Here’s a real quick update on my book projects (past, present, and future).

First, a special thank you to everyone who lent a hand to launch my new book, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ (Crossway). Apart from a glitch in Amazon’s automation process that prevented the book from being restocked in a timely manner (and which dragged the launch out longer than expected), everything went very well. I’m grateful to God for many friends who wrote encouraging endorsements and who helped spread the word online. A special thanks to Westminster Books who ran a special offer on the book for a couple of weeks and brought some level of consistency to the launch (and sanity to me).

Newton is book #2 for me. Book #3 is nearly complete. Last week I was graciously given some time to finish up the book in a remote cabin in the woods of Minnesota. The time was focused and productive and I’m now done with it. From here it will go through two final rounds of edits in the coming weeks. The endorsements are in and the cover is finished (and it’s beautiful!). I speak in veiled terms because it is a secret. All I can say it will be 130 pages long, it will launch in October, and it will be given away free of charge to the world (which is the fulfillment of a dream for me).

Today I signed a contract for book #4, and I launch into the big ocean of writing and research in early July. The book will be my third with Crossway (book #1, you may remember, is titled Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books, and was published back in 2011). Book #4 will also be my third book in which I will be working closely with Justin Taylor, which is a privilege only an author in such a position can fully appreciate. I’ll share more about book #4 later this fall (after #3 launches).

Over the last several months the Lord has been kind to me, sparking many potential book ideas and delivering a lot of creative energy. My new urgency in writing books is the culmination of a two-year process of evaluating two questions: (1) Has God called me to write or edit? And, (2) If I’m called to write, what should I be writing (both in format and theme)? Authoring books is a calling others have affirmed, and there are few things I love more than writing thickly researched, highly edited, and refined projects on targeted subjects, all to serve the local church. I do not write to write; I write to serve. And I firmly believe writing books is a primary calling on my life, at least for the near future.

Speaking of writing, a number of friends online have asked if I would share my writing process for the Newton book — the ins and outs of what a typical week looked like for me (as a weekend writer with a family). I have also been asked to explain my formal process for how I envisioned writing what I have called “pastoral synthesis,” the art of taking Newton’s 1,000 letters and drawing them together under an umbrella of selected universals of the Christian life. I’m under deadline to finish three article projects in the next week, but when I get those done I hope to return to those journal pages, transcribe my notes, and share my process here at tonyreinke.com.

So those are my book updates.

What a joy to serve you as a writer. As I have come to appreciate, authors labor for long hours in isolation, for an audience they cannot see, to address a future they cannot predict. So to now have the Newton book out and to see it bless particular readers is a thrill for me (and especially to hear from a number of pastors and from Christians who are struggling with depression). I thank you for your online encouragements and for the incredibly kind reviews that have begun appearing on the Newton page in Amazon.

Of course you can always find an updated list of books I have written or edited at the bottom of the About page, here.

As old Bunyan once said, I am honored to serve you with what little I have to offer.

Blessings in Christ!

Tony Reinke