Sometimes, it’s difficult to let a project you’ve been working on so diligently to not only be scrutinised, but to now be handled by someone else. In an email exchange I simply said this:

You’ll need to be ready for someone else to handle the baby for a little while – I always have to help my clients be prepared for this as sometimes they can get a bit touchy about their art!

It’s true. But one of the things I have found helps is to clarify what a ghostwriter is, by using an example most people are quite familiar with. And that is the role of the music producer.

Having worked in music studios myself back in my younger years when I was working a music career (and now tinkering as an amateur producer), I learned quickly that the role of the studio producer is absolutely integral. They can essentially make or break a project. A good producer doesn’t just tell you to do the take again, or listen out if you’re going out of time, but also helps you to work with your reference material, aids you in your research, brings their own ideas, and helps guide the project to keep it focused. An album would be nothing without a good producer. Essentially, a good producer makes the project even better than it could have been. That’s what a ghostwriter does – but for books!

While a good editor will tell you to go back and write it again, or get rid of a chapter, or take out whole swathes of work you poured your life into, they won’t necessarily bring you ideas, help you in your research, work with you on reference material, and help you keep the book focused. That’s my job. I don’t just tell you how to write better but I help you to write better. I bring my own ideas and listen carefully to what it is you’re wanting to achieve with the book – and then I keep you focused.

Sometimes, this process can get a little irritating, I admit. You might feel like I’m taking over. Sometimes, you need to let a ghostwriter just take over for a bit. But a good ghostwriter is not taking over the project, what they’re doing is providing what the project needs to steer it into a direction that not only matches your original vision, but also matches what the market is looking for. This is why a ghostwriter is much more than an editor but at the same time not the original writer of the project. The big ideas are not mine, they are yours. You remain the writer, but I take on a producer role.

George Martin was often called the “fifth member of the Beatles” because of his creative contribution to their music as a producer of several of their albums. The unique role a producer plays in a group / artist’s career is well established. Ghostwriters are simply the same thing for writing. That’s why you can also think of them as “book coaches.” So, if you’re stuck, need help in focusing your writing project, and need creative input that helps you see your original vision come to light, it might be time to get a ghostwriter involved – before you work with an Editor.

“When pastors decry the ills of social media–of which there are many–by this point I do wonder if it’s to discredit future concerns about their own leadership or community. Those with the most institutional authority are threatened by the democratization of authority here.”

Katelyn Beaty on Twitter

As both a pastor (a term I don’t quite like as it’s often too broad) and a media critic, I thought this was worth expanding on. She might have a point, but on the other hand, I think it’s worth noting that social media does not democratise authority. It used to do it better at one time, but that has changed. I will highlight why I think this is the case.

Authority has a lot to do with information

It would be good to quickly define some terms. “Authority” often has a lot to do with who has the information and how they use that information to influence, particularly when we’re talking about content and its distribution, i.e. social media. The word “authority” and “author” share the same root – meaning to “invent” and “promote”.

The question then to ask: does social media actually democratise information? No, it doesn’t. And by implication, it does not democratise authority.

Social media is mainly a popularity contest

“If you can not write well, you can not think well, and if you can not think well, others will do your thinking for you.”

George Orwell

George Orwell wrote the above words in 1984, but yet it doesn’t exactly prove true in social media. With social media, you don’t really gain a following by writing well, but generally through the following actions:

1. Posting a lot (you have about a 15 minute window period to get peoples’ attention on Twitter before you disappear from their feed. This article recommends posting 15 – 23 tweets a day.)
2. Posting loudly – in other words, having a strong opinion on something. It may seem like the place to think out loud, but the best way to grow an audience is to engage in some kind of controversy.

In other words, those who talk the most and the loudest generally get the most engagement on social media. This is not always the case, but it does appear to be an observable rule.

This means that social media has pretty much been geared for extraverts, most of the time.

