Book Publicity as a Cultural Act

Image by Mikko Saari.

I needed a Stephanie Smith about seven years ago, before I gave up on publicity and a book I felt compelled to share with the world. It is what it is now, but I'm encouraged to know that service is her focus in a world of too many self-serving, megaphone-toting, insecurity-driven authors. I am happy to share her marketing view with you this morning at TheHighCalling.org:

"In between the dozens of drafts and the time their magnum opus hits the printer, some authors get cold feet. They feel it’s still an important book, but suddenly, to spread the word about it through a publicity campaign would be disingenuous. Suddenly, it’s not God’s message, but 'self-promotion.' They feel more comfortable in the high art of the writing process, and want to leave the 'dirty work' of promotion to me.

I count it my professional privilege to debunk this illusion. I understand that when you’ve poured so much of yourself into a work, it becomes harder to discern the lines between yourself and your art, and easier to equate book promotion with self-promotion. But these don’t have to be one and the same. What often makes the difference is our motives: Are we serving ourselves, or are we serving an idea that we believe will influence lives for the better?"

READ MORE about Stephanie's philosophy in Everything Matters: Book Publicity as a Cultural Act.

TheHighCalling.org is a site about faith, work, and God.

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Self-promotion for Christmas

I don't feel comfortable with a lot of self-promotion but, hey, you might be shopping for Christmas and I just so happen to have a possible encouragement for someone on your list. Glynn Young, author of the newly published Dancing Priest, shared a few nice words about On Earth as It is in Advertising? Moving from Commercial Hype to Gospel Hope.

I received the compliments as a gift and pass them along as such. Here's an excerpt:

"...Author Sam Van Eman is tossing a live hand grenade right into the middle of Christian complacency...[and] is taking on what is still the most significant issue affecting American Christianity – how consumer culture has invaded and taken over the church, resulting in our inability to tell the difference between what he calls the 'SimGospel' and the Gospel of the church."

Read the full review and then get your copy of On Earth at Wipf & Stock Publishers.

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Check for $97

I've had an ongoing fight with an advertising book since October of 2005. I once believed in it, supported it and loved it. Others did too. And then someone with another opinion took over and after one brief paragraph the fight began.

"...simplistic...obvious...overstates...no startling features to distinguish it...." All punches to my fragile pride.  

Tony Campolo had said it was "a must read for anyone who is trying to critique our culture and stand against its debilitating effects." Ron Sider called it "an important, urgent, penetrating analysis of how today's pervasive materialism seduces us and how biblical faith liberates us." The president emeritus of Bread for the World said that it was stellar.

I loved this praise. I had worked hard, cared deeply and had a grand vision of pulling materialistic America out of its blind consumption, and I wasn't alone. Jean Kilbourne, famed for her relentless and articulate beef with Madison Avenue since the 70s, stood behind me. She said I had done "a masterful job of demonstrating how the 'simulated gospel' of advertising perverts and distorts Jesus's message of love and compassion."

But insecurity confuses all of this. It doubts. It entertains unprovable possibilities. She was just being nice. He was paid to do it. He didn't really read it - just liked the title and first few pages and gambled on it being good. I've thought a hundred variations like these, all reminders that the only opinion I really believed was the one that started the fight. These were its offspring. 

One year after its release, On Earth as It is in Advertising? Moving from Commercial Hype to Gospel Hope went out of print. I tried to forget about the whole thing until, several years later, Wipf & Stock Publishers asked if they could bring it back on a need to print basis. I didn't really care. Sure, I said. I disliked the new cover (I care enough about advertising to think it should be done well). They promised a dollar per copy and I signed. And then I forgot about it again.    

This morning I received a surprise check in the mail. Without telling my youngest daughter what it was for, I asked her to guess how much it might be worth. She said $5. I guessed $4.

It was $97. I'm not sure what to think about having sold 97 more copies of something collecting dust on the shelf and in my mind, but I smiled. Then not two minutes later I imagined a benefactor had set me up just like Pip in Great Expectations; someone nice and in the mood to send me a hug. Another doubt.  

This post may amount to being the worst book promotion ever, but I set out to write about a fight I continue having with myself, almost four decades old, book or no book. I'm haunted by fear and the criticism that lurks about.

Don't buy a copy because you feel bad for me. I've moved on in other ways. But if you want to read a simplistic, overstated, nothing new book that is simultaneously a masterfully demonstrated, important, urgent, penetrating analysis (See what goes on in mind?), you can find reviews and sources for the original here, or buy it direct from Wipf & Stock.

Better yet, call or email my favorite local bookstore, Hearts and Minds Books.

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Rad! And other responses to chaos reduction and self-promotion

My online life is splintered. The debris isn't as widespread as it is for many, but I sense the chaos factor increasing with each new application, community membership and task. Do you know the feeling? It's like having too many kids and always wondering if you left one of them at church.

