working title for the book—A Civil Tongue—or at any rate it was a strong contender in our titling committee meeting. Anyway, it has stuck with me and it was the first thing that came to mind as I began to scour my shelves for Richard Mouw’s book the other day. “What did we call it?,” I asked myself. “That’s right, Uncommon Decency.” Probably just as well. We didn’t need a cover evocative of Gene Simmons.