I present these basic facts to simply showcase that:

i. Thoughtful, considered personal opinions do not get much engagement. There is no way you can present a “thoughtful” opinion on everything, nor is it possible to present thoughtful, considered opinions 23 times a day. This means that the authority you may have in an area of expertise, for example, is greatly limited by its quality. In other words, you lose reach if you try and create better quality, thoughtful posts, diminishing how you are perceived on social media as an authority.

ii. Your authority is limited by your pocket. It may be possible to circumvent the issue of quality and still maintaining reach with just good planning and making use of tools that help you post regularly (automating posts, etc.). If you are running an organisation or publication of some kind, be it a personal blog or an agency or something more collaborative, you will be aiming for this ideal. However, “authority” on social media is limited by your pocket. Those who have the money to invest in it can increase their “authority”.

Of course, to have authority and influence has always cost money. You get more authority with an education in some cultures (that usually costs). To publish, you’ve always had to pay in some way. The point is to note that social media is not free from the usual costs involved in days gone by. The “platform” may be free, but to use it efficiently you have to invest in many ways. This isn’t necessarily an issue for me but does begin to break down the myth of just how much social media truly democratises authority.

iii. Your authority is limited by your geography. This may seem like an odd thing to say (isn’t it supposed to be that we all “have a voice?”) but it has been my observation that, as a South African, Americans are not that interested in what I have to say. I can’t blame anyone for that, the context is different and Americans made social media anyway. The only way to circumvent this is usually to be an organisation or to make American issues your issue (and subscribe to an American worldview). (Yes, terrorist groups that aren’t American have a following on Twitter, but that is an organisation with a very particular opinon and the reason they have a following on Twitter is more complicated than what I’m presenting here.)

iv. Your authority is limited by your already-established authority. Blue checkmarks get more engagement. This means that, in a lot of cases, what you do in IRL matters – and gets you more engagement on social media. Blue checkmarks don’t always matter, but those seem to be rare cases when you consider the numbers. Therefore, if you already have a voice, your voice is simply amplified on social media. In some cases not, but in most cases, yes.

These simple factors – which could be expanded upon – already showcase that social media does not democratise authority. Thoughtful opinion is not particularly encouraged. In the beginning days (I was an early adopter) the simple algorithms of social media certainly presented an opportunity and the possibility of authority being democratised. Now, however, social media rewards you for basically talking a lot and talking loudly, and putting money into that process. This is simply the commodifying of speech not the democratising of it. It is, as I’ve argued elsewhere, why social media functions more like a publication than a “platform” in my opinion – and, like with publications, it is increasingly having to implement editorial processes to sort out its massive disinformation and outrage problem. That, then, like as always, means that only certain voices are increasingly being heard.

The internet has the capability of democratising authority, but as long as tech companies like Google, Amazon etc. look to centralise the internet through their channels, we will lose this. The internet needs to stay decentralised. I would say, perhaps right now, podcasts are the only real platform where a certain amount of democratisation exists. But with Spotify and Amazon increasingly moving into that space, and even with changes Apple are making, podcasts are going the same way social media has, blogs have, and everything else that made the decentralised internet an interesting place.

I am a strong believer in the Fourth Estate – the press and its necessary place in society. Journalism has always been an essential component of any healthy democracy, a fact that any dictator knows very well. The press should always be independent and without bias, able to freely critique the government and the corporate sector and hold them accountable to the citizenry. When it works, it works exceptionally well. When it breaks, it breaks an important part of a healthy society.

Media bias has become a thing. I suppose it’s always been around to a certain degree or another, but these days it seems so brazenly in our face that it must have penetrated almost every aspect of journalism. When I think of why it’s gotten this bad, I realize that there are a lot of parties to blame. Big corporations; money; government; the “system”; maybe even bad capitalism. Yet when I really think about it, I think the very people that journalism is meant to represent – the citizenry – may be the very people who have allowed journalism to get to the state that it has. In other words, it’s mostly our own fault.

How? We wanted it to cost us nothing. And delivered in the most convenient way possible, all for nothing. But it has certainly cost us something: good, non-biased, factual news.

