Through the Wall Streel Journal Filter

The Wall Street Journal has two interesting pieces today. The first one is an article about a federal judge in Michigan who played politics from the bench. The second is a prediction of how congress would look if the democrats regained control of congress in November.

The Wall Street Journal is one of my favorite newspapers. I subscribe to the printed edition and try to stay up on national politics through the articles on its pages. It routinely has a different slant on national events than does other papers like The New York Times. Every media outlet filters the news for its viewers, listeners or readers. You can see their political agenda in how they cover the news. To me, the Wall Street Journal has the best filter.

Jerome

An Imperative for Christian Worldview

I've advocated endlessly in this blog for government leaders who not only profess a Christian worldview but also make decisions based on that worldview. The necessity for this type of leadership grows more important every day.

Two events happened recently -- one on the west coast and one on the east coast (anyone surprised by this?) that further prove my point. In California, Governor Schwarzenegger outraged pro-family groups by signing into law a bill that gives homosexuals new and far reaching powers. You can read about it here. It simply amazes me that this agenda continues to get support from political leaders.

Another interesting development is in a lawsuit pending Massachusetts regarding whether parents are entitled to be notified if the subject of homosexuality is discussed in the classroom. The city and school officials involved in the lawsuit have taken the position that the state (i.e. the school district) has a "legitimate interest" in promoting homosexuality to elementary students. Elementary students!! The phrase "legitimate interest" has a significant meaning in constitutional law that I won't try to explain but I certainly hope that the judge will reject this argument. How can the state's interest, even if "legitimate", override the interest (and rights) of parents to know what their children are being taught in school.

We will continue to loose the cultural war if we don't have political, governmental and community leaders with Christian worldviews who are willing to stand up and be counted.

Jerome

On-Line Bookstore

I wasn't aware that a person (any person) could operate their own on-line bookstore, but they can. Sure I knew about Christianbook, Amazon, etc. but any individual? To my surprise, I found out recently that my uncle and aunt have their own store. Here is the link to their site. It's called Grace Abounds. The beauty of the system is that they are connected to thousands of others who have their own stores. There is a centralized warehouse and delivery system. Someone could order through this site and have their merchandise delivered to them just as if they had purchased from Amazon or any other on-line store. And the store owner (in this case my uncle and aunt) make a little money rather than Amazon et al. The difficulty is driving traffic to the site. These small on-line stores don't have the marketing budget the mega stores do so they -- like fiction authors -- rely on word of mouth. So if you are looking for Christian merchandise take a moment and search through this on-line store.

Jerome

More Political News

Here is an article by Joe Murray about a democratic primary campaign in Alabama that has flown under most people's radars. It did mine. But who could have guessed that a professed lesbian would defeat an African American in a predominately African American district for a seat in the Alabama State Legislature? It's Alabama for goodness sake not New Hampshire or California!

Jerome

Another Interesting Headline

Here is another interesting article from today's headlines. This one concerns the fight over abortion laws in South Dakota.

Jerome

Today's Religious & Political Headlines

In yesterday's post I mentioned the federal court judge who made the ruling regarding the NSA's eavesdropping on telephone conversations between terror suspects abroad and people inside the United States. Here is another article that is critical of that decision.

The battle to keep God out of our schools continues to rage. And I find it interesting that the ACLU is confused as to which position to take.

Here is an interesting and lengthy article about the influence religion has on our country's foreign policies.

In all of this I hope you continue to see the need for leaders with a Christian worldview.

Jerome

Activist Judges

You may have read or heard recently about the federal court ruling that held the warrantless wiretapping of conversations between terror suspects abroad and people in the United States is unconstitutional. The judge who made the decision has been criticized and rightfully so. Here is another article questioning the logic and legal basis for Judge Taylor's ruling. There are plenty other articles and blogs on this subject. Just run an internet search in your favorite search engine and you'll find dozens. Some have even alleged that Judge Taylor had a conflict of interest and should have never handled the case.

I think the judiciary has an obligation to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. If there was even the slightest chance that Judge Taylor had a conflict, then she should have recused herself. But even more important is that this country needs judges in the federal courts who interpret and apply the law and who do not try to impose their political views. It only damages the rule of law when judges play politics.

