A Few Words about Discovery House

Last night, I had the opportunity to speak at a meeting of the Word Weavers in West Michigan. One of their members asked me to talk about my employer, Discovery House, as well as my involvement with the Jot Writer’s Conference and blogging. As you are reading this, I’m going to assume that you are familiar with my blogging history, and I know that I’ve blogged in the past about the Jot Writer’s Conference, but aside from a couple posts about my move to Discovery House, I haven’t written much about my employer.

Let’s fix that.

Who is Discovery House?

Discovery House is the book publishing arm of Our Daily Bread Ministries (ODBM). ODBM has over 75 years of ministry experience. Starting as a radio ministry in Detroit, Dr. M. R. DeHaan was a preacher with a vision for getting people into their Bibles by using all available methods. Thus, the radio ministry started producing monthly devotionals known as Our Daily Bread, but branched out to include the television program “Day of Discovery” (started in 1968 and is one of the longest running Christian television programs), book publishing with Discovery House Publishing, and online Christian education programs with Christian University GlobalNet and ChristianCourses.com

Discovery House was established in 1987 as a way to delve further into the Bible and it’s life application in ways that were impossible with the Our Daily Bread devotionals.

“The goal of Discovery House is to publish books that feed the soul with the Word of God, fostering growth and godliness in the lives of God’s people. That was part of our founding vision, and we want it to be true of each new release that we offer. Whether you’re looking for books, music, video, audio, software, greeting cards, or content to download, we try to provide you with materials that focus on Scripture, that show reverence for God and His Word, that demonstrate the relevance of vibrant faith, and that equip and encourage you in your life every day.” –Carol Holquist, publisher

What does Discovery House publish?

Our #1 best-seller is My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. Discovery House is the authorized publisher of the Oswald Chambers Publication Association and has exclusive rights to all of Chambers’ writings.

Our top books for this past year have been the Our Daily Bread for Kids Devotional by Crystal Bowman and Teri McKinley, The Discovery House Bible Atlas by John Beck, Prayers for Your Children by James Banks, A Grandmother’s Prayers by Kay Swatkowski, The Our Daily Bread Devotional Collections (new each year), and Adventuring Through the Bible by Ray Stedman.

How many books does Discovery House publish each year?

Between 25 – 30, though that doesn’t necessarily include re-cover projects or new editions of existing publications.

What type of books is Discovery House looking to acquire?

Discovery House loves books with long tails. We are known for our devotional offerings, but we publish a number of topical books as well. We do not publish fiction and we’ve only just ventured into the academic sphere with the Bible Atlas and the children’s arena with Our Daily Bread for Kids. We are not currently seeking submissions for children’s products as all of the plans for our children’s line are being commissioned by the publishing house. This coming year, we are publishing devotionals, bible study material, books on prayer, Christian living titles, memoirs, and a couple of book apps.

How does Discovery House acquire its books?

There are three main ways that we get the books that we publish: unsolicited manuscripts, agented books, and commissioned products. Most publishers only publish the last two of types of acquisitions. For new projects, Discovery House publishes mostly unsolicited manuscripts.

What are the submission guidelines?

You can find them here.

If you are ever in the West Michigan area, you can feel free to stop in for a tour, where there is a chance that you would hear a lot of this information again. But on the tour you would also get to learn about Our Daily Bread Ministries as a whole and even see the big printing presses where they are made. Thanks for reading!

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New Word I Just Learned: Blad

“Blad” sounds like a third-rate vampire knock-off movie (either as a mix of “blood” and “Vlad” if it is a classic vampire movie –or– as a misspelling of “Blade” which is a different kind of vampire/vampire-hunter protagonist), and maybe it is, but it is also an underused publishing term.

A “blad” is a booklet, used as an advertisement. It’s probably a mashup of the words “blurb” and “ad.” And the publishing industry uses them frequently, though you may recognize them differently in the current digital age. For instance, the “Look Inside” feature on most Amazon book listings is essentially a “blad.”

In doing my research for the word, I’ve come across another reason why “blad” should be brought back into use. It is also a bit of a play on words, because “blad” is related to the word “blade,” which is the Proto-Germanic version of “leaf”. Think about a blade of grass. Same thing. But, wait a second! What are the pages of a book called? Leaves. Thus, on a whole different level a “blad” is a subsection of a book.

So now that you know, you can help me make “blad” popular again.*

*I have no idea if it was ever a popular word. But I think it should be.

I am not a bright man.

I did it again. You think I would know better by now.

