For this week’s Readers Mailbag I have two questions, one about the sales of my new book and one about the apostle Paul (the meaning of a particularly important verse).  If you have a question you would like me to address, simply ask it here!

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QUESTION:

Are you pleased with how Jesus Before the Gospels is selling? The reviews are great. I’m enjoying reading it, myself.

 

RESPONSE:

Thanks for asking!  Yes, there are some reviewers who seem to “get” what the book is, and who appreciate it.  I’m always grateful for that!

Am I happy with the sales so far?  Unfortunately, the answer is “not really”!   I have to admit I’m a bit spoiled on the book sales front.  This is the seventh book I’ve published with HarperOne.   Of the other six, one was a book that none of us thought would be a huge sales success, Did Jesus Exist? (In fact, our original idea was to publish it simply as an e-book, because we knew it had such a limited market.  At the very last minute we decided to make it a print book, and it’s done reasonably well, but it was not designed to have wide appeal.)   The other five books with HarperOne have all been New York Times Bestsellers.  That is amazingly satisfying (and incredibly rare: it is extremely difficult every to get *any* book on the list!).  By far my bestselling book of the lot has been Misquoting Jesus.

I’m very grateful for all this success.  But…

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