But how on earth did we ever expect that anyone could provide for us proper journalism – with investigative reporting and the whole lot – for nothing? The truth is that that’s impossible. The general idealism of the Internet believed (and still believes) everything should be free, especially media (movies, music, news, etc.). Did we not think that people actually need to be paid to do something well?

The idea was that if enough people are reading a publication or a story, that publication could sell tons of advertising. So it all became about the numbers – views, hits, quick reads. It became about quantity over quality. And we’re now surprised? So I’m joining the rising chorus that is announcing the death of free journalism. And I say, actually, good riddance.

If we want publications to be less biased, and if we want higher factual reporting, and if we want journalism to represent us as the citizenry, we can’t let either the government fund it or the corporations fund it. So that throws out state-funded news (obviously, a bad idea) and it also throws out straight-up corporate-funded news. (Obviously, a publication has to be owned by someone, but how they make a profit and pay for it is what we are talking about here.)

Advertising has shown to not work online, and I wonder if it’s ever really worked, to be honest. Buzzfeed’s latest layoffs are a case in point. (I’ve never really seen Buzzfeed as a very reliable source anyway: too biased.) Firstly, there are just too many players in the digital market, and secondly, Facebook and Google and the likes have taken most of the pie, with smarter algorithms and the like. More than that, advertising generally seems to force a drop in quality, because what’s more important invariably to an editor and shareholders is the advertising. That’s why Buzzfeed is mostly what it is.

That leaves only two models left – subscription or donations. Given that most people don’t see the value of good journalism until it’s gone, subscription models are, in my mind, the best solution. The trouble with donations is they are liable to corruption. This is because it is generally only rich benefactors who donate, while the rest of the citizenry doesn’t quite see the value until it’s too late. Rich benefactors often develop an agenda and the pressure is on to please them to a degree, and then we have some sort of bias all over again. Also, benefactors often change their mind or life happens. Mike Bloomberg, for example, will try to sell off Bloomberg if he runs for president. It doesn’t make sense for it all to be in the hands of one guy.

The New York Times and the Economist are examples of big names that are finding big success with subscriptions. Even the blogging platform, Medium, now offers a subscription service to get the best blogs. I have lots of hope for this as I really believe blogging is underrated. Reuters‘ Digital News Report showcases the trends: people are starting to be happy to pay for news again.

Change is in the air with many media companies shifting models towards higher quality content and more emphasis on reader payment. We find that the move to distributed content via social media and aggregators has been halted — or is even starting to reverse, while subscriptions are increasing in a number of countries. Meanwhile notions of trust and quality are being incorporated into the algorithms of some tech platforms — as they respond to political and consumer demands to fix the reliability of information in their systems.

– Reuters Digital News Report 2018

So it seems that the trends are going the right way, and it’s partly, I believe, because the competition is on not for quantity but for quality. At last. It used to be all about the hits, the reads, the masses… now there is a realization that quality trumps quantity, especially when people are willing to pay. When I was working in the journalism business full time, we pumped out twenty articles each in a day as journalists. We tried our best to keep the quality up there, but to be honest, that’s not possible when the objective is to get as many stories out as possible. Eventually you’re writing those stupid list articles (“listicles”) that Buzzfeed became famous for, or you’re just relying way too much on press releases, and a dozen other things that made (and make) me cringe.

Micro-transactions might work. See Blendle. There you pay a couple of cents per article, and it has a wide variety from big publications. But I’m still not entirely convinced that people like to pay for journalism that way, although I hold great hope for the platform. What people do like is convenience – and I think most people would rather subscribe to a name they trust and have the news delivered to them. Even at a couple of cents an article, I’m still wondering to myself when I see something that gets my interest there: is it worth me paying for this one?

