613 Media — Telling the Story

Well, it is official. I signed the contract today to publish “The 12th Demon: Vampyre Majick” with BookPros and their Synergy Imprint. The book is slated to reach bookstores in March, 2008. Now, that seems like a long way off, but it really isn’t. We are hoping to get the book out and feature it at BEA, the Book Expo of America. This is the largest book exposition in the country and is held once a year. By bringing my book out in March, 2008 we hope to build momentum up to the BEA.

I showed the designers some early book art for “The 13th Demon” and they got really excited about it. Jeremy’s earlier design featured red, black, and gray colors and BookPros wants to go with that color scheme for the 12th demon book. Once again, they told me how the book cover for “The 13th Demon” is what sold their marketing division on agreeing to help me market a print on demand book. And, it was a big point in my favor in accepting me for publication. So, thanks again Jeremy for an awesome job. I was a bit disappointed that Jeremy’s new, awesome design for the book series was felt to be too horrifying for the Christian fiction marketplace. But, I hope that Jeremy and I can find another use for the cover, perhaps for my “The Node of God” science fiction series. I haven’t talked much about that series but stay tuned. I hope to get to work on it sometime in late 2007.

As far as “Shadow Merchants”, I hope to finish the manuscript this summer and based on my experiences with BookPros, may approach them to publish this book series. Jeremy has created a kicker book cover for this series about a forensic radiologist trying to solve the murder of his wife.

The Homecoming Tree will most probably be published within the next year. I’ve had to move all my projects around once the possibility of getting “The 12th Demon” out within a year arose. If I can stagger the projects, I’ll have 3 to 4 books released each year from each series. “The Homecoming Tree” will be the first in a series of inspirational fiction based on my plays.

Jeremy is also working on concept art for the cover of “The Centurion Wore Tennis Shoes” for publication sometime this year. I will probably do this through Cafepress or Lulu since it has a narrow audience of interest. It will be a collection of anecdotes and associated devotions from my fifteen years in charge of church drama. It promises to be both hilarious and inspiring.

Just so you’ll know, I have finished the first final draft of “The 12th Demon”. My process is to do a final rewrite, lay it aside for a week and then go back and start fine tuning. At this level, the changes are picky and meticulous and have to do with tweaking dialogue and refining what I call the “sensory” input in the prose and tag lines. It is also the most painful part of the process because it is where I choose to cut the extraneous scenes to tighten the story. For instance, there was a beautiful scene at the end of 13th demon in the flower garden between Liz and Steel that was particularly touching. But, it slowed down the “falling action” after the climax of the book and protracted the ending too much. Also, it really humanized Steel far too early in the life of his character. He is too much of a “porcupine” to let him become too huggable this early in the book series. Those kind of cuts are very painful but it represents the two sides of writing – writing and editing. The two are separate and require putting on two different hats; two different mindsets.

Next week, I will be interviewed on a paranormal, UFO radio station, http://www.bbsradio.com/bbc/ufos.php. This will be on April 25th at 11 PM CDT live if you want to listen in over the internet. It should be a very interesting interview.

This has been one busy week!
If first started with an exciting conversation with Michael Odom, president of BookPros and project consultant, Breanna Rollings about “The 12th Demon”. BookPros has now accepted my second book in the Jonathan Steel Series for publication under their Synergy Books imprint! This is incredible news. I’m looking forward to working with the BookPros staff in the coming months to put the finishing touches on “The 12th Demon”.

I also had a comfortable live radio interview Wednesday morning with Gary Longstaff, the host of the morning show on KWFC (Keep Witness For Christ) in Springfield, Missouri. The station covers over a half a million people in southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, and eastern Kansas. It is the largest Christian radio station in the region! We talked about the Lost Tomb of Jesus, the conflict between faith and fact, and evidence for God. I really enjoyed them asking about “The 13th Demon” and “Conquering Depression”. Along with Dave, we had a great time just talking about the Lord and sharing about our families and our ministries. Thanks guys for a great interview! You can check them out at www.kwfc.org and hear the radio broadcast live on the Internet.

I spoke with Mark Pinsky of the Orlando Sentinel in mid morning. We had a stimulating conversation about the Gnostic Gospels and evidence for the accuracy of the books of the New Testament. He particularly wanted to know how I felt about faith versus reason. I told him that Christians have “checked their brains at the door” for too long and that we are commanded to use our minds, to test everything we hear against the scriptures, and to study the Bible. We also talked about the basis of apologetics, the admonition in the New Testament to be prepared to give a reason for what we believe in and to do so with gentleness and respect. The article will appear in Easter Sunday’s Orland Sentinel, www.orlandosentinel.com.

Speaking of Orlando, I will be doing a book signing at the Barnes & Nobel on Sand Lake Road on Saturday, May 26th from 1 to 3.

That’s all for today and there is more to come. I have a live “drive time” radio interview Friday at 5:20 P.M. on the Homeward Bound show on KLGO-FM in Austin (www.klso.net; www.theword993.com ). There may be time for call in questions so say a little prayer for me.

Blessings for Easter and Rejoice! He is Risen!