Alien Love, Gremlins and Kirk Cameron

If it’s okay with you, I’d like to share a conversation that I very much enjoyed today.

At work, a co worker of mine was asking about my writing. He isn’t a Christ follower, but he does care about me, so he shows interest in what I do. Whenever I talk to people about my book, the question usually comes up about sales. I’m not sure why. I suppose in our world, a lot of life revolves around those kinds of measurements for success.

When I told him that I really don’t sell very many, he seemed to want some specifics.

“How many have you sold exactly?”

To be honest, I really don’t know. I’ve never really tracked my sales all that well. I report everything on my taxes, but I give so many away. In his mind, he must have expected something more impressive, because when I told him, “160”, he posed another question.

“Why do you think it sells to poorly?”

It’s a big question really, and on the spot, I didn’t have a great answer for him. In honesty, I haven’t spent much on marketing at all, so my book is kind of a secret to most of the world. I don’t know how accurate my response was, but this is what I gave him.

“Well, basically, I talk a lot about God and sin. Who wants to hear that? Maybe if I wrote about sorcerers, or sex, I’d do better.”

Okay. I’m not the only guy with that kind of message, and some similar books do well. But seriously, calling people sinners really isn’t received favorably. Is it? How many people like to be told that they sin? Kirk Cameron is taking a lot of flak right now for this very issue. Pretty much the whole of humanity prefers to live with an air of self righteousness. We want to live thinking that there’s nothing wrong with the lives we live.

Giving a thoughtful look, he smiled saying, “Well Kev, as your future sales manager, maybe you can keep the whole God thing, just throw in some witches, a hobbit and a few gremlins. It’s okay to use the God stuff, just keep it metaphorical.”

I know it's not that simple, but the conversation was fun regardless.