SharperIron

Last week, I was given the opportunity to do a book signing at the Christian Bookseller’s Association (CBA) International Christian Retail Show, held July 9-13 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. I recently authored a book, Alone With God, and had it and an accompanying journal published through JourneyForth, a division of Bob Jones University Press.

The CBA is the trade association for the Christian retail channel, serving the interests and meeting the needs of nearly 2,300 member Christian stores. These stores provide Bibles, Christian books, curriculum, apparel, music, videos, gifts, greeting cards, children’s resources, and other materials. Guesstimated attendance at the convention was 10,000.

A book signing is a chance to give your book away to potential buyers. Throughout the conference, hundreds of authors were present to spend one hour signing as many books as they possibly could. I was scheduled for Tuesday morning at 11 a.m. and signed 250 books in an hour. It was a lot of fun! I noticed a couple of things. Many people admit to struggling in the area of their daily devotions, and it seemed as though they were truly interested. Others were obviously interested in a free book, and that was it. “Just sign your name.” Others were simply filling their suitcase with freebies to sell online. Amazon’s link to my book now has several “used” copies for sale. Regardless, I found it helpful to have something that summed up my thoughts and philosophy on the private life in one neat little package.
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First of all, I want to say thank you to the dozens of people who gave me a financial gift at the birth of our fourth son, Spurgeon. That was unexpected. When Greg Linscott and Brian McCrorie asked me what I wanted, I told them that assistance to get my family to Hawaii would be wonderful. I was asked to speak for three weeks at the Independent Baptist Camps of Oahu, and I decided to take my whole family. My ticket is paid for by the camp, but that left me with four more tickets to purchase. So your gift paid for my wife’s ticket, and it gives us $300 to get away to the other side of the island (the opposite side from our kids) for a few days. Thank you so much. SI is a labor of love for me, and I would do it without any benefits, but the benefits have been supreme. My wife and I just had Dan and Addy Forrest over to our home and had a wonderful time. Addy is a budding writer, and Dan is finishing up his doctorate in music at the University of Kansas. We did not know either one of them before the launch of SI. The greatest advantage of running the site has been the development of new and old relationships with people all over the world. The SI family has added a wonderful dimension to our lives.

So I will be out-of-pocket until July 9th. Greg Linscott is officially in charge of the site while I am gone, so if the insurgents would like to do a hostile takeover, now’s your best shot! read more