Beeson Podcast, Episode #599 Dr. David Nelson April 26, 2022 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. And today we’re beginning a two-part series on the topic of Christian publishing. Our two guests for this series are both Beeson alumni, we’re proud to say. And both have taken new positions in publishing this spring. In fact, they were both on the podcast together back in 2019 on the first episode of that year. We are excited to welcome them back separately this time for this series. And Kristen, who do we have on today’s program? >>Kristen Padilla: We have Dr. David Nelson who serves as the Director of Baylor University Press. Prior to coming to Baylor University he worked at Baker Academic and Brazos for a number of years. He serves as the Editor of Lutheran Forum. And we are proud to say that he is a Beeson alumnus. He earned his MDIV degree in 2004 and then after leaving Beeson, went on to get a PhD at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. I forget when it was that I got to know Dave personally. It may have been at an annual meeting when I met him for the first time, but he’s become a friend of mine and Dave it’s just great to have you back on the Beeson Podcast. >>David: Thanks for having me on. I’m excited to chat about publishing. >>Kristen Padilla: Yes. Well, for those who missed that 2019 episode, could you tell us a little bit more about yourself? Where you’re from, anything about your family, your spiritual journey, and kind of what’s going on in your life these days? >>David: Sure. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. As it happens, about five miles as the crow flies from where you all sit right now. I grew up in Bluff Park. I spent most of my childhood and early life, really most of my life in Birmingham. I went to UAB for undergrad. I ended up at Beeson Divinity School kind of by accident but really enjoyed it. It was a great experience for me. As you mentioned, went from there to the University of Aberdeen to do a PhD. But spent most of my time writing the PhD there in Birmingham. Then got into publishing and had been there ever since. With this move to Baylor University Press I think I’m in it for good. And I’m very content with that. It’s a place where I really do sense a strong sense of vocation to be doing a specific kind of work and very happy with that move. I am married to Daisha now for just about 21 years. We were married there in Birmingham at what used to be Southeastern Bible College, now it’s Mountain Brook Community Church. We spent a lot of our time there in Birmingham. Lived in Scotland and France and up here in Michigan. We have three great kids. We’ve got Robert who is 17 and he’s a very talented kid. He’s a junior in high school. And we have twins, Reece and Liam, who were born right before we moved up here. I’m going to be very careful with the last part of that question. You asked about a spiritual background. I’m kind of Lutheran. I’m not really sure what kind of Lutheran I am. I see Doug giving me the thumbs up there. It’s a weird world that we’re in right now. Lutheranism in North America is kind of in a weird state. I fall in that spectrum somewhere but I’m still sorting that out, as they say. >>Doug Sweeney: Dave, you know I’m in a family of publishers and publishing seems like a wonderful and perfectly natural thing to me. But it’s probably true to say that not lots of seminary students think they’re heading into publishing. Tell us a little bit about how you came to decide you were heading into publishing and along the way if you can put a little pitch out there for seminary students for whom this might be a great fit, but hadn’t thought about it before. >>David: Sure. It’s interesting looking back. You always see things in hindsight that you don’t see going forward, right? When I look back I feel like I’ve been around books all my life. I grew up in a house where books were just literally everywhere. And I read avidly as a child and as a teenager. Then my first two jobs were with Christian bookstores. I worked for what was previously called, “Joshua’s” and then called, “Family Bookstores” and now doesn’t exist anymore. I worked for about six years. And then transferred over and actually was the manager of the bookstore there at Beeson Divinity School. So, all those years I was around publishing and very formative years of mine was around theological publishing of the kind that I do now at Baylor University Press when I was there at the bookstore. So, on one hand it seems like it should be just a very natural follow through from doing a PhD to going straight into publishing. In fact, it all happened kind of as an accident. And that tends to be common in the world that I’m in. A lot of people didn’t expect to get into publishing and once they found themselves in publishing they realized what a great place it is to be. And that’s what happened to me. I’d finished up my dissertation in the spring of 2011. And I started applying for jobs that fall. That was right after the recession had really started to do its work among the colleges and universities that academia tends to serve. And there just weren’t any