6 Months on, was my book a “success” or not? My lessons from chasing a God given dream…

I’m going to use this blog, about my book, as a case study for us all to think about pursuing the God given dreams we have inside us. I hope it’s helpful to you…

I spent some time with a friend and author a few months ago, he’s written an excellent Christian book that last time we spoke had sold 1000 copies. That’s really good for a first time author, most sell only around 50-250 or so. We had a great chat and in it he shared this interesting anecdote, that I will paraphrase here:

Me: Buddy, so great to hear about how many you’ve sold, 1000 is amazing!

Him: Thanks man, it’s actually closer to 2000 now…

Me: Wow! That’s amazing.

Him: Yeah, it’s brilliant, though it’s a strange world to be in. I interviewed someone the other day who had just released a book that has sold 40,000 copies…

Me: …well that’s a lot!

Him: Yeah, so my 2000 seems a lot less compared to that…but here’s the thing, the author I interviewed had just spent some time with some other authors, all of whom have books that have sold hundreds of thousands of copies…so her 40,000 seems pretty small by comparison…its a strange world to be in…

Me: No kidding….

As a pastor in a church I’m not a stranger to the ‘numbers conversation’. “How may people attended the small group…how many seats were filled on Sunday…how many signed up to the course…how many came forward for the ministry call after the preach you gave…”. 

I’ve asked them all.

These questions can trickle down and find the cracks and crevices in my mind so easily and somehow find their way into my runtime thinking. They aren’t always bad questions to consider, but more often than not they don’t take you anywhere helpful.

So in enters the question, “how do I judge if my book was and is ‘successful’?”. I didn’t need a lot of encouragement to start considering the numbers game first…surely the number of sales will be the only answer I need to consider…

…right?

So what counts as ‘success’ and what doesn’t?

I know for me and many others one of the reasons we don’t make an attempt to leap or stumble out of the boat, trust God and give our dreams a chance at reality is because of the fear of failure. That old chestnut.

What if no one comes?

What if no one clicks to watch?

What if no one buys it?

What if this thing I’ve come up with doesn’t make an impact?

What if it doesn’t do well and then I have to put on a brave face and explain that to other people…?

I thought a lot of these. Still do sometimes if I’m honest.

I’m not sure how to be rid of fear all in one go, I just know that there are more far more scriptures than I could ever memorise or reference that tell me to wait…to trust…to be secure in God…to be content…at rest…at peace…knowing that nothing given as an offering to God will ever be wasted or forgotten. He sees it all, and His love for us is beyond our ability to understand.

God always, in the way and timing of His choosing, disarms fears.

When it came to the “success” question though, I had to make space in my creative process and consider what I was I really hoping and praying for? 

What counts as success for a first time author, a pastor of a small church in London, an unknown in writing or in the larger Christian world? Did I have an answer to that?

My hope…and the temptation to compromise

I wanted to write something that would connect with a deep place in the heart of the reader, where they would see how God’s presence had shown up in the story of their life. 

I hoped they would take their time, trust God, go low and go slow and see that He is actually who He always says He has been…and that they are who He has always said they are. 

Dwelling on God’s identity and ours is not a small topic. It’s not one that could be rushed and its not a journey everyone wants to give the time nor the vulnerability to take. 

There are many things I could have done to try and make it more sell-able to be fair.

It’s not ‘how to’ book. It seems like those ones do sell quite well. People like 3 steps to freedom or breakthrough. I’m one of those people…but I couldn’t write this book that way.

What I wrote talks more about trusting God over decades than it does about implanting a few strategies over a quick read. It’s is a meandering story, a gradual journey more than anything else. I resisted to urge to make it something that would fit a gap in the market. Playing the game didn’t feel right to me, and if I did I think I would have done it poorly.

My honest answer to the ‘success question’…

1) For my ego…I wanted hundreds. Just enough to not feel like I’d failed or had created something that was forgettable. I was secretly hoping for thousands so I could feel secretly very pleased with myself that I was the next big thing…

2) Then I let the orphan subside, gave the adopted son in me a go at taking the lead…and decide that 5 people would be awesome.

If 5 people bought my book, and let the Father truly, really, genuinely and fully lift them out of spiritual orphans and into sonship and daughterhood - well that would change the world…

...and I could count that as a success.

At present there are 400 copies of my book out there somewhere. 

“Just 400?”

Or…”wow…as many as 400?”

I’m not sure what you think, but for me…its wow! Come on! 400! Thank you God! That”s a lot of 5 peoples.

It means so much to me, honestly, knowing that around 400 real flesh and blood human beings have a copy of this thing I laboured over and nurtured, this thing I asked God to speak through. It;s a big deal to me. 

I know it’s not 2000. 

It’s not 40,000.

It’s not hundreds of thousands either. 

It may feel small, but I feel thats not a bad thing at all.

Jesus focussed on 12 small guys, making them the priority of His ministry. They got the fulness of His message, all the behind scenes stuff, and He walked away from crowds of thousands to spend more time with those guys. I think He got pretty good fruit from His 12. 

Small isn’t bad if its real, authentic and powerful. That makes me think a lot about the investment of my time and efforts.

So what about your dream…what is in you waiting to come out?

I don’t know what your story is but I bet there is more in you, that God put in there, that is yet to come out. I’m betting you’re not done with your dreams and your "what ifs?”

God decides what success is. We just need to get into the game, get in the flow of what He wants to do through us and how He’s going to do…and then just begin.

By the world’s standards…my 400 is a minor success at best…maybe nothing to get too excited by…

The Father though, has put joy in my heart about each copy sold, gifted and sent off. Grace has landed on the whole endeavour. That’s what He does when you trust Him with the dream He gave you.

Conclusion: What we learn and what we do with it… 

I hear little stories from people about how the book ministered to people and what it’s fruit has been. I know to a great degree however what the fruit of achieving this dream has been in my life.

…my trust in God has gone up.

…my security in Him that He will never abandon me has gone up.

…my belief in what He has put inside me has increased.

…my understanding that He can use me and my voice to speak to others and impart hope, has grown.

…my sense of identity as an adopted son of God has gone up, and those remnant feelings of orphaness have gone down.

It took a book about sonship to teach me my next lesson on being a son.

So let me just encourage you to go for it. 

Just begin. 

The success of it all may be so different from what you think it should be, but if the Father’s hand us upon you (it is) and He’s not going to leave you (He said He never would) and if He can dream bigger than you can even on your best visionary day (just read Ephesians 3) then, well, I think you’re in good hands. 

So pray and listen.

Ask for God to speak to the timing question…the how question…and the success questions.

…and then just decide to start. 

Please let me know if you do and what you’re do.

I’m starting book 2 now. Let’s pray for and cheer each other on.

With love and in Christ,

AF

Alistair’s book “The Road to the Father’s House’ is available from this website and from all major online booksellers.