Jerome

Making Money From Blogging

For those of you who have large audiences (or hope to) for your blogs there's still hope that you can make money from your blog. $60,000 a month in ad revenue! WOW!

Jerome

Mix of Religion and Politics

A recent survey from the Pew Research Center says many Americans are uneasy with the current mix of religion and politics. 69% of those surveyed said that liberals have gone too far in keeping religion out of schools and government and 49% expressed wariness over attempts by Christian conservatives to impose their values on government. The Pew survey also found that democrats continue to face a serious "God problem".

Jason Janz at Sharper Iron has an interesting post about what he describes as "Jesus Junk". It is an interesting discussion about Christian merchandising and worth reading.

Jerome

Fresh Political News

I've spent the last few days posting about The Election and the mystery of calculating book sales. It's time to get back to the main purpose of this blog -- politics and faith.

The next two months will be a critical time in the life of our country. In my opinion, we cannot risk the democrats taking control of either house of congress. There are candidates running for the house of representatives, the senate and state offices who demonstrate a Christian worldview and we must be supporting them. Joe Carter at The Evangelical Outpost had a great post today comparing patriotism and partisanry. It's a great post and worth the few minutes it will take you to read it.

Real Clear Politics is one of my favorite political websites. It has all of the latest political headlines. There is a completely separate page dedicated to politics and election news. You can keep up with all of the different -- and important -- political races across the country at this one site. One headline from yesterday caught my attention. It was this poll showing Bob Corker trailing the democratic nominee for the Tennessee senate seat being vacated by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. I've blogged about this important race before and hope this poll is an aberration. Of course, the poll did come from the democratic nominee's camp so the credibility of it must be seriously questioned.

Get out there and find a candidate or two in your area with a Christian worldview and actively throw your support behind him or her. It's too important not to.

Jerome

Book Cover for The Divine Appointment

I'm excited about the book cover design for my next novel, The Divine Appointment. The design was finalized last week. This novel is scheduled for release in June 2007. I think the cover has a very strong look with the gavel, a bible and the reflection of the American flag in the base of the lampstand. It certainly captures the storyline. The graphics people at Howard did an outstanding job. If you have comments about this look, please share them with me.

Jerome

Titlez.com

Yesterday I posted about Amazon sales rankings and how you can't really measure sales success from the rankings unless the ranking is very high. Last night I was researching more about Amazon sales rankings mainly because now I have one and I'm curious to learn more. Mine has fluctuated between low 20,000's to 40,000 over the last two days. I suspect a single order can make the ranking move considerably. Anyway, I was researching and ran across this site called Titlez.

Titlez provides historic and current sales rankings and provides a printable report. You can compare titles against other titles. For authors, we can see how our book is performing but also compare the sales history against books in the same genre. I created a bookmark for Titlez so I can check it easily.

Titlez is currently free but the site indicates that it may start selling a subscription later this year.

Jerome

Book Promotion and Sales Rankings

Yesterday three events took place that are significant in my marketing plan to promote The Election. First I received some complimentary copies from the publisher that I'm giving away to people I hope will influence others to make a purchase. Second was officially getting added to the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance. The CFBA is an organization of writers who are committed to promoting Christian fiction. The third event was a book review by Randall Murphree, editor of the AFA Journal. Today Randall added to the AFA website (and disseminated through the Agape Press news sevice) an interview with me.

I took the opportunity to send out an e-mail blitz to my e-mail contacts. Prior to this e-mail, the sales ranking at Amazon.com for The Election was over 800,000. That meant that 800,000 books had better sales than my book. That made perfect sense because The Election had not been released so no one was purchasing. But Amazon now has some available. By last night the sales ranking for The Election had fallen to 19,000. By midday today it was back up to over 80,000 but as I was typing this post it fell again to 34,000.

The Amazon sales rankings are fickle and not a very accurate way of measuring sales success. If, however, a book remained in the top 25 (an extremely optimistic goal by the way) then the author could claim "bestseller" status -- at list on Amazon.