jobs opening up that fall. And actually I think here I can drop a name. One of my professors from Beeson, Gerald Bray, out of the blue one day sent me an email and all the email said was ... I’ve still got it in my inbox ... it said, “Surely you’ve applied for this position.” And then the email itself was a link to a position at a publishing house. I had gone into that fall thinking I probably ought to be open minded about where I end up going. And it still took me maybe a week of thinking over just kind of wrestling with it. Is this something I really want to do? I never really thought about it before, even though I had all of those experiences. I had never really thought about going into publishing. But after a week and after hearing at the time my twins were maybe six months old and they’re on the floor crying for food, you know? And I’m like, “Okay, well, I got to feed these children somehow.” I decided to go for it. And actually didn’t get that position, but the same year later on the position at Baker Academic opened up and I applied and ended up getting into publishing that way. And why I ended up getting it was the combination of having been around books, having worked in retail especially there at the Beeson Bookshop and then as it happened my doctoral supervisor was under contract to write several things for Baker Academic and he wrote a nice letter of reference and it was a good connection there. The latter part of your question, Doug, it is a fun way to use the gifts and abilities that seminary both draws students to and also stirs up within them, right? I found a natural continuity looking back over my whole life that all of these different things that I’ve ended up doing kind of tied together into the publishing world that I’m in. And I’ve tended to find that to be the case with others who are in this world. I don’t really know anyone off hand who has gotten into publishing and decided it’s just gross and they don’t want to do it anymore and jump ship to go somewhere else. A lot of folks kind of get in through the backdoor. They don’t really know how they got there. But folks who get into the world usually stay. And it’s a vibrant community full of good people who are devoted to the task of bringing ideas to life. And I would strongly ... Here’s what I would recommend for students who may right now be thinking about that as a possibility – go ahead and do some work on the front end thinking about the kinds of things that they could put on a resume. It’s becoming more and more competitive; jobs in this world as everywhere really. And the more that they can do on the front end the better off they’ll be if they really want to take it seriously down the road. >>Doug Sweeney: Quick follow-up. So, what kinds of things? If there is a young listener here and they want to know ... “Hey, that’s good advice, I’m going to do something like he said.” What kinds of things should they try to do? >>David: You bet. Two things right off the top of my head. One, any opportunity that they can get locally to work in retail is a good thing. Just the fact that I was able to say to future employers at Baker Publishing Group, “I’ve at an end cap. I know what it means to arrange the books on the shelf and try to figure out a way to sell the book to the reader and to talk about books.” Gosh, that was a really big thing. Looking back on it, it was funny, I did that. I thought I did that during seminary and didn’t expect it to come up during my interview. “I thought you guys were wanting to talk about theology.” Right? And they ended up asking questions about my time at the Beeson Bookshop and at Family Bookstore. So, any of that front line experience. I know there are not a lot of brick and mortar bookstores these days. But go try to get a job at Barnes & Noble or at a campus bookstore. Some place where books are bought and sold. That’s just a good thing to have on your resume. The other thing is any kind of ... especially for those who are interested in getting into editorial work ... any kind of even low level editorial work. Working with a campus magazine or newspaper, maybe taking ... at least a few year ago the University of Chicago had an online copyediting test that you could take. A little program that you run through. You have to pay a couple hundred bucks but you get a certification at the end. Anything like that, that you can actually put on the resume that says, “I’ve been in this world at least gotten a toe in and I know the drill. I know the kind of language that’s used.” Anything like that will help a resume rise to the surface. Because again right now publishers ... there are not a lot of jobs in publishing. There really haven’t ever been, but there are a lot more candidates and so you can almost guarantee that if you apply for a job there are going to be another group of people in the pool. And anything you can do to make your vitae rise up to the surface is a good thing. >>Kristen Padilla: Tell us, Dave, how you got from Baker to Baylor. And this is a multiple part question, but for those who may be familiar with Baylor University but not the Press, what is the Press all about? How did you get