Remember how I said we’d have a special promotion for people who purchased a physical copy of Permission to Speak Freely in a physical store?

Here you go!

The first 100 people to send me a copy of your receipt (a Photobooth, scanned, whatever — just show me your receipt) that proves you bought a copy in a brick and mortar store (like Barnes & Noble, Borders, an independent store, Mardel, wherever…) will get the “e-copy” for whatever device you use for free!

The whole freaking book. So whether you have a Kindle, an iPad, a whatever-you-call-it, you’ll get the electronic version free.

Email your photo or scan to speak@permissiontospeakfreely.com and tell me what eReader you have…

And it’s only for the first 100 people who can prove their in-store purchase.

(By the way, to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, I went to Borders and paid FULL RETAIL (whoa!) for two copies of my own darn book. And I’ll give each of those away to two random commenters at the end of the day today. Check back in the comment section for the winners!)

So:

1) If you got a book at a retail brick-and-mortar store, send me a receipt and get a free eBook.

2) Enter to win a free copy of the two I just bought at Borders by leaving a comment.

Ready? Go!

Sidenote & Soapbox:

I’m writing this in grey because I think it helps me be a little more quiet about it. Let’s pretend that anyway, okay?

Allow me to save you some time and if you want to buy the book, you’re going to have to skip Lifeway on this one. You can only special order it there – they aren’t carrying it in stock…(YET…I do have hope…)

Not that this is a repeat of what happened with my first book (I’m kidding – it’s an exact repeat)…or that Lifeway is a Nashville based company and I am a Nashville based author with a Nashville based publisher and they don’t even have it in their Nashville stores (…just saying…!)

People are asking why it’s not at Lifeway when they go and look for it. And I tell those people I don’t know, but every bookstore down the road (at least here in Nashville) has multiple copies waiting for you. I’m not trying to hate on Lifeway, but come on guys, people are looking in your stores for this book and you’re missing it.

Am I being a bit of a Diva? Probably. I should send a note and some flowers or something instead. That’s what a smart author would do. Smart authors don’t say things about major retailers on their blogs, right?

But I just don’t get it.

Again…..

Sorry.

Just trying to save my readers some time and gas money.

First, thank you all so much for the outpouring of support and kind words for Permission to Speak Freely during its release week last week! THANK YOU!!!

Now, on to the show:

Did you know the first month after a book releases is life or death?

Not in an over-dramatic “IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!“ kind of way, but in the publishing industry, especially in its state of current instability, how a book sells in that first month determines so much about its future.

Savage, book hungry people indulge in a free-for-all book giveaway of Forgotten Books (in the UK)

When I was talking to the amazing team that worked so hard on Permission to Speak Freely, I asked if I could share with you some of the ins-and-outs of how a book goes from a cursed-at blank Microsoft Word document on a computer screen to sitting on a shelf at a local shop or as pixels in an online store.

Because as you know, I truly believe that the group of people (YOU!) who share in reading these thoughts of mine are just as much a part of the publishing process as I am, as my editor is, as the designers are.

They agreed, knowing the special dynamic we have here on FlowerDust.net. And so, as I sat at a conference room table at Thomas Nelson, I learned why the first month is so very important for the long tail of a book.

Here’s how it goes:

• When a book is published (especially by new, unproven, young authors like yours truly), there is a team of people (the sales team) who have relationships with all the different book stores – online and offline and faith-based and general marketplace.
• They pick a few books every season to focus on with these retailers and ask them to purchase a certain quantity of these books.
• They tell them why it’s going to sell, and why it would be smart to place it on this table or this end cap, and sometimes they work out special deals with the retailers in hopes that the retailer will put a focus on the new book.
• Sometimes, the retailers agree, and they order a higher quantity than normal or give it a premium placement or a special mention…and then…

$$$$$ THEY WATCH LIKE HAWKS WITH DOLLAR SIGNS IN THEIR EYES $$$$$

Typically, they give these books a month to prove their worth. And if a book doesn’t sell, they ship most of their inventory of it back and leave one or two copies tucked away in between “The Amish Apocalypse” and the expired communion wafers. These one or two books get lonely, forgotten, and eventually turn into the dust from whence they came.

Am I being slightly over-the-top? Yes.

Have I seen one of my books hidden away between the Amish, The Shadow Government, and the Apocalypse? YES. (Please see Exhibit A, below, taken at Borders Bookstore in Franklin, TN earlier in 2010.)

