Prayer and the Unpublished Author

Online, I spend a lot of time with authors—primarily unpublished Christian authors. Most have a common question. Why haven’t I received a publishing contract yet? Hidden beneath that question is another. Can’t God see how important this is to me? This second question has an easy answer, but it doesn’t make the wannabe Christian writer feel any better.


I think it’s a safe assumption that nearly every Christian author has asked God to open doors for a publishing contract at some point. I God changes things when we pray, but I’ve also seen the numbers. There are a lot of people out there praying for a publishing contract who won’t get one. So what’s the problem?


The problem isn’t with God. He is more than capable of giving any and all Christian writers a publishing contract. I would like to suggest that the problem is with us. Do you recall James 4:3? Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. From experience, I know that God often blesses us with things we want, but don’t absolutely need, but I also know that it is easy to set my heart on something and lose sight of what is best. I’ve seen some authors, for example, who see writing as their way to become independently wealthy, but God wants us to always recognize out dependence on him. I see some writers who may tell themselves that they are writing for the benefit of their families, but they write without consideration for what impact a successful writing career will have on their families.


Instead of asking for a writing contract, what we should be doing is asking the Lord for wisdom. God always wants to give us wisdom (James 1:5). What writers really need is wisdom to know whether we should continue what we are doing and the wisdom to understand why we haven’t had the success that we might desire. But be forewarned that when you pray for wisdom you may get an answer you don’t like. If ignorance is bliss, wisdom will make you miserable. When you look at your life through the eyes of wisdom, you may discover that you are spending time in front of the computer that you should be spending with your children and spouse. Through the eyes of wisdom, you may see that your writing isn’t good enough and never will be. Through the eyes of wisdom, you may see that you are spending thousands of dollars learning to write well enough to earn only a fraction of it back.


On the other hand, the eyes of wisdom may show you an avenue that you haven’t considered on you quest for publication. The eyes of wisdom may show you a story idea or a topic that you haven’t considered. The eyes of wisdom may be all you need to put the finishing touches on that manuscript to make it stand out to everyone who sees it. We don’t know what wisdom will show us until we ask. Whatever it shows us, we can be sure that it will show us something better, even if we don’t like what we see.

Comments

Cindy R. Wilson said…
Thank you so much for the post. I think sometimes we tend to either separate our goals and dreams from prayer or link them so closely that all we can see is what we want to see, not what God wants us to get out of the situation. It's a great reminder that sometimes our dreams, or at least what we think we want, don't always line up with God's will for us. God Bless!
March 26, 2009 at 9:12 AM
Michelle D. Argyle said…
In my religion we believe the same thing that many times we are asking for the wrong thing and expecting and answer that actually wouldn't suit us in the end. Thank you for a great post!
March 26, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: WestBow Press

Image
T oday, I’m writing a book review unlike any I have written before. Actually, I’m going to I’m reviewing two books and I haven’t read either one. As you may recall, some time ago, Thomas Nelson announced that they were entering the vanity press market, using the imprint WestBow Press. The first books out of that arrangement are making their way down the pipeline, two of which you can see here. The first thing I noticed when they arrived was the size of the box. I arrived home and saw the box sitting on my front step. My first thought was that they had only shipped on of them. The box is the same sized box Amazon.com uses to ship individual copies of my novels. I opened it up and found both novels stacked neatly, one on top of the other. Both books have the dimensions 6” x 9”, a fairly standard size for non-traditionally published books. Publishing a book with that dimension simplifies the process when a book will be published both as a paperback and a hardback. One of the books is p...
Read more

Review: Raider Publishing

Image
A few weeks ago, I received a request from someone who had come across the popular Review: Westbow Press post. This reader requested that I look at Raider Publishing . After asking this reader a few questions via e-mail, I learned that she had used them to publish a book and was disgruntled with them. One of her complaints was that Adam Salviani was not responding to her e-mail and he was “unavailable” when she called his office in New York. This was brought on by her concern because she had not received an advance copy of her book and found that it had been published without her being informed. In her e-mail, she stated that she had been in contact with other customers and they had received the same treatment. I did what I normally do when I receive a request like this concerning a company I don’t recognize. I looked for as much third-party information as I could find on the web. Interestingly, I did that search before I realized she was disgruntled and I found relatively little to...
Read more

Is Tate Publishing a Scam?

Image
T oday, I want to take one more look at Tate Publishing and Enterprises LLC. In case you missed Tuesday’s post, Tate Publishing is a subsidy press that focuses on unpublished authors. They charge a $3,990 publicist setup fee, but they do appear to have sufficient staff to justify their claim that they have allocated $27,000 for each book. Today, I want to look less at promises and more at results. In the interest of showing rather than telling, take a look at the video below: One of the services that Tate Publishing provides is that they create fifteen second spots like the one above and run them on cable networks. They promise 80,000 impressions. Or to state it another way, they promise that 80,000 people will see that commercial. Someone from Tate Publishing is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they charge an additional fee for these commercials. The way I would expect this to play out is that each commercial will air one time with about 80,000 people watching. T...
Read more