Mary E. DeMuth is an expert in Pioneer Parenting. She enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families left no good faith examples to follow. Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005). Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, Watching the Tree Limbs (nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, 2006). Mary has spoken at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, the ACFW Conference, the Colorado Christian Writers Conference, and at various churches and church planting ministries. Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, and planting a church.

Last night I asked via Twitter and Facebook this question:

How do you balance blessing the kingdom of God with marketing your wares? Is there such a thing?

Here are the responses:

1. A constant and careful balancing act.

2. The question implies you can’t do both at the same time; I’d check that assumption. It’s more of a healthy tension than opposite objectives.

3. That’s one thing I get nervous about. Whew.

4. I keep asking and asking myself (and praying) . . . am I promoting the Lord or me? . . . Am I seeking glory or giving it to Him? . . . Am I marketing myself or temporal stuff or seeking to draw all men to Him? If He’s not in it . . . I don’t want it.

It’s a tension/balancing act authors face. I don’t know if I’ve balanced well (maybe I’ve camped more in the tension camp. My shoulders would say so).

Marketing reminds me of a painful analogy my husband and I heard when we were raising support to be church planters in France. It went something like this: “Picture a long gravel driveway and you at the beginning of it. To raise support, your job is to simply [ha!] turn over every piece of gravel as you make your way to the house. There will be five rocks with a red X on the back. Find those, and you’ve found your support.”

But here’s the ironic thing. We started with that sort of “turn over every rock” strategy. What did it get us? Lots of fatigue, frustration, and frayed nerves. What did work? Prayer and paradox. Prayer, because when we got to the end of our support-raising ropes and gave up, we asked God again for direction. He gave it. We followed it. And often more support came through His counterintuitive plan. Paradox because it was never how we thought it would go. We asked wealthy folks to join us financially, and they wouldn’t. We asked poor seminary students, who gladly sacrificed what little they had to help us get to France.

How does this relate to marketing?

Perhaps our strategy should be Prayer and Paradox. And in that, we’ll kill two birds (marketing our books, advancing the kingdom of God) with one stone (trusting and obeying).

Prayer:

1. Truly commit your marketing adventures to prayer. Ask God to direct your steps, to guide your blogging, to smile upon your Facebook status.

2. Pray for others in the industry. It’s been a rough year.

3. Pray God would bless your competition.

4. Pray that the Lord would specifically show you which social media (if any) is right for you. Some folks shouldn’t twitter. Some shouldn’t blog. Don’t give in to the temptation to do everything. Seek Him first.

5. Seek the Lord’s heart for your books in the first place. Ask about ways you can bless folks with your words.

6. Before embarking on a new initiative, ask God to check your motives, to sift your heart.

7. Seek God and His kingdom as you think about marketing. How can you combine promoting your book with highlighting the plight of the world? How can your bookselling positively impact someone in need? (Giving away books to prisoners may help word of mouth but also help folks who need Jesus-y words, for example.)

Paradox:

1. Understand that your great plans might come to naught—by God’s design. Not to frustrate you per se, but to redirect you. I once sent hundreds of newsletters highlighting my speaking ministry. It cost a lot of time and money. I received this many requests to speak: ZERO. What did I learn? For me (and it’s unique to each person), I was to rely on the Lord to bring the engagements. And how did He do that? Exclusively through relationship and word of mouth.

2. Perhaps the scope of your book or speaking topic is smaller but deeper than you expected. I spoke on national radio on a well-known program about Building the Christian Family You Never Had. The book has had moderate sales. But when I shared my story of abuse, I received an e-mail from a mom who had adopted a sibling group. All the girls had been sexually abused. They listened to my story. The youngest said to her eldest sister, “Why did that lady [me] have to go through all that terrible stuff?” The eldest answered, “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s so she could get through it and then help girls like us.” Those comments changed my life. If I wrote that book for those girls, it was worth it.

3. I remember sending my novels to celebrities. What came out of it? A big, fat nothing. Like a celebrity even has time to read my book! But the best marketing has happened when I’ve sent my books to folks without a big name. I’ve met some pretty cool champions of my work who’ve sold way more copies than Angelina Jolie.

I doubt I have it all figured out. Do any of us? But I do know I am much more relaxed and peaceful when I pray and I welcome/invite paradox into my marketing efforts.