Co-Authoring: What is Your Strong Suit?

When Mimi Wilson and I began writing together, we each had three young children. Mimi was extremely creative, and had rich experiences from having grown up in Africa. She was a gifted communicator through the spoken word, but she was dyslexic, and my role was to record and “word-smith” her ideas.

When we self-published the original edition of Once-A-Month Cooking in 1982 (titled Freeze and Save – her husband called it Thaw and Chaw), Mimi had devised this cooking method to save time in the kitchen, save money, and be prepared at all times to extend hospitality.

She called me one day in 1981, and told me that she had just prepared 30 dinner entrees one after another for her freezer. Would I like to see if the Denver Post wanted us to write an article on how to do it, she asked.

“Why don’t you call the Denver Post,” I said. Mimi has marketing savvy – and more guts than I do. She called them, and they sent a photographer and a reporter to her home within the week to do a food feature. A year later, when the Rocky Mountain News expressed interest in an article, we wrote up the cooking method in book form – Freeze and Save – to offer for sale.

This started an adventure that has taken us through the production of a demonstration video, a CD-ROM version, and numerous updated editions for Christian publishers and a secular publisher. We’ve experienced “way down” as well as “way up, ” moments, and perhaps the greatest benefit of our partnership has been the ability to share it all. No one quite understands like your writing partner.

But at one point I began to feel second-rate, unimportant. Mimi was the primary speaker, the “up front” partner, and sometimes, even in front of me, people referred to it as “Mimi’s book.”

One day I was in the bedroom ironing when the Lord spoke to me. Not audibly, but it is one of the few times in my life when I can say He did with certainty. He said, as I ironed, “If she is Moses and you are Aaron, what is that to you?”

This may sound obtuse to you, but it made perfect sense to me. We each had individual roles that coincided with our giftings from God. Why should I covet her gift – or her exposure? Was I not thankful, and did I not enjoy, the job God had given to me?

From my long-time partnership with Mimi that is precious to me, and also from the experience of managing a book brand for MOPS International (Mothers of Preschoolers), I have learned that although writing and speaking usually go hand-in-hand, most communicators are either a writer who also speaks or a speaker who also writes. In Mimi’s and my partnership, although we both do both, she is definitely the speaker who writes, and I the writer who speaks.

Which are you? Determining this, and giving more weight to your “strong suit” can be freeing and enable you to soar as God has intended for you. It has been a great strength of our collaboration that Mimi and I are differently gifted and don’t “step on one another’s toes.” Are you a writer who speaks, or a speaker who writes?

What Does It Mean? --Kimberly Rae

A few days ago a man called me from a newspaper. He interviewed me over the phone, asking questions about my book, human trafficking, etc.

Then he mentioned that he'd heard my book, Stolen Woman, was written from a Christian perspective.

"Is that correct?" he clarified.

"Definitely," I said.

Then he paused, and after the silence said, "What . . does . . . that mean?"

I was stunned, unprepared for those four words placed into such a question. What does it mean that I wrote this book from a Christian perspective?

I tried to think of a good answer as the silence extended through the phone. It was not just the things left out that make a book Christian, as some descriptions I've read explain: no drinking, no drugs, no sex. No, it is so much more than that.

It is not just what is left out, but what is put in. For me, writing from a Christian perspective means that Jesus Christ is over all, and in all. Life is incomplete without a relationship with God, and all things in this life should carry His involvement.

Now, I didn't tell the reporter all of that. It went by quickly, but I think I told him about how a trafficked girl needs more than just her circumstances changed. That rescuing her from something bad isn't enough. For many of them, were they to return home, they would not be accepted by their family or community. Or perhaps the person who sold her the first time might sell her again. Being rescued does not always mean being given hope.

So I said that they need not just to be rescued from something bad, but to something good, and in my opinion, the best gift you can give someone is Jesus. Jesus, who will be with her no matter what happens to her in the future. Giving Jesus means giving hope.

I doubt I articulated it very well, but hopefully my point came across.

We have such potential as writers. Because I am writing about trafficking, something people care about, it has given me inroads to relationship I would never have had otherwise. I desperately wanted to be out there rescuing women and children myself. Instead, God has limited me, humbled me, and taken away what once was my identity as someone doing something important. And then, He gave it back. I am doing something important now, but I don’t see it the way I used to. It’s not about me proving my own significance or worth by doing some great thing. It’s about God. And God is graciously allowing me to be part of what He is doing (not the other way around!).

You, as a woman serving cross-culturally, have experiences that most people will never have. It gives you a voice that God can use for wonderful things.

So write. Write for God’s glory. Write from a Christian perspective. And, from my latest experience, I would recommend preparing a ready answer for when someone asks you what that means!

[Editor's note: This is Kimberly's final post. Thank you, Kimberly, for your instruction and inspiration! You keep writing too.]

Ever Wanted Your Book In Print? -- Kimberly Rae

The idea of holding a book in your hands with your name on it is a dream many of us have had at one time or another. Was yours a fleeting thought you laughed away? A great idea you haven’t quite gotten around to writing? A 3-ring binder where you stashed scores of pages, but never had the nerve to send it away?

Traditionally, if you wanted your book in print, you had 2 options:

• Get a publisher—which is much harder than it sounds, wait months for them to print your book, go on whatever book tour or other marketing events they planned for you, and get paid a small percentage of the royalties and possibly a few complimentary copies of your book for your own use.
• Self-publish—not hard, but possibly unpleasant due to the thousands of dollars you have to spend up front, the hundreds of copies you might have to buy to get the initial print run, the lesser quality, total lack of marketing, and the not-as-good aura that comes with having to admit you published it yourself.

Fortunately, for all the dreamers out there, and especially since the economy has made getting accepted by a mainstream publisher harder than ever, there is now another option, fast becoming a major trend in the publishing world.

It’s called print-on-demand publishing.

I know about it because that’s the route I chose for my novel, Stolen Woman.

I chose print-on-demand for several reasons:

1. Timing. Human trafficking is a huge subject right now, and this gets my book in print fast.

2. I get a much larger percent of the royalties.

3. Freedom to make the cover and interior exactly how I want it, including a 2-page spread on my favorite human trafficking rescue ministry.

4. Freedom to stay at home and be a mom, marketing when I have time, so I don’t have to sacrifice my family for my work.

5. I can get the books I need, and only the books I need, so I won’t end up with 1,000 unsold copies filling up my basement (and depressing me!). I pay the same price per book whether I order 1 or 100.

6. I keep the rights to the book. That means, if a mainstream publisher does want Stolen Woman in the future, that option is still possible.

I can’t vouch for all of the options, but I can for www.Createspace.com , the Amazon subsidiary that I’m using for Stolen Woman.

So far, it’s been great. Their website explains things very clearly for techno-challenged people like me, and I even got to talk to a real-live person when I called with a question. I spent less than $50 by the time the first copy of the book was on its way to my house.

If you’ve been playing with the idea of a book, but maybe it’s a family memoir you want to give as Christmas gifts, or a book you’d like to print just for yourself, print-on-demand is a great way to go.

Here’s to being published, and holding your own book in your own hands!