ICRS overview

In this post I'll tell you about the "business" end of my ICRS trip. The first day I sat down for an hour with two of my editors/publishers from Harvest House and discussed my next book idea. I have genuinely liked every Harvest House employee I've ever met and these two were no exception. A couple days later, I met with two of the marketing team to review their exciting plans for my upcoming release God's Purpose for Every Woman. It will be available the first of August and you can pre-order your copy at Amazon.com. I really hope you will get your hands on a copy and write a review of it for Amazon or Barnes & Nobel - I know you'll be blessed by these devotions!


The second day I attended a luncheon for Advanced Writers and Speakers, where Lysa was the keynote speaker. Her message - that Jesus should be enough for us, not Jesus plus a best-seller or Jesus plus a big arena event - was spot on. The P31 gals were sitting together and we all felt just a little prouder to call Lysa our leader when she was done. Later that evening I went to a dinner for the Harvest House authors and staff held at Atlanta's beautiful Botanical Gardens. Some of the H.H. authors I enjoyed meeting were Mary DeMuth, Leslie Vernik, Lori Wick, Kay Arthur, and Pam Ferrel to name a few. While there I also met my friend Gwen Smith's producer, Dave Clark. He is a hit song writer who's spent many years in the gospel music business. He's humble as he can be and a pure joy to talk with. I think I spent most of the evening chatting with Dave. Here's a picture Gwen took of Dave & I:



I met with Rob and Ashley Eager of Wildfire Marketing. They are young and bring some fresh ideas to the table for how to get your messages out to the masses. I met with Shawn McEvoy, my contact for the P31 devotions at crosswalk.com. It was good to put a face with the name I email with every couple of weeks. He was great and in the future you'll likely see some feature articles by me and other P31 writers on their women's channel. You'll want to check out Crosswalk's massive Christian website site if you haven't lately.

There were a few other meetings ... mostly just networking with other speakers and authors, or accompanying Lysa (P31 president and my co-author for God's Purpose) to some meetings. When I'd get the chance, I'd walk the ICRS floor looking at all the offerings by the various authors and publishers. Occasionaly I'd stand in line at a book signing for a copy of a new release - or Marybeth would and get an extra copy for me. I loved that. I've always loved books. My dream home would have a Christian bookstore attached! Stayed tuned for more tales from my trip.