Saturday Photo Prompt | The Open Door

Look at the picture below and write a 100 word story. It really is that simple.

If you care to share, either post a link to your story in the comments, or post the whole story.

I can’t wait to see what you write!

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Friday 5 | Click-worthy Links

Here are 5 more places online worth checking out:

1. Are there really unicorns in the Bible? Kinda.
2. In Kurt Vonnegut’s book, Hocus Pocus, the main character bemoans the futility of ignorance in describing a series of failed perpetual motion machines. I’ve always had trouble imagining what those might look like until now.
3. What do blind people see? *Hint* It isn’t black.
4. I’ve toyed with the idea of a store that only sells one item a week. It always seemed like a crazy idea, one that you’d never find in the real world. But then I heard about the Japanese Bookstore that only sells one book title per week.
5. And I don’t know if you are familiar with Oyster, the Netflix of e-books, but they may have just been snapped up by Google.

Enjoy!

In Light of the End of the World Yesterday

According to TruthLamp.com, which “shines the light on underreported news,” we may have all lived through an apocalyptic event yesterday. So, I guess congratulations are in order. Hooray for us!

If you haven’t read the article linked in the top sentence, take just a minute and fix that.

Okay, now that you know the facts (that there are too many things pointing to the end of days to ignore), let’s look at the actual news headlines yesterday. Surely, if there was anything apocalyptic happening around the globe, someone aside from TruthLamp would have noticed.

• The pope visits the USA and dines with the homeless instead of congress.
• Volkswagen’s CEO resigns amid a vehicle emissions scandal.
• China’s president visits the USA to drum up some business.
• Selfie deaths outnumber shark attack deaths.

Okay, maybe that last one is cause for alarm, but I think it falls short of the four horsemen riding through town collecting souls in the great harvest.

I think my favorite part of the article was the fact that it opened and closed with examples of failed prophecies. It warned against the dangers of predicting the end times, but then it said, “Aw, what the heck. Let’s do it anyway!” And then it presented a bullet list of possible signs of the apocalypse, including two Hollywood films that made mention of the 23rd of September.

Fortunately, the article also said that the final battle might not happen on this day exactly. It could just be sometime this week.

Here’s my take on apocalyptic prophecies: They are a bad idea. If they are really true, the only people who believe them are usually too distant from society’s core to have any influence over rationally thinking citizens. If they are false, then rationally thinking citizens have even more reason to disbelieve the fringes of the faith community who prophesied. Why even believe in God if He’s going to lie to you about the big finish?

It is possible that the writers of this article simply wanted to put people in a frame of mind to think about the possibilities that we may not live forever, and that we’ll be called to account for our actions. Perhaps it was to light a fire under our buns to spread the gospel before the lost have a fire lit beneath their buns eternally.

Whatever the case, even if their intentions were good, they were misguided. In the words of those theological giants of music, R.E.M., “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”

Goodbye, Spider-Man.

“Honey, I’m afraid that your Spider-Man jammies don’t fit any more. I think it’s time to…” she searched for a different way to say that she’d throw them out, “retire them.”

George, gingerly holding the threadbare suit of webbed red and blue, was a bright boy of seven years. He had an infectious laugh and impressive problem-solving skills. Just last week, he had figured out how to reach the cookies in the top cupboard without his parents knowing, at least until they went to get a cookie and found them gone.

“I know,” he said.

It was time. The pajamas had been his weekend uniform since his fifth birthday, when they were far too large for him. Now, they were faded and stretched in unnatural ways. Not only were they his favorite superhero pajamas, they were his only superhero pajamas.

Maybe he was getting too old for Spider-Man, though. Though he still insisted on wearing them all weekend, even he tried to find reasons not to accompany his mom to the grocery store any more.

Yeah, it probably was time.

Reluctantly, George placed the pajamas in the bag that his mom held open to him.

“I’m proud of you, honey,” she said, closing the bag. “Now, why don’t you pick out some clothes and we’ll head to the store. Maybe we can pick out some doughnuts from the bakery counter. It’s going to be a super day, you just wait and see.”

“Okay, mom,” replied George. “Super… I’ll be out in a minute.”

A few moments later, George emerged from his fortress of solitude. With a pair of red underwear overtop of his blue sweatpants, a white t-shirt with a poorly markered “S” on the front, and a red towel tied at his neck, George ran to join his mom.

Yeah, he decided, it was time to move on from Spider-Man. It was a super time to move on.

On the Origin of Egging Someone On

“Stop egging your sister on.”

