Two dirty little secrets of religious publishing.

 Many of you know my book “FOCUS – Five Critical Areas of Spiritual Growth for Christians and Churches” is due to be released next week. This is my first book, and the process has been a learning experience, to say the least. I have made many mistakes along the way, and I have learned many things that should help my writing to become even more productive in the future. During this journey, I learned many things that I don’t think most readers are aware of, at least I was not, and I want to share a couple of them with you.

First, there is a difference between “Writer” and “Author.” In my ignorance, I always used these two terms interchangeably, but they are very different. In short, a writer is a person who writes a work and the author is the person who comes up with the idea that is being written about.  The author is also the person whose name is on the work and controls the copyright over the work. Most of the nonfiction works being authored by celebrity pastors are written by someone else. Some refer to this as “Ghostwriting.”

My first experience with this was when I was working for a New York Times bestselling author, and I was sent to pick up a draft of his book from the real writer so he, the author, could read it before it was published. I had heard about Ghostwriting before but did not realize how prevalent it was, especially in the nonfiction genera. Ghostwriters rarely receive credit for their writing beyond a paycheck, with the author often referring to themselves as the writer or referencing the book “they wrote.” To me, particularly for those writing on Spiritual issues, this seems unethical although it is the industry norm. Some other Pastors feel the same way I do and have begun to share credit with the real writers, with the writer’s name being printed with the author’s name on the front of the book, a move in the industry I applaud.

The argument of using Ghostwriters was that it often produces a final job easier to read and more grammatically correct. I personally will take honesty over grammar, any day.

For the record – FOCUS was 100% written and authored by me, and I’m sure my grammatical mistakes will make that very clear. 🙂

Secondly, when signing with large publishers, an author agrees to use whatever Bible version they are hocking that particular week. Bible version copyrighting is a multibillion-dollar industry and Publishers use the newly released books as promotional tools to push their particular version on the readers. Accuracy takes a backseat to profit. Therefore, you will often see the same pastor use a different Bible version in each of his books. Because the publisher, not the author, writer or God decides which version to use. Again, a very unethical way to get a book to market and make a few extra dollars. For this reason many legitimate Pastors, myself included, are rejecting the larger publishers in favor of the smaller publishing houses or self-publishing their books. It helps them stay true to what God has given them and not the money.

These are just a couple of things I learned while working on my book. I may share a few more at a latter date.

Be Good, Pastor Jay