into this new position? And what is your job going to entail as Director? Anything that you want to share even about your excitement or your vision in leading a major academic press? >>David: That’s a lot of questions. You’re right. So, I’m going to have to think through them systematically here. I’m very excited to be the Director of Baylor University Press. It’s a great opportunity. The way I got into it is I received an email from a hiring agent suggesting that I think about it. Apparently my name had come up along the way of the search. It had been a long search, actually. Baylor had been without a full time Director for, gosh, over two years at that point. And there are a lot of reasons for that. Half of them have to do with the pandemic. The pandemic just upended all of these hiring processes and searches and other things that went on. Including it caused a hiring freeze at the university. So, this last summer the Press was finally ready to resume that search. The university, of course, resumed it and the opportunity was presented to me and you go into a discernment process. I honestly can tell you that the very first thought I had was, “Well, central Texas? I don’t know.” That was the first thought. And then when I got to thinking more about the Press itself and the books and the reputation the Press has, that’s when I really began to kind of grow within me, “This is something that I need to take very seriously.” And spoke at length on those early days with my wife and also reached out to others. I think it’s probably a good thing to do, I guess. But reached out to others who have tended to speak into my own life and asked them for their opinion about whether it would be a good fit for me. And whether I would be a good fit for it. And once the green lights started to light up, it seemed to be the right thing to do. For my part, what I was very attracted to at first about the position are the books and the reputation. I love Baylor University Press books. I was astonished early on in the interview process when I looked at the books in my own library and counted the number of BP’s on the spine. That unique green and gold logo. And just discovered that I had dozens of them that I had collected over the years. And some of my favorite books were Baylor University Press books. Baylor books tend to be ... We kind of joke around the building ... they’re a little quirky. They’ve got a bit of personality. They’re books that contribute to scholarship. They’re very beautifully, gorgeously designed. There’s something about the brand that speaks to the guild that we serve that says quality and seriousness. And I really appreciated that. I also had heard from many folks who worked with Baylor University Press that it’s a great experience working with that team. And that meant a lot to me. Coming from Baker Academic where we placed a lot of emphasis, they still place a lot of emphasis on author care. Author service. The relationships that we build with the pool of authors that we serve. I saw the residences there at Baylor University Press also, and that drew me to the position. Since I’ve been there I’m just delighted to say that I’ve found that really the most attractive part of being at Baylor University Press is the people. It’s a great group of professional publishers. There’s six of us on the full time staff and we also have student workers who come in and out, several of whom have been around for a while and it’s just a great group of people who take the work that we do very, very seriously. I didn’t know any of them at all on the front end. But I’ve gotten to know them since – interviewing and then receiving and starting the position. And it’s just been a really great fit so far. And I’m very pleased about that. The vision? I feel like I’m in a very unique situation, a wonderful situation of having inherited a program that was already running strong. And I see my vision ... I’ve been entrusted by the university to continue running that program at full strength. To find new books for the press to get great scholarship out into the wild with the BP logo on the spine. And also to do that while building, continuing to build bridges with the university. We’re in a spot as a University Press where we’re very close to our parent institution, which is Baylor University. And to do what we do by maintaining a good strong effective institutional relationship is absolutely a top priority. The only thing I don’t think I answered, Kristen, is just what the Directorship entails. I mean, on one hand it entails ... We all, the team of six, we’re all involved in every single aspect of the publishing process. And as the Director that’s especially the case for me. So, being the Director is getting, as it were, my hands dirty in every single aspect of publishing. It’s also about building the tie. Building bridges at the university and also building bridges to the world of scholarship that we serve. And then in terms of actual brass tacks, on that team of six I’m filling an acquisitions role in addition to the Directorship role. And so I’m responsive along with my colleague, K. Gerald, of actually finding and bringing