Writing In Holiness

By David Bergsland

In the new millennium, an incredible opportunity has appeared to the Body of Christ: the new self-publishing paradigm. It is my belief that the Lord intends to use this gift as a tool to disciple the church and to plant seeds for the final harvest. Only time will tell about this.
Regardless, the role of Christian author in the midst of all that is going on in the world needs careful examination. If the Lord has called you to write, what does that mean? You have been called by the Lord of Lords to do this work He has given you to do. That's real serious. This is God talking to you.
What does He expect from you? How are you to respond? What skills will you need? How will you get your books to sell? The questions keep appearing before our eyes one after the other as we struggle to make sense of it all.
So, who am I to try and help? One compelled to write about these issues and to encourage Christian authors to walk the strait and narrow path. I've been teaching scripture since 1974, which is almost as long as I have been working for publishers and designing books. I was a teaching pastor for over a decade. But, none of that matters. What matters is how you react to the message.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Bergsland
• Release date: Jan 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310377044

David Bergsland

David's art & design career began in 1967 with the promotional materials for his rock band. After he was graduated in 1971 with a BFA in Printmaking from the University of Minnesota, he immediately began working in publishing, beginning as an illustrator. By 1979, he was working as a graphic designer in West Virginia. In the early 1980s in Albuquerque, he developed skills as a graphic designer, typographer, and art director in-house for a commercial printer. Beginning in 1991, he began teaching the commercial printing program at a large technical-vocational school. By 1996, he was developing and heading up the Business Graphics digital publishing program at that school. In 1994 he began designing fonts which he used to format his first textbook, "Printing In a Digital World", released in 1996. He began teaching online that same year as well as publishing ebooks for his curriculum. By 2002, he was publishing through Lulu, then Createspace, then Kindle, and then all the rest. He began writing and publishing full-time in 2009. Though most of David's books are about typography, graphic design, font design, and book design, he has also been teaching scripture since 1974. Since that time he has normally taught one to three Bible studies a week. Once he began writing and publishing full-time, he started releasing verse-by-verse, and topical Bible studies. His vision is to share his experience with young authors.

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Writing In Holiness

While Keeping It Real

By David Bergsland

Published by:

Radiqx Press • 314 Van Brunt Street, Mankato, MN 56001 • http://radiqx.com

This book was written by David Bergsland© 2014 Designed & formatted by Radiqx Press • All rights reserved

This is a work of biblical & Christian opinion: sharing the experiences of nearly forty years of serving Jesus of Nazareth, teaching the scriptures, and walking in the Spirit. All opinions should be examined and prayerfully considered before they are blindly acted upon.

Copyright notices for scripture quotes

No Reference: My personal paraphrase based on 40 years teaching scripture.

RSV: Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

NLT: New Living Translation © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.

NASB: New American Standard Bible®, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

This is dedicated to the many Christian authors I count as friends and acquaintances online in the various forms of social media. You are an inspiration!

Contents

Writing In Holiness

While Keeping It Real

Acknowledgments

Introduction

How does holiness apply to me as an author?

Tools of Our Trade

Does Christian fiction matter?

I want true spiritual reality!

Determine your call & your vision

So, what is your vision?

How to produce anointed books which change lives

What is your vision?

The four levels of Christian fiction

Working with the Holy Spirit on your book

Dealing with actual books

What’s this book’s goal?

You need your own publishing house

Be recognized by the industry as a publisher

What is On-Demand?

I only cover the free options

Our Suppliers

Quality issues

Print options

Ebooks

Downloadable PDFs

ePUBs (the ebook standard)

Smashwords

Kindle

Gumroad & Ganxy

Opportunities outside America

Christian Marketing

What’s holding you back?

A note about my faith

If you are not a Christian

What kind of writer are you?

Are you new or unknown?

These things are truly important

Building a social presence

The Author Platform misconception

Your own Website

A blog or two

The Social Sites

Your email list and newsletter

Find your own way

What sells your books online

How do you market your books online?

We are still missing the core

The title

Descriptions

Pricing strategies

The Free Book Deal

Deceptive practices

Colophon:

My online addresses:

Acknowledgments

It’s been a major change for me: I’ve always been a lone wolf, a very asocial man who works best alone with my thoughts and ideas. As I have ventured out into social media, now that I am self-publishing full-time from my studio office at home, it has been a real joy to meet people from all over the world with similar interests and passions.

Encouragement from Azalea Dabill, who read a smaller portion of these materials in Writing In InDesign, led me to seek the Lord and then write this book. Reacting to reader ideas shows one modern self-publishing benefit.

Laurie Penner is another online friend, reader, and editor. Her edit made this book much better.

