Platforms, Publishers, Front Porches

In which I finally discuss the book that launched this Substack.

Happy Feast of Corpus Christi! I was originally planning to write a Sunday Faith Reflection today on Sacraments, which are not a major theme of Christendom Reborn but a big part of Christian life. However, I’m going to defer that for another time, because I think this is the time to say a bit more about my book.

It began like this. In the spring of 2024, I found myself in a bit of a rut professionally. I’d pursued a couple of possible jobs that hadn’t ultimately panned out. It wasn’t crushing; it wasn’t a “dream job” situation so much as “responsible effort to build my career and keep up with the school tuition.” And the reasons it didn’t succeed were banal, and not very bruising. Even so, prepping for interviews, developing media strategies for potential employers etc, had consumed so much mental energy that the (unsuccessful) conclusion left me feeling curiously disoriented. What now?

I decided to indulge myself in a day or two of unapologetic daydreaming. What would I want to do, given the leisure? This is a dangerous indulgence for a writer, I’m afraid.

I would write a book, of course. I’ve spent years platforming other people’s books and filling short-term commissions for quick cash. But the pace by necessity was always frantic. “Finish it, finish it, finish it” is the motto of the freelancer. And you’re always meeting other people’s content needs. How wonderful would it be to have the space to develop my own long-term project?

Next question: What would that project be? I’d mused on various book projects over the years of course, but none felt quite right for this present moment. For half a day or so, my mind was fairly blank. Then the idea appeared. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks.

It was too big. I gave myself that lecture again and again. Cut it down to something manageable! Trying to explain everything in the world is the ultimate rookie move. But the core of the idea was expansive by nature, and I couldn’t exactly chop it, only hone it, so my mind immediately began applying itself to that task. Six weeks later, still unable to get it out of my mind, I opened a file on my computer and started a book proposal. Why not. Just see where it goes. No matter what happens, I’ll surely have learned something.

The original motivating question, as I related in my first few posts, came out of my weariness and frustration with the endless right-wing doomerism. Yes, I know that our culture has some serious problems. But Christianity has been around a very long time, and weathered what sometimes seemed like very long odds. Instead of explaining all the reasons why it’s over, why not ask: Why is it is still here? Perhaps the answer to that question could set us up to develop survival strategies for our own time.

For the next 18 months or so, this was what I thought about in all those spare moments: chopping onions, stuck in traffic, waiting for a kid outside the school. At the band concert when it wasn’t my kid playing. (Or possibly when it was.) On the sidelines of all the sportsball games. I was thinking about it continually, though actually working on the proposal was more of a motivational treat, reserved for times when I’d handled all my editing tasks and filled all looming commissions. That meant of course that I could go a few weeks together without even opening the file. When I did clear a few days for proposal work though, there was generally a lot of mentally backlogged material that seemed to flow right onto the page.

Working through all these questions in my mind, I eventually developed a three-part answer to my original question (“Why are we still here?”). Christianity’s longevity and adaptability, I decided, is best explained through three features, what I eventually came to call the “Three Keys” of the Christian tradition. Of course I’ve talked about them all here at Christendom Reborn: faith and reason, God and Caesar, and love. The philosophical, the political, the personal. My book proposal has an intricate, braided structure that weaves the three together in an interlocking sequence. The book contains three parts, and each part contains three chapters, one for each Dynamic Key.

My working title is World Without End. That’s because the book’s parts are named according to the phrasing of the ancient prayer sometimes known as the “Glory Be.” The first section, As it was in the beginning, considers how each Key has functioned in Christian history. The second, As it is now, argues that the keys are in fact well adapted to contemporary challenges. The final section, As it ever shall be takes a more normative tone and lays out suggestions for what work Christians need to do moving forward. Past, present, and future. World without end, Amen.

I chipped away at it, and last summer finally got the thing where I wanted it. Then I briefly joined Publishers Marketplace, cold pitched some agents, and found one who liked the project and was interested in working with me. He had some recommendations for fairly big-picture revisions, which seemed good, so I spent a few more months reworking it and sent him a substantially revised version this last March. He liked it. It went out to publishing houses Easter Monday.

Then I started collecting rejections. Such kind rejections, though! It was was really a very curious experience. People said many warm and encouraging things about the writing, the ideas, the structure of the project itself. But ultimately they tended to wind back to the same ending note: platform too small for a commercial launch.

