Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
What makes a book a success? Today I’d like to examine with you a book that, I believe, took everyone by surprise at its success. A Top Ten bestseller on Amazon, a USA Today bestseller, and a New York Times bestseller, this nonfiction book released in January; it hit best-seller lists almost immediately.
Perhaps most surprising of all is that it is written for the core Christian market. As a matter of fact, that’s part of the secret of its success. Often we Christians believe we need to sneak the Gospel into a fetching story or make almost subliminal comments about God and faith to subtly woo readers to the Lord. But, if you’ll take note, the vast majority of Christian books that have popped up on general market best-seller lists are blatantly Christian: the Left Behind Series, The Purpose-Driven Life, Crazy Love and…
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp. One Thousand Gifts appeals to readers of every stripe, I believe, for the following instructive reasons:
- It speaks to a significant–and recognized–need. A lot of people today are struggling through hard times. You know the list: lost their home, lost their job, lost their security, lost their American dream. Ann takes that sense of loss and turns it on its head: What if we learned to find beauty, grace and reasons to be thankful right where we are? How do we live fully where we are?
- It’s positive rather than a diatribe. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need anyone to beat me over the head about the decisions I’ve made in the past; I need someone to help me to learn to live with those decisions.
- It’s a highly personal exploration of how the author has dared herself to live fully despite a devastating accident in her childhood family; despite self-image problems; despite a suicide attempt; despite agoraphobia. And the book is a record of what happened when she took up that dare. We want to hear someone else’s story–story, I think, is key to a book being successful today–that is told in a way we can relate to it, glean hope from it, and gain instruction on how to think about our own lives. Today, we long to hear someone confess to their struggles, not to purge their consciences, but to benefit the reader. Ann doesn’t make the reader feel sullied for learning about the author’s troubled past but uplifted because of the transformation in Ann’s own life. This come-along-side approach causes the reader to feel connected to the writer. I know not only what Ann’s life consists of but also how she responds to it emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I feel that I’ve lived with Ann, that I know her past, her present, and her future hopes. She never directly addressed me, the reader. Yet she instructed me through her own discoveries.
- The writing is superb, although I think it appeals to women more than it would to men. I picked up the book while at a friend’s house. My friend was still getting ready for us to venture out for dinner; so I decided to pass the time by glancing at the one book in the living room: One Thousand Gifts, which I knew had been on best-seller lists for months. What made this book so great? I read the first page and found it breathtakingly, achingly wonderfully written. Soon I was several pages into the book and wanted to keep going. Who cared about dinner? Fortunately for my friendship with my dining companion, I had my Kindle with me and downloaded the book right then, knowing I could take a break from my reading to concentrate on my very present friend. Here’s the book’s first few lines:
“A glowing sun-orb fills an August sky the day this story begins, the day I am born, the day I begin to live. And I fill my mother’s tearing ring of fire with my body emerging, my virgin lungs searing with air of this earth and I enter the world like every person born enters this world: with clenched fists.”
From there Ann goes on to explain why those hands remained clenched for much of her young life and how, through counting God’s gifts, she opened her hands, gradually, to receive grace and to learn to life fully.
- The cover is inviting, simple, and a strong reflection of the book’s content and tone. We do judge books by their covers, all the time. And this one is a winner. Simple concept, simple lines, quick communication of the tone of the book.
Try this experiment and tell us how it goes: Examine a nonfiction book you’re currently reading (or have read recently) to see how it matches up to these five elements. It might help to rank from 1-5 which of these elements is strongest (#1) down to which is weakest (#5). And don’t worry, all you fiction fans, we’ll look at a novel tomorrow. (But it might be instructive to test that novel you’re reading with these five elements to see how it stands up.)
I’ve heard great things about this book but have yet to read it. Sounds like I need to add it to my list of must-reads!
Although I write fiction, I happen to be reading a non-fiction book at the moment. (shocking, I know!) 🙂 I’m reading “She’s Gonna Blow” by Julie Barnhill and am really enjoying her honesty and humor. Like Ann Voskamp, Julie doesn’t hold back in sharing her story, but with a heart for helping others avoid the same mistakes.
Great post! I always know my brain will be stretched when I visit this blog. 🙂
Janet,
Inspirational nonfiction books touch our lives with their ability to transport us along the road of hardship and emerge victorious. We all love a story of “overcoming,” and hope. I usually choose a nonfiction book based on meeting a specific need at the moment.
My current nonfiction read is a book that has significant meaning in my life and our daughters’ lives, “I Wish for You a Beautiful Life…Letters from Korean Birth Mothers to Their Children”…edited by Sara Dorow. It is positive and uplifting, although, heart-wrenching. I read. I cry. I put it up for awhile. I retrieve it. I read. I cry. I am determined to finish it.
