promotion schmotion

June 22, 2009 in we can do better than this, what's wrong with worship

I spent a little time filling out a questionnaire for a publisher the other day. I have a love-hate relationship with these things.

I like the chance to explain why I write about certain subjects, especially since I communicate better with a little time and a keyboard rather than on the spur of the moment with an audience. And I can’t deny that it feels nice to be asked, even if it was by a standard document that started with the words ‘Please Return By 1st September 1997’.

But I feel awkward and itchy whenever it comes to the issue of promotion – more specifically, self-promotion. I don’t want to be the sort of friend that hassles his wider circle to continually get on and show their support at the next book launch, who’s always asking for just one more online review or who urges mates to buy the books themselves. I’ve known people like that – not many, I’ll admit, but enough – and it’s no fun at all.

And I don’t want to be the sort of Christian who suggests that what they have to say is important, urgent or new. I’ve known more people like this than I’d like to admit, and it always leaves a bitter taste. Hearing someone gloat over their latest accomplishments – regardless of how thinly they veneer the telling with a coat of ‘It’s All For The Lord’ – it just seems wrong. I’ve seen enough people preen themselves in the spotlight to not want to do it myself.

Besides, putting on a book launch feels to me like the ultimate blind date – only with all the bad stuff multiplied: will they all show? How can you keep them all amused, entertained and impressed? Who makes the first move? Does my book display look big in this?

Not that I’m modest. Really, I don’t suffer from an excess of humility. But I’d rather we told the truth here. Why? Why not?

Last week I saw an old friend for the first time in many years. He asked me what I was working on and then said ‘so, basically you just live off your royalties?’ I laughed. For the record, I don’t. Or, if I did, I really wouldn’t be all that healthy right now, or, come to think of it, alive in any way.

It seems to me as though there’s a bit of a veil over the whole notion of success and sales. It’s true that the richest people I know are those who have scored big with songs or books that would be familiar to most people who spent any time in a church. But that’s not a group that I’m in.

Not that I’m complaining. Please don’t misunderstand – I love writing about what I do, and if the words happen to help someone, then so much the better. But writing for big sales just isn’t something I have the head or the heart for.

Someone sent me a great quote the other day, and it indicates just how upside-down some of our thinking has become when it comes to determining what makes a ‘good’ or ‘successful’ book or song (particularly in church circles). Here’s what theologian Thomas Merton had to say:

‘If I have ever written a best seller it was due to naivety…. And, I will make every effort never to do the same again.’

There are far greater errors to make in life than to act naively, but to deliberately chase, hunger after and crave such artless foolishness – and then to call it success – well, it just seems dumb to me. Can’t we do better than that?