Rachel Starr Thomson

While we have been blogging about Andrew Peterson, Andrew Peterson has been blogging about us.

My favourite thing about CSFF Tours (even ones like this, which I hardly qualify as participating in because I didn’t read the book) is author involvement. Authors used to be sort of mythic. They didn’t live on the same planet as the rest of us — well, except for C.S. Lewis, who they say used to answer letters from readers. All of them. But it’s not like that anymore, because we all live in the Internet Age, and in the Internet Age, marketing is about building relationships with readers.

While I still can’t build relationships with most of my favourite authors (because most of my favourite authors are dead), this change in the business landscape is huge for me. For you, too, if you write. It’s tremendously liberating.  I used to shudder at the thought of marketing. Now I don’t, because  marketing does not equal “self-promotion.” It equals “making friends.” And for those of us who want to serve God with our writing, it means even more opportunity to share Christ, glorify God, and invest in people.

How’s that for a revolutionary thought?

In this great CSFF interview, Chawna Schroeder asked Andrew what he wanted readers to take away from his books. He said, “Most of all I hope they brush up against that holy Other who haunts the world of man and proclaims His truth in stories and art and music. I hope the story pushes them closer to belief.”

I’m with you, Andrew. May our whole lives, marketing and all, push readers close to that belief — or rather, pull them along with us!

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