At last!
I’ve had a lot of people ask when the book would be available for pre-order, and now it is!
In fact, I’m pleased to tell you how to get your very own, autographed copy of the book–together with an exclusive audio interview that will not be available anywhere else.
Catholic Answers is doing a fundraising appeal based on the book because printing and properly promoting a book is expensive–particularly in the orthodox Catholic, non-profit world of niche publishing.
As Karl Keating explains in a recent letter,
The book is ready for the printer. The text has been finished, proofed, and typeset. But this is a big book—about 400 pages—and to print it in a large enough quantity to get a good per-copy rate from the printer and to give it the initial public promotion it deserves . . . well, that takes cash that we just don’t have.
But—ahem!—you and our other friends do, and so I’m asking you to give us a hand in getting The Fathers Know Best printed and publicized.
I’ve been involved in writing and publishing for a long time, so I know that bringing a book to fruition and getting it noticed (and sold!) is no easy thing.
Each year more than 40,000 titles are published in the U.S., and it takes savvy and, alas, cash to get a worthwhile book “noticed” and reviewed and (as I think this one will be) praised, but that’s what needs to be done if The Fathers Know Best is to have the influence I think it ought to have.
In publishing, as in other areas, there’s a “window of opportunity.”
If a publisher can make a big splash right from the start, then a book has a chance to carry itself, so to speak, and to go from success to success.
But if a publisher isn’t in a position to print many copies or to give the book the marketing oomph it needs, even the best book will languish.
And The Fathers Know Best mustn’t languish, because it’s a book that can do an immense amount of good—both spiritual and intellectual—for countless thousands of people, both Catholic and non-Catholic.
That’s why I want to have a large first-run printing and an extensive right-out-of-the-gate marketing campaign.
To use a term common on the Internet, I want this book to “go viral,” which means to have publicity about it be self-sustaining so that more and more people can learn about—and learn from—this important book.
I hope you can help us pull this off.
As I said, we need money to print a large number of copies of The Fathers Know Best—the more copies we order, the cheaper the unit cost and thus the lower we can set the retail price—and to undertake an extensive promotional campaign.
I hope you might be one of those willing to help with a gift of $500 or $1,000 or even more. Or maybe you can afford to send us $100 or $200 toward this effort. Whatever you give, you have our thanks.
If you’re able to help us with a donation of at least $50, as a thank-you, we’ll send you in return two things:
1. A copy of the book itself, of course, autographed by Jimmy Akin.
2. An exclusive audio interview with Jimmy about the book and its background. This interview will not be made available in the future and is available only as a thank-you to those who help with this project.
Perhaps you can tell from this letter that I’m excited about this project. I think Jimmy’s new book will do a lot of good for a lot of people.
Over the years, I’ve learned of many people who, having stumbled across the Fathers, found themselves compelled to go where they didn’t want to go—into the Catholic Church.
They saw that the Catholic Church and Catholic beliefs go back beyond the Council of Trent, beyond the medieval councils, all the way to the earliest councils—and further back still, all the way to Christ.
Won’t you help us help thousands come to see this truth?
You and I are witnesses to the truth of the Catholic faith—and I think we’ve had some success in that—but the most powerful witnesses I know, outside the Bible itself, are the Fathers of the Church.
Please help us introduce them to today’s readers, both Catholic and non-Catholic.
I’m excited about the book finally being available for pre-order, and I hope you will consider supporting it–and Catholic Answers as a whole–through a generous donation.
Of course, you could simply wait a little longer and purchase the book, but I hope that you will offer your support in this way because it helps the ministry continue its work and it helps us do a decent print run and proper promotion for the book–maximizing the apostolic good that is done and helping Catholic Answers undertake more publishing projects like this in the future.
To give those who support this appeal added value, I’m going to be sitting down and autographing all the copies that are sent to those who donate.
I’m also–and I haven’t talked about this elsewhere–going to be personalizing the autographs by adding a citation to a relevant Bible verse to each one. That’s something I always do when I autograph things as a lagniappe–“a little bit extra.” Years ago when I was given a book by a Christian author, he wrote a Bible verse under his signature. I went home and looked it up, and I decided I liked the custom, so I always do that when I autograph.
And I don’t give the same verse to everybody. I’m going to be picking out a selection of Fathers-related Bible verses and using them for the autographs.
I wonder what your verse will be?
To add even more value for the donor, I recently sat down to record an exclusive interview with Patrick Coffin about the Church Fathers and the making of the book. We will be sending a copy of this on CD to those who generously respond to the appeal. It will not be aired on Catholic Answers live, will not be posted online, and will not be available in any other way in the future. It is exclusively a thank-you for those who are able to help the ministry through their generosity.
So I look forward to autographing a book for you, and I hope you can give to this appeal and help Catholic Answers maximize the apostolic good it can do though The Fathers Know Best.
