Marketplaces are incredibly complex

There’s an interesting post in a marketing blog I follow this morning. It talks about the size of the publishing industry. The graphic is copied from her post—the data is from 2012. It shows that the largest portion of the content creation industries is publishing. I do not know if ebooks are even included in this pie chart.

Printing has always been in the top three manufacturing industries. It’s a huge segment of our economy. Wikipedia tells us that for the latest year with stats [2013] 2,200,000 new books were published with China leading the list and the US second. To quote from the post which triggered this article:

In 2014, Amazon’s book sales were about $5.6 billion, which is about 11.6% of Amazon’s retail sales. This amount of book sales represents the equivalent of 3,600 book stores. That’s a whole lot of books.

The post is from a Christian marketing group running a blog. The woman heading it up makes the most common mistake made by Christian marketers. She assumes that heathen marketing rules apply to us. That is not always true. In fact, it is not commonly true.

Our rules are different

First of all, let me say that I have worked in this industry since the late 1970s. I was on the printing end of things. But I’ve read and studied current techniques since 1978 or so. I was the art director for a public relations agency for a while. In addition, the printing company, of which I was the art director for most of the 1980s, specialized in full-color marketing pieces for companies and advertising agencies. So, I know how it works in the kosmos [see below].

What I do not know is the call the Lord has on your life or what He wants you to do. That’s between you and Him. However, there are some things you need to take into account.

• Marketing is part of the kosmos, the world system set up by the enemy and which he controls. Our position is close to a Jew in the early 1940s sneaking into Germany to get things done. The enemy’s goal is to make sure powerful Christian books do not succeed.
  

  ---

• As believers we are to humble ourselves and let the Lord lift us up. There are plenty of verses in the epistles which tell us that {James, Peter, and more}. Psalms and Proverbs will reinforce that for you.
  

  ---

• As sons and daughters of God, reborn and added to the body of the Messiah, we are charged to follow His lead and talk to Him about these things before we blindly follow the rules of the kosmos.
  

  ---

Scripture gives us lots of good advice, as you know

One of my favorite verses about Christian marketing is this one out of II Corinthians 4:1&2—it reads most clearly in RSV:

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. [RSV]

Let the open statement of the truth be your guide

But we must temper this with a more general wisdom from when I was growing up: a person simply “does not brag on himself (or herself)”. Our Christian attitude ramps that up a bit. We find it most clearly stated in James

…do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “He yearns jealously for the spirit that lives in us”? But He gives more grace. For this reason it says: 

“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (crossref: Proverbs 3:34)

Therefore submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to dejection. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. [James 4:4-10 MEV]

If Jesus has called you to write, He has a plan for the distribution of your work. Spend none of your capital without His OK. Seek the Lord for His plan. Believe me, He has one for you. If you do anything outside that plan you will get very frustrated. Let Him lift you up.

Our goal is to get our books into the hands of the people the Lord wants us to touch. The rest of it [any additional sales] is just the blessing of the Lord. I would also pray that He keeps your book out of the hands of the enemy. He will just use it to attack you.

You need to pray, and you need intercessors for your work!

[yasr_visitor_multiset setid=1]