Certainly all authors aspire to write bestsellers but it is a very rare occurrence. It takes consistent marketing and a lot of effort on the part of the publisher and the writer to even sell a few copies. So if you see the sales ranking on Amazon fluctuate for a particular book, don't read anything into it. But if you see sales ranking for a particular book of 100 or less then the book really might be having significant sales.

Jerome

First Book Review

The Election received a very favorable review from Randall Murphree, editor of the AFA Journal. You can read it here. The review is being disseminated through the Agape Press news service. Even though it will be on the AFA site for only a day or two, hopefully it will be posted to a few other sites.

Also, Randall will post an interview with me on the AFA site tomorrow.

Jerome

The Election Available at Amazon

Amazon now shows that it has copies of The Election in stock. If you're interested in ordering a copy you can do so through my website with this link.

Terry Whalin had an interesing post on his blog yesterday about changes in posting reviews to Amazon. Some of the comments suggest that if you have an account with Amazon you can still post. So if you have an account I would appreciate you posting a review of The Election.

Jerome

Having an Impact

I think it is important to remember as we walk through this life that we have an impact on those around us -- it may be positive or negative. It may be our children, co-workers or people we don't even know. But they watch what we do and hear what we say. Are we always conscious of this fact in our interaction with others? And more to the point, are we conscious of our (potential) impact in what we as authors write?

The primary market for Christian fiction are people similar to ourselves -- Christians. I consider it sort of like preaching to the choir. But how do we get non-Christians to read our work and thereby receive the message conained in our writings? That's where our writings might really have an impact on lives. A friend of mine challenged me recently on this point. He asked what marketing am I doing to get my novel into the hands of non-Christians so that they read the redemptive storyline in The Election? That's a tough question to answer but I think it merits an anaswer.

My answer to his question was that the only effective way I know to market fiction -- whether to Christians or to non-Christians -- is by word-of-mouth. Is there something I'm missing on this point? The same is true with spreading the gospel message. Those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ must be about His work of spreading the good news. If not us, who?

Terry Whalin has an interesting post today about Stephen Baldwin and the impact he is having through his radical faith. Baldwin had a life changing experience with Jesus Christ and he is making a difference in the lives of those with which he comes in contact.

Another interesting post I read today was by Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost. Joe blogged about how he has certainty in his salvation. It is interesting to read the comments (at least 40) as some defend Joe's faith in Jesus Christ and others attack it as irrational. But whether they know it or not those non-believers who are posting comments to Joe's site (and countless other non-believers who read it) are being impacted by Joe's evangelical post.

What are you doing to make an impact in the lives of those around you?

Jerome

Celebrate With Me!

I don't have time for a long post today. I'm preparing for a mediation that is scheduled to begin tomorrow and last two days. But in today's mail I received the first copy of my debut novel, The Election. I only wish I had time to celebrate!

Jerome

Tyndale Acquires Rosenberg Backlist

Apiring Retail, CBA's Magazine, is reporting that Tyndale has acquired Joel Rosenberg's backlist from Forge/Tor. The backlist includes The Last Jihad and The Last Days. Tyndale plans to release trade paperback issues of both works next month.

Jerome

Faith & Politics

Harold Ford, Jr., the democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate from Tennessee, is campaigning hard for the seat. Former president Bill Clinton was in Tennessee on August 3 at an event for Ford. Here is an interesting article by a writer following Ford as he campaigns here in the Jackson, TN, area. The article says Ford opposes gay marriage and is a "practicing Christian."

I've met Jr. on one occasion and he is very smooth and polished. Very personable. I heard a story about when he appeared at the funeral visitation in Memphis and knew all of the family members by name although he had never met any of them. That's incredible.

Jr. will be hard to beat in November but he's got two huge weaknesses. One is his voting record in Congress. He'll try to campaign as a conservative in a state that has only elected one democrat to a statewide office in the last 12 years, but the republicans will run ad after ad about Ford's congressional voting record. His other huge weakness is his family. His father was indicted and later acquitted of bank fraud charges; one uncle, a state representative, resigned after being convicted of insurance fraud; and another uncle, a state senator, resigned after being indicted in a bribery scheme. Tennesseans won't be able to look past his family tree.