It is a phrase that I’ve used as a parent, though I’ve never understood it. Is “egging” even the right word?

For the longest time, I thought that the real phrase was “agging,” which isn’t even a word, but I justified it because I thought it was somehow slang for “aggravating” or something like that. But I was woefully wrong.

The phrase really is to “egg on,” and it has nothing to do with a bird’s eggs or being on top of anything. The verb form of “egg” has the same etymological root as the word “edge.” Thus to “egg someone on” carries the same idea as “edging them onward” or leading them down a specific path. As we use it, it specifically refers to leading someone down the path of frustration.

So now I can say the phrase with confidence, even if I don’t want to say it because it means that my kids are aggravating each other. Oh well.

Word power!

I Am a Former Dalmatian Owner

I got Spot when I was in middle school. He was a dalmatian puppy, the runt of the litter, and I paid for him with my hard-earned paper route money. Had I done a bit more research, I may have chosen a different breed of dog, but as it was, I was able to give Spot a better home than the one into which he was born.

Here’s a brief history of the dalmatian breed: They are originally from the Dalmatia region of Croatia, thus the name. And they are known by two other nicknames, the carriage dog, and the firehouse dog. The reason for both the these names stems from the dalmatian’s unique relationship with horses. You see, no other dog holds a horse’s gaze so well as a dalmatian. They calm and comfort horses, which is why they are handy pets to have if you drive a horse-drawn carriage, or you need to get your horse-drawn fire wagon (from the earliest days of fire-fighting) anywhere near a burning building (which is somewhere that horses do not naturally like to be). By the time that fire engines took over the horse’s job, the dalmatian’s association with the profession was too established to disrupt. This is also why the dalmatian is part of the logo on Coachmen campers.

Dalmatians, as I learned after the adoption was finalized, are a breed that has been blessed and cursed by stardom. Who hasn’t heard of the Disney classic 101 Dalmatians?

Pongo and Perdita are the very picture of the perfect dog. They are loving, loyal, and they look cool. How could a movie that casts dalmatians in such a positive light be a curse to the breed? Mainly because once everyone knew about dalmatians (or thought they knew them from their cartoon counterparts), everyone wanted one for a pet. This popularization led to massive breeding mistakes. In order to cash in on the breed, owners that had male and female siblings bred them with each other to meet the demand, leading to a whole generation of inbreeding complications.

That’s the story of where my messed up puppy came from. When I started looking for a dog, I searched newspaper ads for a while, but I didn’t find anything until a friend from church mentioned that their neighbor’s dalmatians just had some puppies. I called and they came out to do a home visit. Shortly after that, I passed over some cash and I had my dog.

I soon found out that there was a reason that they had done a home visit to me rather than having me come out to their house, and it had nothing to do with making sure that my home was suitable for a dog. A couple of weeks after I got Spot, I received word from my church friends who were neighbors with Spot’s original owners. They had skipped town, leaving their dogs in the house without food or water. By the time the authorities went into the home, one of the dogs was dead and the others had to be put down.

If I hadn’t adopted my dog when I did, he would have died.

As it was, his life was marked by neurosis and I’m fairly certain that he was a pure inbred. I don’t mean to dissuade anyone from getting a dalmatian. I do mean to encourage you to do your research about dog breeds if you are considering a new pet. Also, if a movie comes out and popularizes a specific type of pet, be wary of getting one of that kind. And if you already have that breed, please don’t inbreed it just to make a quick buck.

But if you are in a spot like I was and you have the opportunity to give a pet a better home than certain death, feel free to do the right thing, even if it is with a breed of dog that has been hindered by popularity.

Do you have a favorite breed of dog? What fascinating thing can you share about it?

Friday 5 | Click-worthy Links

Here are 5 more places online worth checking out:

1. Worried that robots are going to steal your job? Check here to see if you are safe.
2. At one time in my life, I really wanted to be an astronaut. Space fascinated me. But my aspirations changed when I made two realizations about myself: I really don’t like the idea of dying in space (always a possibility), and I am probably not smart enough to work for NASA. Little did I know that all you needed for some NASA jobs was the ability to lie down for months at a time.
3. I don’t know if you can claim the title of pyrotechnics expert if you blow yourself up with your house, but that’s what the headline says.
4. Where’s Waldo? (He’s really in there somewhere).
5. When I die, I don’t need a giant pyramid like they had in Egypt, just something reasonable like the 40 foot high ones that they had in Sudan.

Enjoy!