I really liked what Amazon were experimenting with at one stage – Kindle newspapers. You can still get them, but it appears most publications have not jumped on the platform, and Amazon seems to push its magazines more than newspapers. (Even the Washington Post, owned by Bezos, appears to push its app more than its Kindle newspaper.) I subscribed to the Mail & Guardian for awhile and I found it a wonderful experience. You wake up in the morning and there’s your paper delivered to you, on your e-ink Kindle. Since it’s not an LCD screen, you can enjoy not straining your eyes, and read your paper in a relaxed way, without messages popping up and distractions when you’re on your phone and tablet. I always thought that newspapers could maybe subsidize a Kindle to year-long subscribers. But it hasn’t seemed to have taken off as well as I thought it could.

But all this shows that – like with movies and music – the days of free content are coming to an end. I subscribe to a music streaming service, and I’ll never look back. All the effort of having to store your own music and label it appropriately etc. is no longer something I need to worry about. I also subscribe to Netflix, and while I don’t use it as much as I’d like due to my interests, it’s so much better and more convenient than trying to store your own movies on a hard drive. Like with Netflix, once it becomes more common practice to pay for news, you can bet the quality will go up as the competition changes. How wonderful would it be if newspapers jockeyed for being known as the least biased, the most factual, the most reasonable, the most thoughtful? I hope (and pray) those days are coming – and I think they will. While not all of journalism should cost us (local news might be another story), I do think that most of it should. And if we would pay for it we would do ourselves – and our society – a good service.

Photo by Flipboard on Unsplash

My dad has a pretty great hi-fi set up. I remember with much fondness the days, when I was in my preteen years and early teens, when I would go with him to various upscale hi-fi stores and join him in his endless hunt for the best speakers, the best tape player, the best vinyl set up, and the best everything sound and technology (and his budget) could allow. We would crowd into these dark and mysterious demo rooms, and sometimes he would bring his own record with, and he’d ask them to pop it on, and then we’d sit down and he and I would just listen to the music and critique the quality of the sound.

“What did you think of that one, son?” he’d ask me. And I’d pretend I knew the answer. “Yeah dad. Really nice bass on that amp.”

He would stop and think. “Hmmm. But it can be better.” Then he would turn to the attendant. “Let’s try those Mission speakers again… and maybe afterwards the Celestions.”

I would listen along with him, and every time he would make a comment or ask me about my thoughts, I would learn some more. Eventually I’d get a little courageous and ask the attendant, “Can you fiddle with the EQ? Maybe put the top end up a bit.” My dad would smile, or not say anything – the latter making me feel like he thought it was a good idea and approved of my suggestion; that he was taking it seriously, and so should the attendant.

That night at my folks, while eating my dinner, I reminisced about these times with my dad, as I still often do, as they were good times when I felt he and I were connecting over a mutual passion, that being music – and actually that we were doing far more than just connecting over music but were actually connecting like father and son. I suppose my passion and love for music really comes from him. From an early age he exposed my brother and I to all sorts of music – and he would tell us things about what we were listening to and what it meant, and what made the sound good, and educate us without making it into some sort of lesson. I would always listen eagerly and learn.

In later years, my dad would get music DVD’s and we would watch them together late into the night, commenting on the performance, the sound, where this or that group is these days, and what made or makes them so good.

I cherish all these times deeply.

So that night I thought to myself that I would scratch through my dad’s vinyls and pull out some of the old classics I grew up with as a kid. This was a time in my life, as I think most people in the ‘quarter’ part of their life go through, when you start trying to link your present identity back into your identity as a kid. During your teenage years you go through a time when “new” is always better – your music is better than your dads, your generation is smarter and cooler, and that old generation doesn’t really know much. You go through a time of breaking out of your childhood, and everything you do is an effort to do that. That breaking out is healthy, but sometimes it’s done in an unhealthy way.

But then you start to settle and you start to try and link who you have become with who you always were – you start to appreciate the fact that your dad and mom’s blood also runs through your veins. As a young man, you start looking for that connection to your dad again – and you find that somehow that connects you to yourself better. So you go back to the things that you find do that for you.