Here is another interesting article that will appear in the August 28 issue of The American Conservative. The writer attacks the religious faith of political conservatives while maintaining that she is equally conservative without faith. She says that "Skeptical Conservatives" do not "need God or the Christian Bible to discover the golden rule and see themselves in others." She says that perhaps religious conservatives should cut back on their "religious triumphalism" and that "nonbelivers are good conservatives, too." It may be true that nonbelievers can be good political conservatives, but they certainly need God. You can tell from the writer's tone that something is missing in her life. And that something is obviously a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Jerome

Book Sales Up in First Half of '06

Publishers Weekly reported today that bookstore sales rose 4.2% in June to $1.18 billion. This strong month pushed bookstore sales into positive territory with a 0.8% increase for the first half of 2006 to $7.48 billion. That's a trend all of us in the publishing industry likes to see.

Publicity opportunities continue for The Election. I will be on this local cable show on August 29 to discuss my novel with the host, Steve Bowers. I suspect Steve will try to squeeze in a few questions about county government. The show will be taped during the afternoon to be played that evening. It will air several more times during the following seven days.

On our continuing discussion about faith and politics I found this interesting article by Matt Friedeman. His question is whether the church should steer clear of politics. It's an interesting question similar to one I've raised in this blog previously. Friedeman concludes his article by saying that a church that gives up on participation in politics and one that becomes absorbed by politicians and political viewpoints are both unacceptable. I agree. There is a fine line -- but still a line -- that must not be crossed.

Jerome

Pro-Life Candidates Win Primaries

I mentioned in a previous post that several pro-life candidates were running in party primaries this week. Here is an update.

Minister's Wife Accused of Murder

Some of you may be following the story of a Selmer, TN, minister's wife, Mary Winkler, who shot her husband in the back while he slept and escaped to Orange Beach, AL, with their children. Here are the most recent developments in this case. Ms. Winkler is being represented by Steve Farese and Leslie Ballin -- both are excellent criminal defense lawyers. I've been told that both lawyers are representing her for free and I understand why. They're getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising. Both lawyers are constantly on Memphis & Jackson, TN, news segments. There was a featured article in People Magazine a couple of months ago and both lawyers were mentioned repeatedly with photographs. When I was on vacation last week, I saw a segment of Nancy Grace's show on CNN where both lawyers were interviewed. (Nancy Grace is terrible, by the way). What is the value of this nationwide exposure to Farese and Ballin?

I've known the Farese family since childhood. They have a long line of lawyers in the family tree. They are from Ashland, MS, which is not far from my hometown of Mt. Pleasant, MS. When I graduated from law school, Steve's brother, John Booth Farese, contacted me about working in their office. I already had a job or I probably would've taken them up on it.

Marketing opportunities come in strange ways and through strange sets of events. Although I know that Farese and Ballin will do everything they can to defend Ms. Winkler, they really aren't working for free.

Jerome

Oprah's Impact on Sales

The dream of many authors is to get mentioned on Oprah's show. Some authors even have this as their marketing plan -- which isn't much of a plan. But the Chicago Sun Times had an article yesterday about a persistent author and how her persistence paid off. Although her book wasn't selected for Oprah's Book Club, the author attributes her appearance on the show to 35,000 book sales and a number 5 ranking on Amazon.

Publishing isn't a get-rich-quick scheme but occasionally some luck comes along -- like being on Oprah. For the rest of us we need to implement our solid marketing plan. I'm working on different elements of mine now for The Election.

Jerome

President Bush Nominates Liberal Judge

I read this article this afternoon. It caught my attention and took me by surprise. Has President Bush in fact nominated a liberal justice to the federal district court in Michigan? I hope not. If in fact that is the case, then I encourage you to contact your senators and voice your opposition to this nomination. This last thing we need is more liberal jurists in the federal judiciary.

