FirstBookCoverI First got involved in book publishing at an entry level back in 1978. I was hired as an artist for Kenneth Hagin Ministries and my main responsibility was to layout the monthly publication and design book covers.

When I left there to start my own graphics art company in 1987, I had no idea of starting a publishing company or getting involved in book production other than designing book covers — that was always fun.

To my surprise, almost from day one, the main request for my new graphics company was, “Do you do books?” Over and over I heard this request, so what else could I say but, “Yes, of course we do books!”  After that, producing, promoting and distributing books became our main course. Over the span of all these years, we have done many books for many people and it has given us a real sense of what is required to successfully publish a book and what works and what doesn’t.

So many times we would work with people that God was really dealing with them on some very personal issues or challenges in their life, or faults in their character, or hurts in their soul. They would come to us to help them put a book together on what God was dealing with them about. At first we were not aware of what was going on, but after working together with these people for a little while we would find it very interesting that the book they were writing was exactly what they needed to get for themselves. We would think to ourselves, “They need to read their own book.”

At first we would kind of kid around about it, but then we began to see a pattern developing of more and more people coming to us in the same situation. We finally came to the realization that writing these messages for so many of these folks was therapy for them personally and it really was not meant to be published and released to the general public at all. This was part of the learning curve for us in understanding people and helping to evaluate what they were bringing to us to be published.

If you are seriously looking to “do a book” I would recommend that first of all ask yourself the question, “why?” Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself the right questions. Do I want to do a book to make a name for myself? Do I want to do a book to make some extra money? Do I want to do a book for my own personal therapy? Do I want to do a book because someone else told me I should? Do I want to do a book because I just can’t shake the idea and I have tried for years, but still can’t get away from the fact that on the inside of me I need to put this word in print because I know that it’s going to help somebody, encourage somebody, entertain somebody.

All I am saying is that you need to be very focused and serious and ready to make the commitment to start and finish a book project. It represents a commitment of time and finances. The rewards certainly can be well worth the effort, and that is why we are here to help the journey be more enjoyable, and by all means, less confusing and in some cases, less painful and ultimately more successful.

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