So this was a time in my life when I was, without actually realising it, beginning to collect the music of my childhood. The music I would hear on the radio when I was six years old. Nostalgia eventually becomes an old, reliable friend. Phil Collins, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Pink Floyd… these were the names my dad used to have on vinyl and tape. I would mix them with some of my own favourites from my childhood – Aha, Tears for Fears, and other music from the 80’s. 

I had, probably a week or two before this, bought Paul Simon’s classic album, Graceland on CD. (Yes, this was during the CD days.) So this night, as I rummaged through my dad’s vinyl collection, I was presented with something I had never seen or heard before: Paul Simon’s The Rhythm of the Saints.

I knew a fair amount of Simon’s music at the time. I knew there wasn’t just Graceland, but there was his whole original stint with Garfunkel, and “that album” with that song “Allergies” on it (a song I liked as a kid because I grew up with intense allergies). But what was this? I looked at the copyright and read the insert. So this was after Graceland? Well, why had I not actually heard about it?

Graceland was a big deal growing up, because I grew up under apartheid. Simon coming to South Africa and recording with black musicians was something I remembered hearing the grown-ups speak about with strange, hushed or excited tones. I never understood why my uncles and older cousins spoke about it like they did until I got older, of course. But the point is simply to state that I knew all about Graceland – but this The Rhythm of the Saints album was something I had never heard about before.

I was soon to discover that not only had I ever heard about such an album, but never in my life had I even ever heard music like it. From the very first bar of the album – military-like, marching band drums that are soon coupled with what sounds like over a dozen more pulsating drums in the background… (the song is “The Obvious Child“) I sat dumbfounded at what I had just discovered. You could lead music melodically with percussion? (I’m a guitarist.) While I’m sure I had thought of it before, I don’t think I had ever heard it done quite so extraordinarily. 

It’s the sound of it that makes all the difference. Somehow, Simon managed to instantly create a sense of mystery and beauty through sound and melody, wrapped up in lyrics that completely and utterly described my frame of mind and the sense I was feeling about my own life that evening.

Sonny’s yearbook from high school
Is down on the shelf
And he idly thumbs through the pages
Some have died
Some have fled from themselves
Or struggled from here to get there
Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls
Runs his hands through his thinning brown hair

The song often repeats the line, “Why deny the obvious child?” For me, the obvious was that I was was also going to get old, and it didn’t matter what I thought about it. It was happening and it would happen, and I would, in my own way, become my dad.

When track 2 hit I remember physically standing up and laughing, staring out the sliding door to my left at the beautiful summer night sky and its immortal stars. Why was I laughing? Because it was brilliant. I Can’t Run But is, tonally and melodically, one of the most original songs I’ve ever heard. I finally found something in music I had been looking for, and which I still struggle to find today: something entirely original.

The Rhythm of the Saints’ brilliance is not only its compositions, which are outstanding, but the way it connects you to something deeper and authentic in such a simple way. As an idealist – a born ‘romantic’ in the classical sense – my life is often made up of intense longings that only us artist-types probably really understand. I want to feel connected to life, not just sailing on its waters; intimately intertwined with others and the earth and the universe and God Himself. It’s not transcendence. It’s not that I want to experience something ‘otherworldly’. It’s more that I want to truly experience the world – I want all of life in its most authentic, intimate form. In short, I want to completely devour Beauty itself; be wrapped up in it. The mystical interests me not because it might take me out of the world but because it might finally put me truly inside it.

Paul Simon, I think, gets this. Somehow he managed to translate it into his music. From Graceland onwards he found a way to create music that takes you not to another world but to the world as it is – as it really is. Some artists try to do that by making you face the grim realities of life. They make you face sadness, loss, and despair. Others try to remain more positive. But Simon… somehow Simon actually does the thing that artists and musicians and writers try to do. He makes you feel sad and happy all at once. He taps into joy and sorrow all at the same time, and through doing so, puts you into the world as it really is: beautiful. Of course, sadness and sorrow isn’t beautiful, but the point is that “joy always comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30.) Simon makes you hopeful. He makes you look at the world and see that beneath all the pain and difficulties there is still beauty and mystery. He makes you acknowledge those longings you felt as a kid and realise they were, and still are, real.

