My face is on the cover of a book about not boring young people to death
Oh, you haven't heard of this book?
I recognize that my anecdotes about my early “career” in book publishing tend to be negative so I thought I’d share some positive experiences. Hope you enjoy!
Whenever I play the game “Two Truths and a Lie,” I typically give some variation of the following responses:
I’ve traveled to 10 countries
I am distantly related to Martha Stewart
My face is on the cover of a book
More often than not, people assume I am lying about my face being on the cover of a book, but it’s true (sadly, I am not distantly related to Martha Stewart).
The book is titled “Teaching Eutychus: Engaging Today’s Learners with Passion and Creativity.” Sometimes, when I say the name of the book, people hear the title as “Teaching You to Kiss.” That is a very different book and not one I would be comfortable having my face on.
The book’s title comes from a lesser-known biblical character named Eutychus, found in Acts 20: 7-16. While Paul “talked on and on” (actual NIV) into the night, Eutychus, who was foolishly sitting on a window, was overcome by sleep and fell from three floors up. He was presumed dead but Paul’s response was basically “He’s fine, let’s keep moving” and continued talking on and on until daylight.1
So the book is about how to engage young people without literally boring them to death. I think. Full disclosure: I have actually never read this book.
For the cover, they were having trouble finding the right stock image of a bored young person so, naturally, they thought, “why not just take a picture of that 20-something publicist looking bored?” And that is how my face came to be on the cover of a book.
Each year, the college the book publisher was affiliated with hosted a large conference where we sold a large number of books. Naturally, we had a big poster with “Teaching Eutychus” on it. My face was hard to avoid. I was also selling books at a booth mere yards away and more than a few people would give me quizzical stares and I would see the wheels turning in their head: “Is that…you?”
You will probably have a hard time finding the book in stores, but there is a copy on my mom’s coffee table. The book is currently #1,600 in “Religious Studies Education” on Amazon so that’s something.
The story of Eutychus really is wild. Even the writer of Acts seems to acknowledge Paul was just droning “on and on” past midnight so naturally people would get sleepy (but should probably not sit on windows). Imagine being in a church group that meets in someone’s apartment and someone falls from three stories up and the speaker is like, “He’s alive, let’s not let this interrupt my talk.” Eutychus probably had broken bones or something but they just…left him there until daylight? I really don’t know what readers are supposed to get out of this story. Hopefully, that’s a tip covered in the book: “One way to keep people engaged is to avoid talking past midnight and if someone falls from three stories, seek immediate medical care.”