So I know these things to be true.

I tell you this because I have a request.

If you’ve considered purchasing my book, please do it now.

If you are thinking about getting some as gifts for Christmas, please buy them now.

If you think there’s a chance that sometime in the next five years you’ll give a copy of it away, please buy it now.

It’s okay if it sits on your shelf for three months.

It’s not okay if it sits on the shelf of a retailer for three months. Because it won’t last that long.

Please hear my heart – I can’t express how deeply I care about the message of this book.

And, if I could openly disclose finances to you, you would see that this plea is not because I am going to make some bank on book sales.

Making bank is just not the way publishing works. My bills are paid and I am thankful.

But I know the power of what the message “You are not alone” means because I’ve walked it. Many of you have shared how you have walked it too. And it would absolutely break my heart to see the message of this book get lost in the machinery and procedures of book retailers.

Tomorrow, I am going to announce a special promotion for anyone who goes to a physical bookstore and purchases a copy of Permission to Speak Freely. But even without the promotion, I hope you would support this.

I’m going to be honest with you guys.

We really need to move copies of this book through the system THIS MONTH so that it can stay in stores longer and through that, reach more people.

And you know what? If it somehow becomes a best-seller and moves up to that ever-so-prominent space in the front of the store, just imagine with me how many more people will pick it up, thumb through it, see the art, the pain, and the promise of hope that they so desperately need.

I can’t do this without you.

Are you with me?

PS – A plethora of options to purchase the book for yourself, your friend, your dog are available here. :)

Is the whole thing just a fantastic private comedy?

I question myself and my whole life very seriously.

The real absurdity of it all!

In a word, what I see is this: that, while I imagined I was functioning fairly successfully, I was living a sort of patched-up, crazy existence, a series of rather hopeless improvisations, a life of unreality in many ways.

Always underlain by a certain solid silence and presence, a faith, a clinging to the Invisible God. This clinging (perhaps rather His holding on to me) has been in the end the only thing that has made sense.

The rest has been absurdity.

What is more, there is no essential change in sight.

I’ll probably go on like this for the rest of my life.

Here “I” am: this patchwork, this bundle of questions and doubts and obsessions, this gravitation to silence and to the woods and to love.

This incoherence!

There is no longer anything to pride myself in, least of all…being anything…a writer…or anything.

(Merton, Journals, September 5, 1966, VI. 125)

First, I think everyone in the world should be in counseling.

That said, I was in counseling the other day.

I’ve made an agreement with myself to always be honest, even if I sound like a…jerk…with him.

Below is a portrait of a conversation we had.

—–

Him: So, if God was saying to you in any circumstance, not just this current issue you’re facing, “Follow me. Trust me. Do this,” what would you say?

Me: Right now? Today? At this moment? I’d say no.

Him: So you’d rebel.

Me: Yeah. I guess I would. At this moment anyway.

Him: Does that scare you?

Me: A little. But right now, I’m kind of at a point where I don’t care. (Waiting for a lightning strike).

Him: Well, I really appreciate your honesty. (Looks up.) “I hear you.” (Probably also waiting for a lightning strike).

—–

Do you just give up sometimes?

Do you knowingly rebel?

Are you more afraid of the work ahead of you and the ways that you could fail than what the consequences of rebelling would be?

Sometimes…do you just not care?

Confession: Sometimes…I don’t.

—-

Epilogue:

The thing I’m supposed to think about now?

If I said yes…my next job is to say to God, “Fine, then.” (Because I’m sarcastic). “Show me how.”

And wait.

Is there an area in your life where you can ask God that question?

A few months ago, I sat in a little room for two days and read my book into a microphone that was essentially bigger than my face. I kept saying words incorrectly. Easy words. Like “rediscover” and “understand.”

My voice started getting rough and I thought I began to sound like a man.

The producer assured me I didn’t.

But you can decide for yourself.

My book (read by yours truly, in quite possibly a manly voice), is released through ChristianAudio.com and today through Friday (at noon Pacific Time), you can download it – yes – the entire audio book for only $2.98.

Click here to download the audio book for just $2.98 (make sure and use the promo code JACKSON7210 to receive your discount!)

Thanks, ChristianAudio.com for offering this nifty discount to celebrate the release of Permission to Speak Freely!

Yay!