Timothy's Thoughts

W hat do all the big names in Christian publishing—names like Rick Warren, Robin McGraw, Mike Huckabee and Max Lucado—have in common? No, it isn’t doctrine. Yes, they all have a huge platform , but that isn’t it. No, the thing they have in common is that they don’t blog.  Cindy commented yesterday about how it might be interesting to see whether successful authors have more followers who are readers or followers who are writers. The only way to answer that is to ask, so I decided to compose an e-mail message to send to each of the top writers. I went to Mike Hyatt’s blog, where I remembered that he had a list of the top Christian authors, thinking that would be a good place to start. I expected find their e-mail addresses on their websites and if I didn’t I would see if I could contact them through their publishers. As I moved down the list, I quickly noticed the problem. Not only did they not have e-mail addresses, they don’t have blogs. It would do me no good to ask about peop...

Y esterday, Rachelle Gardner had a post about what writers can learn from the Susan Boyle phenomenon . She offered two lessons. One, the impression we make early on is the most important. I remember taking a career development class in junior high. One of the things I remember is something about the first twelve being the most important in an interview. We walk in the door and the first twelve seconds forms the first impression. A decision will likely be made in the first twelve minutes, though the interview may go on longer. The point is that we never get a second chance to make a good first impression. The second lesson Rachelle mentioned was that it is the work that matters most . That one’s a little bit of a stretch, I think, as you will see in a moment. Yes, Susan Boyle can sing. She can sing very well. The problem is that looking to Susan Boyle for advice on how to succeed is a little like asking financial advice from a lottery winner. There was once a man who had done quite well...