Special Delivery | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Special Delivery | Previous Challenge Entry
By stanley Bednarz
10/08/14
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Delivering inspirational books is what I do on the side. But that sounds sneaky, doesn’t it? I don’t exactly slip in under the sun with a fourteen-foot box truck that says, “Choice Books.” When I’m in a supermarket or in a drug store turning the rack and scanning in new titles, there is no concealing what I do. Inspirational titles are what it’s all about. I’m inspired to be the deliverer of good news somewhere between the bread and the beer aisles.

Our competition doesn’t seem to exist in the marketplace. I’d like to think I’m going where angels fear to tread or where there is no spiritual GPS to guide me. It’s not a fiery furnace or walking on a stormy sea. It’s somewhere in the middle with an opportunity to turn my small world upside down for Christ, where lost people mingle and feel the fruits. I’m not John the Baptist, announcing Christ, as if my mouth were a loudspeaker and honey was dripped from my lips. I let the attractive titles do the talking from the rack. And sometimes I’m a magnet for the curious reader who seems impressed with the colorful titles. We sell Amish fiction and their cookbooks too. But the biggest surprise for me is how I can’t keep enough Christian cat and dog books on the shelf along with joke books—clean jokes. I hadn’t known there could be that many clean jokes in a broken world without Christ.

If you want to get a Christian book published, write a story that has jokes in it and a family of barn animals-something like Charlottes Webb. Besides the book, Heaven Is Real, and Amish titles, books that are funny and full of animals sell and sell--time and again. As a writer, I’m concerned. Besides this being a ministry, I wanted to know what sells, what would make my manuscript attractive to Christian publishers. Most want happy, happy, happy titles like crazy Phil from Duck Dynasty. Does that mean the “Left Behind Series, will be left behind?” Not hardly. If there is a movie coming out with Nicolas Cage in it, you can be sure the book will fly off the rack, including the whole series.

So what are you writing these days, my brothers and sisters from another mother? Now that the cats out of the bag, so to speak, and you know my name, don’t send me your books. I’m still trying to figure out how to get my book past my divisional boss and pay a surprise visit to the purchasing manager. He is definitely on my Christmas card list. I may have to sneak in under the radar and surprise him in his living room. But I will be sure to have my Choice Book hat on, and be in uniform, so he is likely to ask questions and shoot me later.

I do love my job and the fact that it is a viable ministry. I really don’t have a hidden agenda to sneak my book on the spindle. The reality is, I’m too busy learning the book distribution system as a service representative, and having fun along the way.

There is nothing more precious than seeing a face light up near the frozen food aisle who knows I’m putting Bibles on the rack or a book that could change a life forever. It’s more than a job; it’s a retail adventure.

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