Many of the more stimulating interactions online have been in David G. Johnson’s closed FaceBook group, Iron Sharpens Iron: Christian Speculative Fiction Authors. David, Ben, Jeremy, Mary, Mirtika, Sean, Parker, Kessie, Annie, and I’ve know I’ve forgotten several more, have been a real joy and a serious reality check. It’s been great fun.

Peter Younghusband, of Christian Fiction Review in Australia, has become a friend and an inspiration in my quest to become a decent, usable book reviewer myself. Michael and Mary Findley have also been an encouragement, an excellent source of information, and the source of many good books to read, both fiction and non-fiction.

Guy Stanton III has inspired me by his books and warmed me with digital conversations. This young man will be writing great books, even better than the dozen or so he’s written so far.

The same capabilities are also found in Ralph Smith, Yvonne Anderson, David G. Johnson, Laurie Penner, and many more as I have become immersed in Christian speculative fiction.

Let it suffice to say that hundreds of the New Christian Authors are putting out wonderful books in service to the Lord Jesus and building the kingdom on Earth which is truly inspiring.

I am grateful to have met all of you…

Introduction

How does holiness apply to me as an author?

The church has been confused about this for many decades. If you ask most strongly believing Christians what is meant by holiness or sanctification (both use the same word in the Greek), they will say, Set apart. If you ask them what that means you often get puzzled looks.

Holiness (in Strong’s Concordance): hagioasmos; means 1. consecration, purification

So you can see where the set apart teaching comes from. Its meaning doesn’t really become clear until we look in Strong’s Concordance at the Greek for holy (hagios):

Sacred (physically pure, morally blameless, ceremonially consecrated)

Vine’s Expository Dictionary puts it this way:

Sanctification is about the separation of the believer from evil things and ways… it must be learned from God… and it must be pursued by the believer, earnestly and undeviatingly… it is an individual possession, built up, little by little, as the result of obedience to the Word of God…

Jesus is the Word of God as revealed by the Holy Spirit as we study the scriptures after thoughtful prayer for wisdom and guidance. But we must never forget that Jesus is the core of it all. As we are obedient to Him, we learn holiness. As Peter quoted, You shall be holy, for I am Holy. He was quoting something the Lord said through Moses centuries earlier. What Moses had not foreseen was the mystery of the Church. Especially the part where we are made holy by His Holiness residing within us, in our spirits. He works His way out through our soul as we allow it and eventually shows us how to purify our flesh.

It doesn’t just happen

It is the result of each one of us individually pursuing and grasping onto the very character of God. It results in a consecrated focus, which is morally blameless, and we become physically pure.

For us as authors it means that we must maintain a pure, laser-like focus on the Truth—so we can share that with our readers.

You may say, That’s not my call.

I say, It’s the call of all believers—of which you are one if you claim to be a Christian author. That’s why Paul and Peter call us saints. This is the same word, hagios, and means the holy ones. That’s you and me, brothers and sisters.

Your calling as an author may be a subset of your broader calling. But, the call is always to holiness, purity, the strait and narrow path which leads from the narrow gate. You will not be fulfilled as a Christian author until you answer this call to holiness.

That’s what this book is about…

Tools of Our Trade

The tools of our work are not carnal but supernatural [II Corinthians 10:4]. We are different from heathen (non-Christian) authors. Not only are our criteria different, but our process is very different from non-believing writers. This is serious ministry done in obedience. If it’s not, you’re writing out of your flesh. Scripture is clear, the world and the flesh are at war with the Holy Spirit. We write in service to our Lord, dependent upon His wisdom, guidance, and anointing.

You may think I am overstating this, and I am—a little. But in general, I am quietly stating the truth. I’m not negating practice, studying, experience, beta readers, editors, formatting, or any of the rest of the normal book production process. We are required to learn our craft. But the work is a ministry of the Kingdom of God for His purposes.

In addition, if you are writing a Christian book, it is unlikely that an non-believing editor is going to be of much help. How can some one who knows nothing of spiritual reality edit, proof, or comment on a book which is written under the guidance and anointing of the Holy Spirit?

But I am getting ahead of myself. First things first:

Does Christian fiction matter?

I only recently began reading Christian fiction almost exclusively. As I will show you in a bit, I rate the level of Christianity in the speculative fiction I read for the reviews I post to my Reality Calling blog. Several months ago, I had an interesting experience. Because there are so few books in the fantasy, science fiction, technothriller genre I like to read, I had run out of anything to read. Since I read 3-6 books a week, this is a minor crisis for me.

So, I read a heathen book from a formerly oft-read author

I picked up a copy of a Brad Thor which I hadn’t read. I had also, in a moment of nostalgia, bought a copy of the latest Cussler/De Brul book. So, I read