It is not a book I could read on Kindle. I want to touch the pages, to savor the emotions. I hold the book and press it close to my heart. I imagine the printed words are a bridge in a heart to heart connection.
The writing is a translation, but I can hear the emotion without “perfect” words. The cover while engaging was not factored into my choice. Content was my primary objective. And of course, this book is targeted to a very specific audience.
Look forward to your post on fiction!
One Thousand Gifts is definitely on my summer to read list. The cover got me too! I would say about 90% of the books I’ve read have at least 4 of those elements. The rest could use a little help with the cover but the stories are life changing.
Would you say that books like One Thousand Gifts are considered memoir type books?
I get a little confused with that sometimes.
I’ve got my non-fiction book sitting beside the computer because I’ve been posting quotes: Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor.
“I am a pastor. My work has to do with God and souls–immense mysteries that no one has ever seen at any time. But I carry out this work in conditions–place and time–that I see and measure wherever I find myself, whatever time it is. There is no avoiding the conditions. I want to be mindful of the conditions. I want to be as mindful of the conditions as I am of the holy mysteries.”
Need: God and souls, mystery. Yes, intriguing, but I know the life and I want to get a different perspective from a writer whom I trust.
Positive: Yes. He’s inviting me to join him in the holy mysteries and he’s telling me he wants to be careful.
His story? That’s what a memoir is. 🙂
The writing? Oh, Peterson has always been a poet and his words are full of lyricism–when he’s not making me stop to mark a spot because of it’s spiritual wisdom. (And I am NOT one who marks a book).
The cover is not so good–you can see it in our “What We’re Reading,” here on the website when it passes by. But this is a man’s story I’ve been waiting years to hear.
Oh, the ranking? Memoir first (my favorite genre) followed by the glorious writing.
Sarah, I enjoyed She’s Gonna Blow as well. Love the title!
Kate, interesting thought that a book that speaks deeply to a reader’s heart is one you want to read in a physical book. I confess that I felt frustrated reading One Thousand Gifts on my Kindle (I’ve never felt that way before) because it’s a book I wanted to mark up. So many beautifully expressed, engrossing lines to ponder…
Amariah, yes, I’d classify One Thousand Gifts as a memoir. Although, as best I can tell from Amazon, the publisher put it in Christian Life. I believe they made that choice because publishers have a hard time being successful with memoirs in the Christian marketplace.
I think you nailed it Janet with the one element both fiction and nonfiction must have in order to do well.
It speaks to a significant–and recognized–need.
Once we answer what need we’re meeting, we can then draft our novel, query, one-line, back cover copy, all of that around answering what the need is and how our book meets it.
Thanks for sharing. Nick Harrison also recommends this book so I need to check it out.
Interesting idea to put it in Christian Life. This is much needed information.
Thanks so much.
When times are rough, people tend to buy and read more Christian and ‘spiritual” books. It will be interesting to see if the trend continues when the war is over and the economy improves.
The latest nonfiction book I read was Paula D’Arcy’s “Where the Wind Begins” which however is out of print.
Rating “Where the Wind Begins” to the five elements:
It speaks to a significant–and recognized–need – I give it a 1. I’ve read a number of Paula’s books. She usually talks about grief and the the overcomming of grief. Grief is something that everyone will have in some form or another (whether it is a death of a love one or a loss of some kind) and will need to work through it.
It’s positive rather than a diatribe – Again I give it a 1. Like “One Thousand Gifts”, Paula’s books including the one I just finished reading are always highly personal and somehow positive. In “Where the Wind Begins”, Paula talked about about the illness, the struggles and eventual death of her brother along with her struggles as a widowed mother from a car accident by a drunk driver that killed her husband and daughter.
We want to hear someone else’s story – Again I give it a 1. It was interesting to read about the court case where Paula meets the drunk driver who killed her family and her forgiving him.
The writing is superb – This I give a two. I’ve read later books by Paula and I found them to be written better. This book was published in 1984 and her last book, “Waking Up to this Day” was published in 2009. However, my favorite book “Sacred Threshold” was written in 2004 and the writing there is superb. In “Sacred Threshold” she writes about Morris Schwartz of “Tuesdays with Morrie” who she counseled before he died.
The cover is inviting, simple, and a strong reflection of the book’s content and tone – Again I give this a two or maybe a three. The cover of “Where the Wind Begins” is simple but too simple for my taste. Again, I liked the covers better of her later books. If I would of seen this book in a store and not had read the other books, the cover would not of caught my eye and I would definitely would of passed over this book.
Janet, “One Thousand Gifts” sounds like something I would enjoy. I’ll have to add it to my growing list. Thanks for the recommendation.
I am blown away by the book’s first few lines. What powerful, compelling writing. (Of course, as a guy, I could never have come up with “my mother’s tearing ring of fire.”)
