Publishing Lunch--Part One

PUBLISHING LUNCH, PART ONE: AN ONGOING LOOK AT THIS TIME-HONORED TRADITION


90 Minutes In Heaven (Inventory!)

It’s a stereotype by now, the concept of publishing professionals gathering to break bread together. Editors and agents do it. Writers and their publicists do it. Authors and their agents sure do—as in, “I’d meet you at Starbucks, but I have to lunch with my agent.” (Intone proper nonchalant-yet-lordy tone.) The “lunch” may assume many different incarnations, but it’s always the same basic concept.

I’m very fortunate in that lunching with my clients always means I’m in for a treat, just as I was today with Don Piper and Cecil Murphey, who together authored 90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN, a book that has sold so feverishly that its been dubbed by Baker Books as “90 Minutes in Inventory!” Don is an amazing man who has lived to tell his own phenomenal tale. Here’s the snippet of biography I just pulled from his website:

Following a tragic automobile accident in 1989 in which Rev. Piper was declared “dead on the scene”, he was miraculously revived twice and has been in recovery since that time. Already 32 surgical procedures have taken place and he walks only as a result of miraculous and in some cases medically unexplainable circumstances. During the time he was “dead”, Rev. Piper was granted the extreme privilege of glimpsing Heaven itself.

Needless to say, it’s a bit intense to spend an hour or two with this client of mine, hearing him describe ways in which his book has touched lives. A soldier in Iraq who had been mortally wounded by a car bomb was read the first few chapters of his book by his fellow soldiers before he died—the chapters that describe Don’s vision of heaven. Almost every time he speaks, someone comes forward, someone needing a message of hope, and says, “You were sent to me today.” Don is a man whose every breath seems touched by purpose.

As I drove away from my time with these two clients, I was reminded yet again that we’re placed here on Earth for a very specific purpose. There’s a reason we are to do the things we do. I encourage you to order Don’s book; not only do I believe you’ll feel more inspired about your own purpose in life, but I believe you’ll respond to his epic message.

Don’s website is http://donpiperministries.com

Just had to share. Deidre