I do? Says who? Says the self-publishing industry driven by the practices and protocols set forth by those with the knowledge, experience, and measurable success as self-published authors to guide those of us just getting started. Well, here’s another example of me doing things a bit out of the norm by publishing Cows in the Pews and the Atheists Too first and then going about building a platform.

So, I’ve considered, pondered, and procrastinated to the point I couldn’t postpone it any longer. I had to come to terms with the fact that “No, my book isn’t suddenly gonna get picked up by some big publisher and all the hard work of marketing it will take care of itself”.  And “No, the subject matter, “Faith and God” doesn’t speak for itself”. Well, you’d think it would but, that subject, in and of itself,  is a huge platform with many, many people trying to get a piece of the pie.

All of which led me to realize that I’m gonna have to build my own platform; one a bit more nuanced than the broad-brush declaration of: “Hey, everybody, take a listen to what I have to say about God because… well, just because…”  So here I go, I’m going to build a platform that stands apart from many of the forms of religious Christianity that are all seemingly different sides of a multi-sided dice.

So you know, I’m an engineer who likes to build, fix, and tinker with things and I’ve been told that it somehow comes through in my writing style, if that’s what you want to call it. I’ve built a couple of decks, used to be a framer in my younger years, so I have a pretty good idea what it takes to construct a platform and they all start with a solid foundation.

The tricky part of all of this will be for me to successfully build this figurative platform in such a way that it truly stands apart from main stream Christianity so prevalent in our day to day lives.  By now you might be wondering why?  “Why is your aim to somehow discredit Catholicism and Protestantism or “main-stream Christianity” as you call it?”  “Who do you think you are?”  “What right or what credentials do you have that authorizes you to speak such blasphemy against the “churches” that have been in existence for centuries?”  “Furthermore, it’s very rude of you to mock most, if not all Christians as a herd of cows being herded by the many “shepherds” in service to our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”

Admittedly, it’s a tough and lonely position to hold but, conviction is what drives me. The conviction that comes from the understanding that as  bible believing Christians, I am, and we are ambassadors for Christ as established by a passage found in the King James Version of the Bible. The conviction that I am, in truth, duty bound to proclaim what I am proclaiming.  Here’s the passage: