On Monday morning, I emailed the manuscript for The Blogging Church to Jossey-Bass! Lori, Ben and I all gathered around the computer for the momentous click. Those two have been absolutely incredible throughout - there definitely wouldn't be a book without them.
The last month has been quite an experience. I've been writing nearly every waking moment that I wasn't working or eating. Most of it was a lot of fun as I do better when I have no choice but to focus on one thing. In many cases, I ended up writing more in a day than I used to write in a week, leading me to wonder what I've been doing for the past year :)
At least I wondered that until I totally hit a creative wall at the very end. That's when I doubted I would ever put coherent words together to form a sentence again! I was also surprised at how long the editing and formatting part took after the last words were written. I wish I had had about 2 weeks to do that, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of looks at it before everything is final.
The final word count was 63,298 over 16 chapters, 7 interviews, and 1 preface. Word count is something I knew nothing about before this book, so here's a little background. The average paperback has 250 words per page and the average hardcover has 300. The Blogging Church is going to be published in paperback, so the current version would be approximately 250 pages. To give some examples, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is 37K words, To Kill a Mockingbird is 100K, Harry Potter books are between 150K and 250K words, and the New Testament is 138K.
What's fascinating about the book process is that each step is something completely different. The proposal/contract process had little similarity with the last 9 months of writing, and next comes a few weeks of editing and revision, followed by the marketing fun of finalizing the cover and promotional details.
And just in case any of you might still be wondering if this whole thing is just vaper-paper, here's the (Currently Not Available) book, live on Amazon.com!
Well I wishlisted it there, any other way to get it faster? ;-)
looking forward to it. I expect it to be kind of a Naked Conversations Dressed Up!
Posted by: rob | June 06, 2006 at 03:44 PM
Congrats! Can't wait to give it a read-through. Sounds like it will be a great resource, with all those interviews.
Posted by: Nathan Smith | June 06, 2006 at 05:03 PM
simply fantastic!...very excited for you Brian..
Posted by: eloy ramirez | June 06, 2006 at 07:13 PM
This has been such an amazing process. Thank you for your passion and commitment to this project. You are an amazing writer, and it is only because of you that this idea and then offer became a reality!
The next several months should be a lot of fun...
Posted by: Terry Storch | June 06, 2006 at 08:32 PM
can't wait for it. i'll probably need to order a few dozen copies so i can give it away to those i push blogging on. i'm finding myself touting the potential of blogging in nearly every conversation i have with church leaders. i need a resource like this to put in their hands. the church today is ripe for this project. i'm glad y'all did it.
Posted by: dan ohlerking | June 07, 2006 at 12:01 AM
Thanks for all the kind comments and support - it's greatly appreciated!
Rob: Thanks! Hopefully it will be available for pre-order soon.
Nathan: Yeah, I think the interviews will be one of the highlights - showing the experience of real pastors.
Eloy: Thanks, man!
Terry: Thanks, Terry! It has definitely been quite a ride - now comes the fun part!
Dan: We'll have to get you a bulk discount or something :) Thanks for the Amazon "pre-release" review, too!
Posted by: Brian | June 08, 2006 at 09:03 AM
I look forward to reading it! I'm sure it will be great.
I'm curious to who will be doing the cover artwork for the book?
Posted by: Jarrett Fuller | June 08, 2006 at 01:08 PM
Brian...kudos on the book!!! I will read it cover-to-cover. I'm immersed in "Naked Conversations" and just read the section on Fellowship & your blogging experience. As you probably know, CCA handles copyright clearances for Fellowship (Saddleback, Willow & many others) & I was there consulting 2 yrs. ago & met with Lori. I'm getting ready to dive into blogging...mostly how copyright compliance requirements impact churches, new techology issues, and my thoughts on worship. It will be linked to our site, but I won't be "selling" our product. I'd greatly appreciate any advice, comments, guidance you could share. By the way, we just launched our new online database CopyrightSolver & hope it lives up to our tag--"like online banking for copyright clearances." Many thanks & blessings to you & Lori & Ben.
Posted by: Susan Fontaine Godwin | June 11, 2006 at 02:00 PM
I just stumbled onto your blog and I'm delighted to discover that someone's writing a book on leveraging blogging for the gospel. I look forward to reading your blog. I'm new to blogging, having just launched my blog three weeks ago. It's a blog to stimulate discussion on engaging busines & culture with the gospel. I would appreciate if any of you more experienced Christian bloggers would take a look and give me suggestions or advice. thanks.
Posted by: Andre Yee | June 17, 2006 at 09:31 PM