in and turning out the books that we actually publish each year. So, I’m doing the acquisitions work alongside the Directorship. It’s a bit, but again, so far it’s been great fun. >>Doug Sweeney: Beeson Divinity School, of course Dave, is a seminary that educates pastors and serves churches. Could you say just a word or two about the difference Christian academic publishing already makes and should continue to make in the service of the church and Christian discipleship and Christian ministry? >>David: Sure. I’d be delighted to answer that question. I do feel like I need to at least say a couple of caveats beforehand. One would be that at Baylor University Press we mainly serve the academic community itself. Most of the books that we publish are written by scholars for other scholars. We assume that many of the scholars that we serve are active in their own faith communities in one way or the other. And so there’s a direct connection there but for the most part we serve the academic community directly. That’s what a University Press does. It’s a bit different actually than coming from Baker Academic where many of our books were directly connected to communities to churches and whatnot. The other thing I should say is that most of the books that we publish at Baylor University Press are books that contribute to Christian scholarship, or to scholarship on Christianity. But we also do serve Muslim and Jewish scholars as well as they speak to their academic communities. There’s a question about how publishing affects Christian discipleship in the church and at Baylor we’re also thinking about how Muslim scholarship impacts the Mosque and how Jewish scholarship impacts the synagogue. And those are smaller parts of our program, but also parts of our program that we do facilitate and take very seriously. So, that’s kind of the disclaimer going into that question. But then I guess what I would say is that I wonder, as I’ve thought about this over the years, if it’s best to replace the “does” in the question with “can.” How can Christian publishing affect discipleship in the local congregation and the local church? And I think, Doug, that it really comes down to what pastors and teachers at the local level, the seriousness that they’re willing to take parishioners into the depths of the faith traditions that they have, right? I’ve historically been a member of churches where Sunday School and Wednesday evening programs are light fare. You grab a book off the Christian living shelf that might be selling a bit or maybe talked about on Facebook or social media, but rarely want to dig deeper into the history of Christian thought or the richness of the biblical traditions, interfaith questions that require a little bit of thinking outside the boxes that we’re normally accustomed to thinking in. As long as pastors and others on pastoral staffs are willing to dare to go out of those boxes and dig a little bit deeper. But the kind of books that academic publishers publish can indeed serve local congregations. We have a number of books on our own list that we believe do that. I’ll mention one. There’s another fun name to drop in this context. We published Josh Reeves’ book which is a study of the relationship between science and faith. And it’s a book that I think can appeal to university students, but also appeal to lay folk who are interested in wrestling with these kinds of questions. It’s, “Redeeming Expertise,” is the name of the book. It’s about how we think about scientific expertise in an age when everyone claims to be an expert because social media allows us to do so. That’s a book that I think can serve any number of people, it operates on any number of levels. Ultimately, though, it depends on pastors and others at the local level willing to tackle those tough issues in the context of local Christian life. >>Doug Sweeney: And Josh Reeve’s we ought to point out is also a Beeson alumnus and a professor here at Samford University in the biblical and religious studies department. >>Kristen Padilla: That’s right. He was on the podcast not long ago talking about his book. So, we encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. >>David: I should point out he was also the one that hired me at Beeson Divinity School’s bookstore back in the day. So, it’s been fun to re-connect with Josh after almost 15 years, which is crazy. Re-connect with him as his publisher. >>Kristen Padilla: Lots of connections. Dave, I’m just wondering, for a young scholar or seminary students, I guess this could apply beyond scholars and even young ones at that, but what advice would you give them before they approach a publisher with a book idea? I’d love to know what makes for a good book proposal? Yeah, what should they know before they come knocking at your door, Dave, to publish their book? >>David: Sure. That’s a great question. I always tell those who will listen three things. This sounds fairly Socratic I suppose, but there’s a lot of truth. It’s very generative to think about these three things. It leads down a number of important paths towards good publishing. And they are: 1) Know your publishers, 2) Know yourself, and 