Stevo causes major publisher to sell out of beloved book
My RealStevo.com email list (the heart of my online communications) received this email today about the same time that the folks on Substack did.
Once in a while, I copy those RealStevo.com emails here, and share them, because I know it may be of interest to you here as well, and because while there is some overlap, lots of different people seem to sign up for the two lists, and I don’t want you to miss out on EVERYTHING the other list gets into get into with me.
But as far as I’m concerned, I think the folks on the RealStevo.com list and I end up going on some pretty wild adventures together. Anyway, here’s this morning’s email. It’s about a book discussion I’ll start tomorrow:
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Listen, I don’t know exactly what happened these last three weeks since I first mentioned the book “Beyond Suffering,” in an online call and said how excited I was about reading it in March, but I know this much…
When I mentioned it, there were both used and new copies available online.
Sometime in the last three weeks after I mentioned it, there were no longer any more copies available online.
The publisher of the book is a major university publisher of religious material, one you would know if I mentioned it — though some readers would not like to hear the name of the publisher and would be reviled, while others would be comforted to hear the name.
To each his own.
I just thought it was a neat book.
Anyway. The heft of my mighty RealStevo.com email list caused them to sell out.
And it caused the secondary market (for used books) to sell out.
And it caused a big spike in the price of the remaining used books when that happened — another reason not to trust algorithms with important decisions.
We cornered the market.
I honestly can’t tell you if they had one book in stock or one hundred. Also I can’t tell you if the supply on the secondary market was one book deep or one hundred books deep. But the book sold out, and I’m taking a point for myself and my readers for that.
We are a hungry group looking to understand the world better and are not hesitant about reaching out and grabbing an opportunity.
That is what happened when that book sold out — either one or hundreds or who knows maybe even thousands of people said “I want to know what that book is saying.”
No matter how big or small the number of books, each person who bought that book stepped out in faith to draw closer to God.
And that is really beautiful.
They were hungry for something special. There are not many other reasons for anyone to go buy a book on Job.
While I think it is funny for me to be able to make the brag that I do in the headline, that’s not the beautiful part of the email. It’s just a silly little brag. The beautiful part of the email is each person who got the book or who signed up in the discussion hoping to get a new glimpse of God and to go deeper in your relationship with Him.
He loves you. You don’t need me, and you don’t need this book, and you don’t need this discussion group to know that.
But I hope that each day we sit down to talk about this book, that I can be a tool of God in your life that day — not just in an academic pursuit of curiosity, but to be there making some space for you to hear and receive what needs to be heard that very day by you.
“Beyond Suffering,” is a book about Job, recommended to me by a reader (click to the next page if you want to see her gushing review of the book). It was a book which helped open my eyes to a different way of seeing the role of suffering in the Bible and also in modern life.
You might actually “like” some of the suffering you go through in life by the time you are done with this book.
And that I believe can be an encouraging realization to come to.
***Because you know what, a life well-lived comes with its fair share of suffering. He who knows no suffering is not trying at this thing we call life.***
If you cannot get anything else out of this email than that, I hope you can take that last paragraph to heart, though I also hope you can take to heart the rest of the email too, especially the God loves you part.
Anyway, we have figured out a way to deal with the inconvenience of there being a sold out book. The solution is to give a PDF to everyone who wants one.
If you want a free copy on PDF, tap here: https://realstevo.com/job-pdf
You are welcome to grab a copy whether or not you participate in what promises to be an awesome 9 days of recorded discussion, including a day of discussion with the author of the book.
We will get started on Tuesday, tomorrow, at 11am Pacific.
So sign up by then.
Join us for the discussion by tapping here: https://realstevo.com/job
Allan Stevo
P.S. As always, the Jack Hochberger Memorial Scholarship is available to all who request. If you don’t know what that is, you can also just hit “reply” and ask.