The InterVarsity Press publication that has perhaps done more to shape the spiritual life of readers than anything else we’ve produced was actually one of our first. Quiet Time is a quiet classic that since 1945 has sold a million copies around the world, introducing readers in simple direct language to the daily discipline of spending time alone with God. There, as we listen in the calm, we hear him not in loud thunderbolts but in a still, soft voice.
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He Was No “Uncle Tom”
Not only does this year mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War, but this month marks the 200th birthday of the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book was the biggest hardback bestseller in American history and drew such a dramatic reaction across the country that Abraham Lincoln said, famously, on meeting the author, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”
I took the opportunity to observe this bicentennial by reading the book that caused such a stir at the time but has endured much distortion and derision since.
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Brand Limits
It’s not news that a strong brand can be your biggest asset. That’s one of the main points Michael Thompson made in his Merchants of Culture (which I blogged about here). When gatekeepers and consumers know who you are, what you stand for and what they are guaranteed to get from you, your work as a publisher becomes much easier—and very likely more profitable.
What is less often noted is that a strong brand can also be your biggest limitation.
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Lighting a Candle of Technology
“Corbin and Eric want you to read to them, Mimi.” It’s not unusual for our son, Philip, to let us know that his sons want their grandmother to read to them. So this last Sunday Phyllis pulled out The Magic Bicycle by John Bibee. And as they sat quietly and attentive, she read to them—via Skype.
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Out of the Wasteland
Fifty years ago this month, the phrase “vast wasteland” entered the national lexicon when Newton Minow, then chair of the FCC, spoke before the National Association of Broadcasters. It even inspired Hollywood producer Sherwood Schwartz to name the sinking ship in Gilligan’s Island after him.
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John Stott at 90
InterVarsity Press is privileged to have been associated with the ministry of John Stott for over fifty years. His clear, balanced, sound perspective on Scripture and life has been filled with a grace and strength that seems rare in this era of extreme viewpoints and harsh rhetoric. As tomorrow marks his ninetieth birthday, I want to consider just one aspect of his character and vast influence.
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Dramatic Non-Fiction
Even if you have the most profound truths, you can still be profoundly boring. I was once on the pastoral search committee for our church and heard a sermon from a prospective candidate who delivered fourteen points. Yes, count ‘em, fourteen points! There has to be a better way, and there is.
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Merchants of Culture 5: Not All Digital Is Created Equal
The online subscription model has worked wonderfully for academic journals, as John Thomson summarizes in Merchants of Culture, because
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Merchants of Culture 4: Publishers in the Middle
It’s easy to see the advantages of being a large publisher, as John B. Thompson chronicles in Merchants of Culture. (The first in this series is here.) It’s the economies of scale—consolidating business operations, having the size to field a sales team, having clout with suppliers and retailers, accumulating cash flow for big projects, having the ability to absorb losses from a big investment that goes bust, and being able to invest in IT.
And on reflection, we can see that despite the vulnerabilities of being small, there are advantages too.
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Merchants of Culture 3: Making Available vs. Making Known
While familiar territory for some, the current state of publishing and how we got here is skillfully summarized by John B. Thompson in Merchants of Culture. (See my first in this series here.) He covers the rise of agents, the rise of superstores, the rise of “mass-market” hardbacks, the rise of publishing conglomerates, the rise of sales to big box stores, the rise of advances, the rise of Amazon, the rise of the number of books published, the rise of ebooks.
At the same time this story also includes the demise of independent stores, the demise of superstores, the demise of literacy.
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