I published a book!

Probably the most exciting piece news for me in the past week was that a book about teamwork that I wrote, Teaming with Geese, went for sale on Amazon.

The second most exciting piece of news was that at the time of writing, five people have bought it – quids in. Selling at just about £1.50 per copy, that means my royalties are hovering at about a fiver, so I only need that to double to hit Amazon’s minimum amount that I can cash out.

Just so’s you know, it isn’t about the money. And just to prove it, I’m trying to give it away for free! From now right up until Sunday you can ‘buy’ it through Amazon without spending a single penny, and even if you don’t have a Kindle you can read it using the online Kindle reader. And the book really isn’t that long, so you might as well!

[EDIT: Sorry, it's actually not free until tomorrow - I'll update you then!]

But I’d like to ask you a favour please. Please do as many of the following as you can:

• I have a ready-made tweet for you, just click here and it will give you a nice prompt
• Use Facebook to tell all your friends about the book
• Please leave a review on the Amazon page
• Please review the book at your blog if you have one

So you can get it for free here. Enjoy it! If you like it, tell your friends; if you don’t like it, tell me!

Ritual for the sake of ritual

The church that I’m part of is non-denominational. It’s part of a wider network of churches so there are the benefits of accountability and oversight that come with that, but we’re not tied down to a particular order of service or what-have-you.

When you’re part of a church like mine it’s easy to attend a more tightly-controlled church (say, Church of England) and feel that the joy and freedom of Christianity has been lost in ritual and tradition, but that ease to judge just goes to show the legalism that can so easily grow out of the good news of grace. When you love grace to the point that you judge other people for not getting it you realise that you don’t really get it yourself.

It turns out that there is value in ritual and tradition. Every single day I leave my office at a time that enables me to get home, play with my son, give him a bath, and eat with my wife. That time’s valuable and important, and doesn’t lose any of its value simply by being repeated every day – on the contrary, the more it happens consistently, the more value it gets!

But the danger is always when the ritual begins to outshine the reason (if I might go so far as to use alliteration). I met a Muslim a year or two ago who was fasting for Ramadan but didn’t know why – I’m not even a Muslim and I think that’s a shame.

So, long story short, I’m going to introduce a bit of ritual to this here blog. I’m not going to tie myself down to this, but I think I’m going to give each day a bit of a theme. I’d be glad to hear your thoughts and/or other ideas!

• Faith Monday (reasons why Christians believe what we do)
• Others Tuesday (encouraging us to be more aware of human rights/mission)
• Wednesday Rewind (looking at what I wrote on this date last year)
• Thursday Humour (because Thursdays are just annoying and need brightening up, don’t they?)
• Challenge Friday (seeking a deeper relationship with God)

What do you think I should or shouldn’t include here?

An unashamed self-plug

Facebook logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hm. I’m not too sure about that title.

The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that I’m trying to update the ‘brand’ of the blog; Thoughts of Sam Isaacson is too much like people peering through the keyhole into my brain, and not enough like me selecting choice nuggets of wisdom I’ve encountered and sharing them for the benefit of both of my readers (thanks, Mum and Dad).

So over the next couple of weeks I’m going to try rolling out a few new ideas, some of which might work, and some of which I’m sure won’t. One thing I’ll change straight away is to try to comment a bit more, after having said a couple of months ago that I was going to stop. It’s always good to admit mistakes.

Something that you can do straight away is to like my new Facebook page and subscribe to the blog (there’s a button on the right-hand side of the home page). Thanks very much.

A second thing you can do is share your ideas with me, I’m particularly looking at you creative people for design thoughts, and you techie people for social media thoughts. Feel free to comment here, or fill out the private form here.

You’re all great.