“Platform,” for those not in the publishing industry, is sort of a nebulous term for “influencer currency.” It includes your reputation, job, connections, social media followers, anything you yourself bring to the table that would help convince people to buy your book. Basically, I need to get famouser. Not necessarily broadly famous (e.g. a household name), but poised to pitch my book to all the people who might want to buy it.

This wasn’t exactly shocking to me. I’m aware that I’m not super-famous! But the process did leave me with an odd mix of cheerful feelings (people don’t think this is boring or dumb! I’ve communicated the ideas successfully!) and demoralization. Because there’s not much point in substantially revising a proposal that people already liked. The problem was me, not my ideas.

A few weeks into this process, as that writing was emerging on the wall, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about Substack. Would it be interesting to experiment with that? It would at any rate be a new way to unfold the ideas, get feedback, possibly cultivate an audience. I had never even considered doing a Substack before, because… do I need more writing obligations? Please. But lying awake in the dark, I started noodling on all the potential benefits, and how liberating it could be just to do some writing, without the relentless demand to tailor everything to the needs of this or that publication. Unable to sleep, I ended up at my computer screen that same night, writing the first few posts of this Substack. (It would sure make life easier if I could install a nice, non-violent, temporary “off” switch on my brain. Once it gets stuck on something… yeah.)

A week or so later I launched it. What the heck. Life is short. Let’s just see where this goes.

I devised a 6-week “opening sequence” for the Substack, which I have now completed. To review, it went like this:

Week 1: Introduce basic framework

Week 2: Book Week (in which I position myself vis a vis five broadly-known books)

Week 3: Autopsy Week (exploring the question “who killed Christendom?”)

Week 4: Faith and Reason Week

Week 5: God and Caesar Week

Week 6: Love Week

Appropriately enough, it ended on Corpus Christi, which I always think of as the very final day of the holy, exciting, and grace-filled season of the liturgical year. (Starting on Ash Wednesday, of course.) This one has certainly been exciting! And I have indeed learned some things. For instance, I’ve learned that I could use a bigger platform! But not just that. Thinking back to that post-failed-interview moment, it’s clear I’ve come a considerable way to answering the question, “What sort of project, given a chance, would I like to do?” I’ve remembered what it’s like to punch out 1500 words in 90-120 minutes, which is much faster than I write when I’m filling commissions. I’m aware that it’s less polished than the writing I do for magazines, but then again, there are ideas I’ve worked over a lot, so they flow pretty fast. I hope it’s not too hard to follow and engage.

Despite my recent reminders of the smallness of my platform, I haven’t really tried all that hard to “sell” the Substack. I richly appreciate the subscribers I have! It just seems to me though, that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to aggressively promote a thing you’ve hardly begun building. There needs to be a “there” there. So, I built a front porch. There’s something here. Now I can dig deeper into the questions. Engage other writers and Substacks. Work on my own “media strategy.”

With respect to the book, I’m still thinking and strategizing. The publishing houses that rejected it were mostly major commercial publishers; there are certainly other ways to skin that cat. Most of my professor friends have very small platforms and are constantly writing books (often extremely interesting!) that may or may not find a significant readership. I however am an editor and freelancer, not an academic, and I also have five boys to raise, and bills to pay. I can’t write whole books on subjects that just interest me and then go checking around to see if they interest anyone else. Anyhow, to make it a good book (and for that matter to maintain Christendom Reborn as a lively and interesting Substack over the long haul), I’d need to free up more time and attention for it, and for that I need a professional (and financial!) justification. I wouldn’t be remotely ashamed to publish a book with a smaller or academic press, but there are complications there since they generally can’t do as much for you (financially or professionally). So, I’m thinking through the strategic possibilities. Funding sources. Platforms. We’ll see.

What I definitely can say is that my mind is still working over these questions fairly relentlessly. And I have a lot of themes, essays, and discussion topics I’m excited to launch here at Christendom Reborn, now that I’ve finished my opening sequence. This next two weeks might be a little spotty, because I have a couple of commissions that desperately need filling, after which I’m heading off to go celebrate my parents’ Golden Wedding Anniversary.

Warm thanks to everyone who’s been with me up to this point

!