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Several years ago, William P. Young wrote a book about his mid-life religious awakening, intended to compensate for several years of indiscretions that had damaged relationships with his wife and children. The Shack was both very moving and quite controversial – with God as an African-American woman and Jesus as a Jewish workman. Initially, he just handed out a manuscript draft to his children and a limited number of friends. That’s where things got interesting. When the friends started asking for additional copies to share with others, Mr.Young began to wonder if he hadn’t created a book that would be of interest to a much wider audience, so he sent a copy to a former pastor, Wayne Jacobsen, also an author of Christian-themed books. Jacobsen was impressed enough to send it to Brad Cummings, another former pastor, who also saw the book’s potential. Together they worked over a year on rewriting, fine-tuning and polishing the book – which they then sent to a number of publishers. But it was rejected by all, Christian and secular publishers alike: the former who thought it was too controversial; the latter who found it too Christian. So out of Pastor Cummings’ garage, with $15,000 of their own money invested, they Self-Published and started selling the book themselves. With only $300 spent on marketing, it took off – on Christian blogs and radio talk shows, with people buying, then ordering a dozen or even a case more. A familiar scenario was developing. A year later, Hachette Book Group contracted with the trio’s Self-Publishing entity, Windblown Media, to mass market the book with subway ads in Atlanta, Chicago and New York, as well as TV spots on the CNN airport network. In 2008, The Shack achieved #1 status on the New York Times Bestseller List – and looks to be there for a long, long time. It’s a classic case of first successfully Self Publishing, then being “discovered” by a major publisher. Doesn’t happen often, but it should provide motivation for Self-Publishers everywhere. |
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