{"id":23824,"date":"2016-06-09T00:01:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T07:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=23824"},"modified":"2016-06-09T00:01:39","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T07:01:39","slug":"write-another-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/write-another-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Write Another Book? I Dunno . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
Rob Bell signed copies of his book and greeted well-wishers at the Bay Area Book Festival. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

“Barbara, you’ve got to write another book,” a southern California friend said — quite emphatically — after finishing “Wrestling with God.”<\/p>\n

And the other night, at a meeting of the Left Coast Writers salon at Book Passage in Marin, a fellow writer asked, “What’s your next book going to be?”<\/p>\n

Another book? I dunno . . .<\/p>\n

I don’t mind the effortful process\u00a0of writing a book. Writing is what I do. It’s me. What’s giving me pause is\u00a0the inevitable, grueling, often humiliating work of promoting the darned thing\u00a0once I’ve written it.<\/p>\n

The promotion chores never end. So many bloggers to contact. So many churches and temples and book clubs to call up and persuade\u00a0to invite me to read and talk. So many “influencers” to send a copy of my book. So many brassy tweets and catchy FB updates to pitch — often fruitlessly — into the black hole that is cyberspace. So many manys.<\/p>\n

My question right now is — where do I\u00a0stop?\u00a0How many books do I have to sell to feel I’ve given\u00a0“Wrestling with God” the launch it deserves?\u00a0500? 5,000? 50,000?<\/p>\n

The subject came up last weekend as I was chatting\u00a0with author Rob Bell at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley. I wanted to say hello and give him a copy of “Wrestling with God” because it includes a quote from him and because he’s from Michigan.<\/p>\n

Bell was at the festival\u00a0promoting his latest book, “How to Be Here,”\u00a0(HarperOne). He’d talked for an hour-plus to a crowd of hundreds. He’d entertained them mightily, and afterwards he could be found\u00a0outdoors, cheerfully signing books.<\/p>\n

Rob Bell\u00a0on Shall I\u00a0Write Another Book?<\/h5>\n

Don’t\u00a0worry about the sales numbers, he told me. “If you sell 1,000 books, you want to sell 10,000. If you sell 10,000, you think you have to sell 100,000.”<\/p>\n

“Yeah?”<\/p>\n

“Yeah. How many copies would be enough for you?”<\/p>\n

I decided to be honest. Couldn’t hurt. “A million,” I said.<\/p>\n

Bell is a good guy. He didn’t laugh. He said, “There are people who have sold a million and still say, ‘But, oh. I haven’t broken into the UK market.'”<\/p>\n

That made me laugh. Bell is good at making people laugh.<\/p>\n

“What brings you joy?” he asked.<\/p>\n

That’s what Bell\u00a0had been asking his festival audience all\u00a0day — what lights you up? It’s the question, the message, that’s\u00a0causing\u00a0his “How to Be Here” book to fly off the shelves.<\/p>\n

Easy for him to say. His “joy” has brought him big success<\/a>. He’s\u00a0the\u00a0founder of the famous Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan. He’s the\u00a0pastor-turned-author that Time magazine listed in 2011 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Bell’s idea of joy actually seems to include\u00a0promoting his books.<\/p>\n

Do what\u00a0brings you joy. It’s kind of a one-size-fits-all message.\u00a0But it suits me. It\u00a0fits me fine, and I’m going to grab it. Thanks, Rob.<\/p>\n

Next question: what brings me joy? Writing another book? Or something else? Watch this space.<\/p>\n

If I remember correctly, finishing a book that took a dozen years to write is definitely a high and joyful moment: “Yipee! I Did It. I Finished My Book.”<\/a>\u00a0And so is finishing a quilt that took even longer — decades: “A Crazy-Making Crazy Quilt — Finished at Last.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Write another book? I don’t mind the writing. What’s giving me pause is the grueling, humiliating work of promoting the darned thing once I’ve written it. Author Rob Bell had some advice.\u00a0Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,52],"tags":[1702,83,1512,34,482,1703,290,82,1704,488,197,53,69],"class_list":["post-23824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-the-writing-room","tag-bay-area-book-festival","tag-book","tag-book-promotion","tag-dont-miss","tag-harperone","tag-joy","tag-my-rocky-spiritual-journey-2","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-rob-bell","tag-the-writing-life","tag-the-writing-room-2","tag-wrestling-with-god","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}