I need to do some gathering. Case in point: I've had an off-the-beaten-path and very under-promoted promotional website for the past few years. It doesn't help that I never really liked the design, but it's still mine and I can't leave it behind.

Thanks to new tools here at Blogger, I'm finally doing something about it.

Irresistible self-promotion
This week I added two new pages to New Breed of Advertisers. They say more about what I do and how I might help you do what you do. You'll find the tabs at the top of the page. Pass them along to a professor, student, chaplain, copywriter.... Those are all folks I work with.

In case you're hesitating on whether or not to click on Talk and Write, I'll tempt you with this:

 See what I mean? Irresistible. That's me in the hat, chillin'.

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The King of Madison Avenue. You know...Whats-His-Name

I love Grady Powell's opening paragraph in this week's Books and Culture review of The King of Madison Avenue. I'll hold off on giving you the subtitle for a moment to give you time to guess the king's name. (Hint: The book is about advertising.) Here are Powell's observation and a helpful question:

"[M]ost people would struggle to identify a national advertising agency, much less any of the copywriters, designers, or directors that produce our daily intake of commercials and billboards—with the possible exception of the fictional characters in Mad Men. The more advertising becomes central to our society, the more we take for granted its power to shape the way we think. Advertisers, like op-ed columnists, are trying to change your mind. Shouldn't you know who they are?"

Yes. But he's right: we don't.

I guess this isn't much different than not knowing who brings water into my home. Except for this: At least I know the water company's title and can reach a representative with a 1-800 number. Same with the men (and one woman) who pick up my trash. I don't know them, but I've seen them there in the alley and maybe even said "Thanks" a time or two when I ran out late with the recycling bin. The work these folks do has an enormous impact on my daily life. Imagine no more garbage haulers. Or no more water service.

It's different with advertising because there is no 1-800 number; no occasional vision of workers in the background, nobody to know. And yet they have and use "power to shape the way we think."

Maybe this is part of advertising's problem. If you've ever imagined being invisible, you've probably imagined a few bad things you could get away with. Even if it's just to be that invisible fly on the wall to overhear a dying-to-know conversation, invisibility is powerful and potentially dangerous.

What accountability is there in advertisers' relative anonymity?

Anonymity on the loose

Consider this: How would advertising change if every ad ended with customer service contact information? Not for the product, of course, but a number or address to reach the copywriter and art director behind the ad. Would it raise the bar? Would people actually call? Would consumers demand more honesty and better treatment? Would SimGospel advertising diminish?

As far back as 62 years ago, that consumer comment or complaint might have reached the desk of the eventual king of Madison Avenue, David Ogilvy. (Did you guess correctly?) Ogilvy was a famous copywriter who worked his way to the throne, and whether you've heard of him or not, he left behind tremendous influence on the world of advertising as we know it today.

There are good agencies out there. And there are Christian and non-Christian advertisers who exhibit the attributes of Christ in their advertising work. But Powell's observation reminds me of the importance of accountability and what good might come from having more of it.

Read Powell's review here.

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It's Jubilee Day and I have a little something for you

Today is Jubilee Day™, "the largest, longest running one-day street fair in the eastern part of the United States." For a small town like ours, 60,000 attendees is nothing to sneeze at. 

The Old Testament Jubilee Day was nothing to sneeze at either. You can read about it in Leviticus 25 and imagine what restoring justice, correcting misfortunes, liberating servants and the like would have done for small towns 3500 years ago (and what this list would do for us today). 

I'm not sure cotton candy or a puppet show will provide anything in the way of justice for me and the kids this afternoon, but I'm sure it will bring a bit of jubilation. And I thought I could bring a bit of jubilation to you, too.

On Earth as It is in Advertising?

I don't have any special prizes or kick up your heels deals, but in honor of all things Jubilee maybe I can make you a little happier and a little more aware of injustice with a book offer. In 2005, Brazos Press published On Earth as It is in Advertising? Moving from Commercial Hype to Gospel Hope. It was reprinted this spring by Wipf & Stock.

I don't talk much about On Earth for a couple of reasons: 1) Self-promotion feels salesy to me, and 2) An early negative review took wind out of my sails.

Yet it's a book about injustice that every TV-watching, magazine-reading, banner ad-viewing, mall-visiting human being encounters: Bad advertising. Because I care about work and its relationship to neighbors, and because I care about the specific work of advertising being done well and right, I consider "SimGospel" advertising to be an injustice.

Critics and Endorsers
Read the original Publishers Weekly review that dropped my sails (and sales) and then read the very different endorsements on the back cover. If you're looking for a Summer read, pick up a copy. (The reprint on the right has a different cover but the content is the same).

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