Update: Orthodoxy is now available for free on Barnes and Noble's Nook. Get it here.
How do you sell a book when you've a smallish audience, no real "name recognition," and you want to avoid spamming folks with desperate pleas to, you know, buy the book? (See what I did there?)
That's the question I've been puzzling over the past few months. And it's a question that I posed to my publisher, too, who has been really gracious with my idiosyncratic ways.
In fact, a few months back they came up with an idea that I am really excited about: sell someone else's book. Or rather, give it away for free.
G.K. Chesterton (Photo credit: giveawayboy)
That's right. Moody has repackaged their version of G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and I've added an introduction to it that explains why I think everyone should read it. It's a fun little introduction, with opinions about the book that I've never said anywhere before. But the whole point of an introduction is to have a reason to carry on through the book itself, and in this I think it will be successful. The timing is good, too. If you get a copy you should read it along with my skeptical friend David Sessions, who is giving it a critical once-over during the next few weeks. I am sure he would appreciate the dialogue.
Oh, and did I mention that there's an excerpt from The End of our Exploring in it as well? That's in it, too. It's a bit cheeky, I realize, putting my words next to Chesterton's. But I'm sure he'll come out all right in the comparison.
Orthodoxy is on Amazon right now, where your review would be helpful. And it will be on Google Play and Barnes and Noble at some point, too.
Of course, none of this really works unless people spread the word. If you're on one of those social networks and want your friends to read a book I've affectionately dubbed the most important work of the twenty-first century, even though it was written in the twentieth, you know (I imagine) what to do. And if you haven't read it, I can promise that it will make both entertaining and instructive summer reading.
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