Jerome

Upcoming Elections & Book Cover

I receive several e-mail newsletters and one is from Christian Coalition. Today's issue had a link to this article that highlights several elections scheduled for next week. Many of those races are between pro-life candidates and pro-abortion candidates. I'd be interested to hear from any of you who live in the states mentioned and your take on these races.

Also, Howard Publishing sent me several flats of the cover for The Election. The cover looks great and I can't wait to get an actual copy of the book. I'm going to have one of the flats matted and framed for my study.

Also, if you would be interested in receiving e-mails from me please go to my website and send me an e-mail so I will have your address.

Jerome

Catching Up

When I'm away for several days the mail piles up both at the office and at home. Fortunately, my assistant was able to weed through most of the mail at the office before she left (she's on a mission trip to Kenya for a couple of weeks). But the mail at home was massive. My wife subscribes to her hometown newspaper, I subscribed to The Wall Street Journal and we get the local newspaper. That's three different newspapers a day that were waiting when we returned.

It's impossible to read every article in each newspaper when the pile is that high. We usually find ourselves skimming the headlines and reading only the articles that catch our eye. I found one in the July 27 issue of The Wall Street Journal.

The headline said "Holy War" and the article was about John Hagee and his organization, Christians United for Israel. The article stated that Mr. Hagee, a Texas preacher, is the leading figure in the Christian-Zionist movement. According to the WSJ article, the Christian-Zionist movement has an "evangelical political philosophy" that is "rooted in biblical prophecies and a belief that Israel's struggles signal a prelude to Aermageddon." Hagee gathered 3,500 evangelical Christians to a rally in Washington to "cheer Israel and its current military campaign." Both President Bush and the Israeli prime minister sent words of appreciation to Mr. Hagee during this recent gathering.

Mr. Hagee has 21 books in print and the latest one Jerusalem Countdown has sold nearly 700,000 copies since Strange Communications released it in January, 2006.

What do you think about the positions supported by CUFI? Are the current events in the Middle East a precursor to Armageddon?

The WSJ article also discussed the political influence Mr. Hagee's organization has in Washington politics. I've advocated for Christians to become involved in politics in previous posts in this blog, but is there a line to be drawn somewhere? Should Christians be lobbying the president and members of congress to more fervently support Israel?

Jerome

Back to Work

I'm finally back from an extended vacation. The beach was relaxing and the food from our favorite restaurants was delicious! We ate like royalty every night! Hilton Head Island is my family's favorite vacation spot. We can't wait to get there and hate to leave when the week is over. We were a day delayed in arriving because of my son's state baseball tournament -- his team finished in a tie for 5th. Weekly rentals for condos at HHI is from Saturday to Saturday. We didn't arrive until late Sunday night. The first thing we did was chart out which restaurants we would eat at on particular nights. And that's pretty much our vacation: the beach for hours on end; nice restaurants and a few rounds of competitive putt-putt!

When I returned home it wasn't long before I logged into the office. Reality set in and I quickly realized that the vacation was over. I had in excess of 150 work-related e-mails in my inbox!

After I skimmed through my e-mails and determined that there were only a couple of emergencies waiting on me, I checked several websites including Terry Whalin's. Terry had an interesting post yesterday and included this link to an interview with John Grisham. I've met Grisham on a couple of occasions although it is unlikely he remembers me. We attended the same law school -- although several years apart. I've heard him tell the story about The Firm that he recounts in this interview (and there is a little more to it than is mentioned in this article). It is interesting to me to read and hear about how writers become successful. It takes a tremendous amount of hardwork, but occasionally a bit of luck plays a part.

I've posted before about my friend Ed Bryant who ran for the republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. Unfortunately, he was defeated by Bob Corker last Thursday. Corker's a more moderate republican than Ed but he's tremendously better than the democratic candidate.

The Election hits the streets in less than a month! I should get some advance, complimentary copies in a few days. I can't wait. I'm continuing to work on a lot of publicity before the release but I also have an enormous workload at the office. I'm not sure I can get it all completed. One issue I hope to blog about in the future is how to balance work, writing and family. It is easy to get stretched too thin.

Tomorrow we'll get back to looking at faith and politics. Anybody following the continued developments in the Middle East?

Jerome