MSI Press Blog

  (photo by Frank Perez) It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic shares an important reason for a book being turned down by an acquisitions editor. While there are almost as many reasons for turning down a manuscript as there are manuscripts submitted, there is one reason that has nothing (or very little) to do with the manusciprt. It has to do with the author, and it comes across in the proposal, the cover letter, or the enote (if emailed), or in all of them. That trait is arrogance, and it will turn off an editor before the editor even reads the manuscript. After all, a publisher has to work with an author, and if they dynamics are poor, it wi...

  Compassion is one of those words we toss around as if everyone means the same thing by it. But real compassion—the kind that changes relationships, softens hardened places, and restores dignity—has nothing to do with pity and nothing to do with superiority. Compassion is mercy without arrogance. It is humble. We often imagine compassion as something we give from a position of strength to someone in a position of weakness. But that framing already distorts the truth. The moment compassion becomes a performance of benevolence, it stops being compassion and becomes condescension dressed in soft language. True compassion begins with the recognition that we are not separate from the person in front of us. Their suffering is not an object lesson. Their struggle is not a stage on which we get to act out our virtue. Compassion is not a spotlight; it’s a lowering of oneself to meet another at eye level. Humility is the safeguard. Humility keeps compassion honest. Humility says: I...

It is Tuesday. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side.  Today's topic shares some real-life cases (book titles and author names changed, of course) of authors and would-be published authors lost contracts, from before being offered one to even after a book was published. They can serve as warnings of what not to do and, in converse, what to do in trying to secure -- and keep -- a publishing contract . Before being offered a contract (case: Developing School Discipline by Gordan Cruikshank): Arrogance. This attitude is perhaps the primary turn-off to an author being offered a contract even when the publisher is otherwise even very interested in the book. Remember, publisher and author working t...

  Today's book excerpt comes from  An Afternoon's Dictation  by  Steven Greenebaum . This book has been in the Amazon top 100 among interfaith and ecumenical books on many occasions. PART ONE: THE CALL TO INTERFAITH CHAPTER FOUR   The call of Interfaith in no way rejects religion. It is a call to realize that our spiritual traditions are living, breathing entities that change over time, as does all of life. Still, “Seek truth in the commonality of religions, which are but the languages of speaking to Me. Worship not the grammar” took some living with. I began to imagine a sacred mountain for humanity. At the mountaintop dwelt the call of the sacred, the commonality that would hold the truths to living a meaningful life to which all of our sacred traditions seek to point us. Our differing spiritual traditions would be diverse paths up this sacred mountain that our differing eras and cultures had found helpful. The “grammar,” then, is the particular ritual and...