3) Know your project. I always encourage especially those who are just getting in. Maybe they’ve got a dissertation, they’re trying to shop their dissertation at the annual meetings or they’ve done that and now they want to write a book, their second book and want to focus exclusively on the publishing process so we don’t have to worry about defending the work in front of a committee, we just want to get the thing published now. So, what do we do? Know your publishers, know yourself, know your project. Very quickly. I am astonished at how little knowledge there is in the academy that we serve about the different kinds of publishers and what they actually do. I would highly encourage young new authors to familiarize themselves with what different publishers publish. We do our thing, our unique thing – Baylor University Press – and by looking at our catalogs, by visiting our website, by wandering around the booth at a meeting, you can figure out, “Does my book actually fit on this list or not?” The same with Baker Academic, Brazos, Zondervan, Lexum, Oxford University Press, Concordia University Press. All of the different presses that are out there have something unique that they’re contributing to this one big discussion that’s going on. And just figuring out, doing a little legwork to understand what the publishers do can be extremely helpful. We do this ... I mean, if I’m hungry, as my evergreen example of this that I use a lot, but if I’m hungry for a hamburger and I see on the interstate sign, “McDonalds, Taco Bell, ChickFilA, and Fudruckers.” I know that two of those are places where I can get a hamburger and then it just comes down to how much do I want to spend on it? I do all of that intuitively. I don’t really think, “Well, can I get a hamburger at ChickFilA?” I don’t think about that because I know I’ve got a sense of what these different restaurants actually do. What their menus look like. But for whatever reasons, a variety of reasons, it’s very complicated of course, but a lot of folks have never thought in that way about the publishing ... the different presses, the publishing community that serves the Christian academy. So, thinking about that on the front end can, at the very least, prevent some very awkward conversations. Where you approach a press and the press says, “We’ve never published that kind of book before. Why are you here?” I think it’s imperative, secondly, that young authors think in advance what kind of books they want to write. And what kind of books they have to write. And where they are, what institution they work for, what their own personal interests are, what other books are actually out there in the conversation they’re trying to contribute to. All of those questions, that will determine quite a bit what kind of books they see in their future. I’m always astonished. There’s a theologian, a German theologian named [inaudible 00:27:41] and the rumor has it that Hanenberg, when he was a very young freshly minted PhD had already mapped out the books that he wanted to write over the course of his career. That’s a little weird. I don’t expect anyone to do quite that, and I’m not even sure the story could be apocryphal. I’m not even sure if it’s true or not. But the very idea that someone had the wherewithal to say, “Here’s what I want to do. Here’s what I want to contribute.” And then to think about that. I think that’s a really good idea. At least just to have a thought about it for a young scholar just getting into theological publishing or Christian writing. And then the final thing would be ... and this leads to the question you had about the proposal. It’s just knowing your book really well. Knowing what it is, if you’re at the stage where you’re ready to propose a book to a publisher, know that book and that project really well. We’re professionals, publishers, some of us don’t act like it but we are professionals. And when we talk to an author we expect to receive on the other side a very well put together presentation of what it is they want to write on. And when we don’t have that it can actually be a big problem. You ask what makes for a good book proposal? I think there are a lot of things that go into a book proposal. You want to have a description. You want to have a table of contents. You want to have specs. You want to talk about how big you think it’s going to be and when you think you’re going to write it. I think though that probably the most important thing on a good book proposal is an abstract. It’s the elevator speech in print, right? It’s a very short 250 word or less, “Here’s what I want to write about.” And if you can’t do that, that’s an indication possibly that you haven’t quite pulled everything together, reeled in the idea to make it something that’s publishable. I think that’s absolutely critical. I remember a few years ago sitting next to someone at a meeting, it was actually a reception at one of the meetings, and they heard, the found out, maybe they looked at my name tag and discovered that I was in publishing and they proceeded when they discovered that I was an editor to unleash about 45 minutes trying to explain what the book