And that’s why Simon’s music has, since then, shifted my world. Every time I listen to The Rhythm of the Saints, a strange feeling of contentment fills me. I realise that, perhaps, the longings of this life are precisely the point. I see once again how the ordinary things of life are actually the things designed to connect me to God and to others. I see once again the beauty underlining every relationship. I am able to remember what matters: the people in my life, especially those that are close to me. My marriage is not just a marriage, but it’s a real relationship with a real person who I really love and who really loves me. I connect again to the real, the authentic, the true depth in life.

I don’t know how Simon does it, but he does it. Even his later albums – like his new In the Blue Light do it. Perhaps not as well, at least for me, as The Rhythm of the Saints, but somehow Simon figured it out and didn’t ever really lose it. Some artists have that one album or one book that does it. Simon managed to continue to do it.

It was Paul Simon’s birthday a few weeks ago and I started writing this then as a tip of a hat for his birthday. (It’s probably ended up being more of a hat tip for my pops though!) He has recently said he is retiring from music. In explaining why, he says that, “When I finished that last album, a voice said ‘That’s it, you’re done.'” I think he is probably right: there’s only so much of this you can do before you just start repeating yourself. Somehow, when I listen to Simon I get the sense that it’s not about him but about the music and the connection to life it brings. That’s the kind of thing I would love to emulate in my own art. For me, I hope that somehow I can do what he did musically through my writing – that somehow others would get that sense of connection to life through my writing. It’s not about me being a brilliant writer, it’s simply about bringing that connection to people; giving them something that does that for them. I’ll then feel as if I’ve done my job and fulfilled my call. 

I’m really excited this week to be speaking at the Christian Writing Fair at Rosebank Union Church in Johannesburg. When I first heard of this event and received an email asking me to speak at it, my response was, “Well, it’s ’bout time.” I’ve been waiting for something like this for years. While I’ve been to some other writing fairs and conventions in South Africa, this is the first that I know of that will explore the Christian call in writing – and do it well!

It’s going to be an honour to hear from fantastic writers like Leslie Leyland Fields, Dalene Reyburn, John Gilchrist, and industry pros like Peter Velander. I’m also excited to get to meet a fellow South African fantasy author, Joan Campbell, who has been part of organising the event and who trains writers and publishers all over the world. (Have a look at her books at joancampbell.co.za). There’s going to be plenty here in the day’s line-up to chew on. So I’m not just excited about speaking, but also about attending and learning!

My workshop on Saturday will be about how to write more engaging and relevant blog posts. Many people think blogging is dead. Social media has, admittedly, taken over much of the space that blogging once had. People will rather post on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram than write a full-on blog, because blogs take time and commitment. But that’s only created more opportunities for actual writers to shine, as it’s become easier to find who the truly good writers are.

But that’s not all. I’ll also be exploring how the Bible can help writers discover their unique voice. In fact, this is the first way in which you can actually write good blog posts and engage better through not only your blogs but also your books and email lists and other communication that you send out. Many of us haven’t explored the full implications of what this one verse means:

Romans 16:22

“I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.”

That one verse changed my life, and I’ll share why, in hopes it will help encourage and inspire anyone who feels called to this awesome task of writing.

If you want to join me for that, see you at 10am this Saturday (3 March). See the full programme here. There’s going to be some great stuff – Trevor Hudson exploring our calling; Bruce Dennill interviewing Joan Campbell and Mtutuzeli Nyoka on writing fiction; Lisa Casson going through the ins and outs of blogging; Peter Velander telling us about his forty years in Christian publishing. Really, this is fantastic, and I’m so encouraged it’s finally happening.