Interestingly, I am correspondingly turned off by the cover. Judging this book only by its cover, I would have summarily dismissed it as a book only for women.
People who acknowledge they are “broken” and who have found a way to deal with that brokenness are universally compelling. I think that some of the same elements that attract the world to this book also attract readers to Christian fiction. Facing a broken reality with courage and hope. Timeless.
I love that you point out that we don’t have to “sneak” God into our books. I was just pondering that last evening. Is my book too overtly Christian? I suspect that any time I start feeling like I have to water down my God-message that’s the devil, alive and well on planet earth.
Hello, Janet. Thank you for your insightful discussion of One Thousand Gifts. We Christian writers in Canada who are part of The Word Guild organization have been following the publishing success of our fellow member Ann Voskamp with great interest.
I was intrigued by your statement in a previous comment, that One Thousand Gifts was put in Christian Life category because “publishers have a hard time being successful with memoir in the Christian marketplace.” Could you explain why that is so?
Ann’s book certainly falls into personal experience or memoir territory. Many Christian Living books are filled with personal experience used to illustrate spiritual teaching. Are buyers more attracted to Christian Living because they think the content will be more beneficial?
Lori, thanks for going through the rating exercise with Paula’s book. It helps us to focus on what made the book work–or not–for us, doesn’t it?
Peter, I can see that a guy wouldn’t be drawn to the cover of One Thousand Gifts. Still, that cover fits the poetic nature of Ann’s writing and her finding many of those “gifts” in nature. Just goes to show what a challenging job a publisher has to target the main audience (women) without discounting another significant audience (men).
Regarding the way the publisher chose to categorize One Thousand Gifts, I think it was to give a boost to the sales staff and bookstore buyers. I can just hear the sales reps now: “You’re giving us another memoir to sell? You know we’re not good at that.”
If the book were categorized based on content, it would be a memoir. Now you know you can’t always believe what the back cover says about category. 🙂
Sarah, if you read One Thousand Gifts, you’ll see that Voskamp just wrote to her main audience: Christian women. She didn’t worry about how anyone else would respond to the book. It’s loaded with Scripture and assumes the reader is a Christian.
If you target a general audience, you need to write your manuscript in the same way you would talk to a stranger in an airport–you have no idea where that person stands with God.
What drives me crazy are writers who say, “I’m writing a crossover book,” meaning they want the book to sell to both the church attender and the airport passenger. That so seldom works because the writer ends up speaking to neither but instead casts his or her words into the gulf between the two.
Oh, one other thing, if you click on One Thousand Gifts on our scrolling list of books each Books & Such person is reading, it will take you directly to that page on Amazon where you can buy the book. (Just trying to make life easy for everyone.)
I love this, because it confirms a growing suspicion: the world of readers is a mysterious and often counter-intuitive lot. I began reading One Thousand Gifts, and couldn’t connect with the writing. Perhaps a male/female thing, perhaps not. What one might call lyrical, I found over wrought… Please don’t throw tomatoes at me. Like a smudge on a window, I fixated on the window, and not through it to the story. Yes, the writing and imagery is glorious, but, for my tastes, just too much. BUT gazillions of readers prove me wrong, and show that a loftier style might be called for in today’s distressed community of faith. It just shows me the whole thing is mystical, providential, uncontrollable, beautiful, messy, and glorious. Thanks for igniting the brain cells, Janet.
I remember my critique partner, Wendy P. Miller, featured this book cover on her blog a while back. It’s funny–I can remember pictures but rarely can recall titles of books I haven’t read.
I’m putting this one on order!
(And excellent points about what makes a book compelling!)
This post is really excellent. These points are useful both in reviewing books and focusing my own writing.
When I reflect over several of the non-fiction books I’ve read over the past few months, I find that all of them speak very strongly to a significant need, are positive, and include elements of personal story. Where I see the most range is in the “superb-ness” of writing. I would consider all of the books I’ve read lately to be very well written. I could just feel that this aspects is where I would range the ratings a bit. (That and the covers.)
I’m also considering that it’s sometimes hard for me to compare two very different writing styles. As an example, grace-filled and humble Ann has such an amazing, flowing, descriptive writing style. Her style is very different from practical, studious Priscilla Shirer’s style. (And I like both of these styles very much.) Both are well-written, though I guess superb becomes subjective. Which actually encourages me. My writing style (and thinking process, for that matter) will never be certain ways, but I can continue to grow and learn in this individual voice God purposed to me!
Thank you for this insightful post.
I fell in love with this book. I am doing a blogging project on the book ending with a review. It changed my perspective. Now a gratitude journal sits in my purse so I can write what I am thankful for even when the world feels mean. Does she write fiction?