was they were trying to publish. I still to this day have no idea what they were talking about. And there is the opposite. There is someone who hasn’t given enough thought to the ideas that they can compress them in something short, sweet, and clear to the person on the other side. So, I would say work on an abstract, refine the proposal. One final thing, think about a proposal for a book that you want to publish like you do a job application that you send for a job that you want to get. Clean it up. Revise, revise, revise. Don’t let there be any ... if you’re going to send it to two publishers don’t accidentally leave the name of the one publisher in the proposal for the other one that you send along. Don’t misspell the editor’s name. The proposals that go into a publishing house get circulated around professional publishers. We are by nature pedantic people. We sometimes edit and correct each other’s emails. Right? And so when we see a proposal that’s got a lot of weird stuff in it, got a lot of misspellings, it’s probably not something that’s going to make its way through the system. So, I always encourage people to take very careful care with the proposals that they send in. If they’re serious about it. >>Doug Sweeney: We’re almost out of time, but can we get you, Dr. Nelson, to reminisce for just a couple of minutes about your time at Beeson? Do you have any favorite professors? Any favorite memories? Any word to our audience about the way your time at Beeson has contributed to your life and your work as a publisher? >>David: You know, Doug, it was a great time. I look back on my four years at Beeson and it was a real great time in my life. I suppose that every Beeson student probably says the same thing. I came through at just the right time. It was just the right people there. I don’t have a lot of friends that I’ve carried over from undergraduate days or from high school. But I’ve just got dozens of friends that I’ve carried over from Beeson days. And I still keep in touch with most of my professors as well. I somehow managed to take Gerald Bray for a class every single semester, except for one. And we still keep in touch. I had an opportunity to publish his book on the church a few years ago with Baker Academic and that was a great thrill. Beeson has contributed a lot of ways to what I do now. I’ll just say very quickly that publishing work there are a lot of parallels to pastoral work. We talk in the industry about shepherding books through the publishing process. We work very carefully with authors and sometimes we have to get inside their heads. There’s a pastoral connection. There’s also a connection to psychology, to be sure. And Beeson prepared me. I came in thinking that I would go out as a college pastor and ended up going after a few other things into publishing and I found all of those skills that I learned in preaching and pastoral ministry and theology all of those have continued to serve me well. And then finally the ecumenical spirit of Beeson Divinity School. Just being there for four years, rubbing shoulders, studying theology alongside others who maybe saw the world differently than I do. That’s definitely continued to serve me well working now for a second publisher that has a broadly ecumenical approach to the kind of books that it publishes. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, we always like to end these podcasts by hearing what the Lord is teaching our guests. So, what has the Lord been teaching you these days? What has he been doing in your life that would encourage us as we close out the show? >>David: You know, right now as we’re recording this podcast we’re at what we hope is the end of a transition where we’ll finally move down to Waco after, gosh, seven months ago entering the candidacy process for the position. So, it’s been a very, very long transition. And during that entire transition I think what God has continued to whisper to me and to my wife and to my kids is, “Just trust me. It will all work out.” We look back, my wife and I have lived in a lot of places. We’ve lived I think in 11 homes in our 20 years of marriage. It’s always worked out. We’ve always been able to see God’s hand along the way leading us where we need to go. We’re not quite there yet. We still got some questions about our transition that are coming up. We’re looking to move down there very soon. But we keep coming back to that in the past, at all those junctures, where things didn’t look so easy, always showed up. And we’re catching that same mood of trust and faith as we look forward. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s a good word and a great way to conclude. You have been listening to Dr. David Nelson. He is the Director of Baylor University Press, a new position for him. He’s also the Editor of the Lutheran Forum, which is a great publication in its own right. One to which I subscribe. Thank you for your work there, Dave. Thank you, Dr. Nelson, for being with us today. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in. We’re praying for you and we would ask you to pray for us. We say goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.