If There's No Money in It, Why Bother?

"Why do you guys do this?"

I hear that question two or three times during every Christian Writers' Workshop, which Wesleyan Publishing House produces each November.

This year we had 185 attendees, including a staff of 14 professional writers and editors headlined by Alan Nelson of Rev! Magazine and Dr. Dennis Hensley of Taylor University. It's a day-and-a-half conference that equips writers and provides them with an opportunity for meeting with editors from various publishing houses.

We don't make money on it, and it costs a good deal of time an energy to host an event of that size. So why do we do it?

We Do Find Good Writers

This event attracts over 150 writers every year, and many of them are writing fiction, poetry, children's literature or other genres of literature that we don't publish.

Yet we do find a number submissions we can use. Every year I hear one or two book ideas that really impress me, and those are hard to find. And we find a good number of writers for our periodicals VISTA and Light From the Word.

We Want to Develop Writers

It's much easier to work with a good writer than with a mediocre one, so we have an interest in improving the skill of authors. I've also got my eye one a few emerging writers—they're not quite ready to be published, but they're getting close.

Events like this equip writers and encourage them to keep on doing what they're doing. They helps us in the long run.

We Believe in Working Together

I know that I can't publish all the writers who attend, and some of the good ones may hook up at this event with other editors or agents who will "steal" them away to other publishing houses.

So what?

Communicating the life-changing message of holiness to the whole world is the ultimate BHAD (big, hairy, audacious goal), and there's no way Wesleyan Publishing House can do it alone. We're not even going to try.

If this conference gets somebody published with one of my "competitors," I'll be tickled pink. We've all got to work together to get the message out.

We Have Fun

Besides, I like doing this. It's fun to have a big party at your house, and our World Headquarters is a fun place to hang out. We see people we haven't seen in a year or two, laugh a lot, spend time in worship, and generally get charged up to do that thing we do.

No, we didn't make money this year—but we didn't lose any either. And through this event we make ourselves and our work bigger than it used to be.

What's the thing you're doing not for money or recognition but only to make the world a better place?