Recently, my lovely wife, my lovely daughter and I went to Minneapolis (read: Mall of America, Build-A-Bear Workshop and Ikea) for an end-of-summer getaway. Whilst there, I was able to spend an afternoon at Bethany House Publishers headquarters.

Dave Long, my editor, was kind enough to host me--putting his other work on hold to introduce me to staff and sit in meetings. I didn't meet the entire Bethany House team (more than a few people were at sales conference), but everyone I did meet was kind, gracious, energetic and genuinely passionate about what they do. In other words, the kind of people I want to work with. For example, Luke, one of the line editors, was in the midst of a manuscript he's working on for release next Spring. He said, "Here, let me read you a few lines from this," then quoted from the book and chatted with me about it for a few minutes. He didn't do that because it was part of his job; he did it because he was excited about the book, and excited to let other people know about it. That kind of energy was in the faces of all the people I met at Bethany House.

Dave and I met with Dan, Linda, Brett and Debra--the marketing and publicity team--to talk about some initial thoughts for launching the book next summer. (Carra, the Intern who has been posting insightful comments on Dave's blog each Friday, also joined us.) Everyone asked thoughtful questions and offered great ideas as we discussed marketing and publicity hooks, possible endorsements, and the book's background.

Following that, Dave and I went into a meeting with Paul, the art director who oversees cover designs for all Bethany House books--no small task, with 100+ books each year. And, like the rest of the Bethany House staff, he had wonderful insights and questions. We talked quite a while about similar books and their covers, possible images for the cover of Waking Lazarus, and the general tone and feel of the book. (I'll post more on this tomorrow, linking to some of the books and covers we talked about.) During this meeting, Dave offered a great insight on the book--something I've never been able to articulate as well as he did. "Even though the main character dies and comes back to life three times," he said, "the irony is: each time he comes back to life, he's actually a little more dead than he was before." Man, he made me want to read the book when he said that.

Did I mention before how much fun it was to meet all these people? I'm already making plans to return in a few months so I can chat with people who weren't there. Maybe I'll even try to give them more than three days of advance notice next time.