It’s often said that it takes a village to raise a child.A similar idea lies behind the writing of a book.Sure, the lion’s share of the research and writing are done by the author—the person who gets credit for the work—but publishing is an industry.That means other people’s livelihoods are based on the end result as well.The author often doesn’t know what’s going on when the book is in production.It was a pleasant surprise, then, to find the publisher’s website for my book is up.You can see it here.My own site for the book has been up for months (here; go ahead and take a look, there’s not much traffic).Those who only read these posts on Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter may not realize there’s a whole website out here that addresses things like books and articles.(I think the CV part requires updating, though.)
In a writer’s experience, seeing a book’s website—receiving an ISBN—is like the quickening of a baby.You’ve known for some time that it’s there, but the proof is in knowing that other people can find out.I only learned of this because a friend wanted a link to the book page.If you google the title without quotation marks you’ll find lots of websites about Christians and nightmares.(Who knew?)People of my generation still often don’t realize that, much of the time, searches with quotations marks are increasing necessary on a very, very full internet.I’m still not sure of a publication date for Nightmares with the Bible, but you can preorder it.(Sorry about the price.)
Once a friend asked me why we do it.Writers, I mean.Unless you’re one of the few who are very successful you don’t make much money off the project that has taken years of your life to complete.I’ve never earned enough in royalties even to pay for the books I had to purchase to research the topics on which I write.It’s not an earning thing, although that would be nice.For some it’s an expectation of their job.For some of us where it’s not, writing books is perhaps best thought of as monument building, a long and intensive “Kilroy was here.”You notice something you think other people might find interesting, and so you write it down.Chances are the number of other interested people will be small.Family (maybe) and a few dedicated friends will lay down the cash for an academic book.But still, there’s a village behind it, and I need to thank them here.