For more details and to book yourself a spot, visit christianwritingfair.co.za.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

For many years I suffered with a particular sin issue in my life. The reason why I don’t really go into the details of what it was, either here or in the book, is because I want the book to encourage people with all sorts of issues with sin. Some might think, “Well, his struggle is different to mine.” I don’t think that’s true. I really think that the book helps anyone with any sin issue to rethink the way we approach God, and see Christianity. In fact, I think that even those people who are “winning” against sin ought to read it, especially if they are preachers or teachers or pastors or some kind of leader in the church.

This is because, by and large, we’ve made Christianity for winners, when in fact it’s for the poor and the weak and the weary. But it’s also for the winners, because the winners might not realise just how badly steeped in sin they actually are: the much more subtle, and much more dangerous, sin of self-righteousness.

To break the tag-line down, this book essentially tries to uncover:

1. A down-to-earth approach to holiness. A lot of writing and preaching on this topic overly idealistic, exhorting us to be this or that, to do this or that, and to basically pull up our bootstraps. The goal of holiness, as it were, is put so far away for most of us that we despair when, after many years, we realise we’re just not getting there. Is there a there, anyway? We might begin to question that there is! But instead, what we need is a theology of holiness that tells it like it is (down-to-earth) without leaving it as it is (focusing us on Jesus).
2. A Jesus-centred holiness. Much writing and preaching on this topic is about you. How well are you doing? Have you put your holiness programme into place? Don’t you realise that you need to clean up before the Holy Spirit pours out on you? Don’t you know that God won’t fellowship with an unholy vessel? So you better sort yourself out! These sorts of approaches make holiness into some sort of self-improvement human programme and take our eyes off of Jesus, fully God and fully man, who is more down to earth with this topic than most of us are.
3. An approach for those who keep losing. If you’ve found the holiness programmes, the theories and the formulas and the disciplines and all that stuff is something you just keep sucking at, welcome to the club. If, like me, you find you keep losing at the Christian (supposed) life and the good news just isn’t so good anymore, then it may be that the “good news” you’ve been hearing isn’t actually the “good news” at all! What we have today is a sanitized Christianity, not a sanctified one – which is why it so often feels like it runs out of power. But the scriptures and Christian theology, when you dig deep, tell a different story.

And that’s why I wrote the book. It’s releasing on 3 Feb. Check out Jesus Crushes Sin here.

Ask me other questions on the book, or other books, at my questions & answers page.

Here’s some news for those who might not know: my newest foray into the non-fiction, Christian living / theology territory, releases next week Wednesday, 3 February. It’s called Jesus Crushes Sin: A down-to-earth, Jesus-centred holiness for those who keep losing.

It’s a book for the losers in Christian living. Those of us who know what God expects of us, but find we just can’t do it. We never quite seem to reach the place where we know we’re supposed to be. And the “good news” doesn’t seem to be so good anymore.

When I started writing I wanted to release my Christian-specific books for free to the public, and print versions at cost. I just think that kind of stuff should be free. But, of course, a writer has to also make a living. Plus, many people have told me that they actually want to support me financially, but if I keep doing everything for free they can’t really do that, unless I take donations (which I’ll feel a bit weird about, to be honest).

Over the years I’ve never quite known what to do.  But now I think I’ve finally found a way to do both, and why on earth I never realised it at first, I don’t know.

1. I’ll be offering up the ebook and PDF versions of Jesus Crushes Sin at my website for free download from 3 Feb.
2. The paperback version (I’m still busy with the printers) will be made available at just above cost, to give me some margin for calculation errors (I’ve learned that there are all sorts of sneaky costs that come in with print at various stages of getting it to people). It’ll be available directly from a distributor’s website. The link will be made available here when it’s all ready. ** UPDATE ** – it’s now available for preorder.
3. Those who want to support me financially and want the ebook can purchase it from their favourite platforms. All the main distributor links will be on my site. ** UPDATE ** now available for preorder.

I think that’s a great compromise.

** UPDATE ** The book can now be preordered.

From February 3rd, you can download the free ebook here at my website.

I’m really excited about this book as I’ve been working on it for about three years, on and off! It’s finally ready, and I think what it has inside is going to be super helpful for people who struggle to live the Christian calling.