July 31, 2023 • 44 mins
Granger Smith Podcast Episode 199: This is a special episode. I'm going to read your questions about my new book "Like A River" coming out August 1st, 2023! Join me as we discuss about this story and more on this week's podcast episode!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I brought up stuff that I've never brought up before,
not even to Amber. I wrote stuff in this book
that Amber didn't know, that no one on the planet
in fact knew. And it wasn't until I finished the
manuscript itself that I needed to call Amber and tell her, Hey,
there's some stuff in this book that you don't know about. Okay,
(00:32):
welcome to the podcast. This is a special episode, and
I'm going to read your questions about Like a River tomorrow.
As this releases every Monday morning, So as this releases
tomorrow is August first, if you're listening to it in
real time or on the actual day it releases, which
most people probably won't. But for the people that are,
(00:52):
my book, Like a River comes out tomorrow. So motivated
by that, so excited, I mean, probably little bit nervous
about it too, because it's just I looked back on
the process of this, and January of twenty twenty one
is when I finished the proposal to start pitching to publishers.
(01:14):
So before that, you know, is when I was putting
my thoughts together. So it's been quite a process. And
I remember putting together that proposal and when we finally
ended up getting the publishing deal, the green light to
write the book. They were talking about fall of twenty
twenty three, and I remember thinking, that's decades away. It
(01:36):
feels so long from now and now here. We are
literally one day tomorrow it releases. And so if you
haven't gotten like a River yet, first of all, let
me just give you my little pitch. This is my
life story and well at least the last five years,
which have been the most impactful of my entire life,
and we're going to cover in this book with me,
(01:59):
I'm going to cover the the journey through grief and
loss of my little boy, three year old boy River
as we lost him, my wife and I lost him,
And the book is going to open with that. In fact,
I got one right here. I got it right here.
The book opens with that. Chapter one. We're going straight
(02:21):
into it. So let me start reading the very beginning.
It says, soak in this moment because it won't last forever.
It was the last thought I remember having before everything changed.
So right at the beginning of this book, we're getting
into the meat of what happened, the catalyst that then
turned into many other things that happened in my life
(02:44):
that are worth telling they that's an understatement. It's so
important for me to tell this story that I'm literally
giving up the biggest passion hobby career of my life,
and that's touring as a musician. I'm giving all of
that up because I believe that this message in this
(03:05):
book and me supporting the book and trying to get
it into as many hands as possible is more important
than all the fame and all the glory, and all
the stages and all the money and all the festivals
and all the shows forever that I could breathe there
on this earth. I think I'm pretty sure, especially if
(03:28):
you know me, that's a statement. I'm making a statement
for my life about this. Okay, what I want to
do today because it comes up tomorrow. So if you,
if you haven't gotten one, please help me and get
this book. And the reason I say help me is
because in these next seven days eight days, it's very
important for all those best seller lists. Why is that important? Well,
(03:50):
that's important because that kicks you up on the algorithm
that gets you onto other lists. And there's certain people,
certain kinds of people that don't know me, that only
buy books on those lists. So why is that important
because that gets it, that spreads this word, this message
in this book further than my own reach, further than
people that would listen to this podcast, further than country
(04:11):
music or smiths or fans of me in general. So
that's why it's important to kick up the sales enough
to get on some kind of bestseller list. So that's
my immediate short term goal right now. I asked Instagram
if you guys had any questions about this book, and
(04:32):
then promise that I would read them on the podcast.
And so typically on this podcast, I answer your questions
when you email me Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com. Today,
I'm going to break the form just a little bit,
just shy of two hundred episodes, and I'm gonna answer
questions specifically about like a river and there's a bunch
(04:54):
and so I'm just gonna kind of scroll through. I'm
gonna scan them a little bit and see if it's
something that I've already repeated or not, and we'll just
see what happens here. First question says, is the book
too soon to share with a friend who just lost
her twenty year old son last month. No, I would
(05:14):
say no. I would say that it's it would be
too soon for a lot of things in the grief process,
like telling her it's time to get us, it's time
to go, it's time to go back to work, it's
time to be engaged, it's time to put on your
makeup and pick up your bootstraps and go. It's too
soon for that. But as you bring her lasagna one
(05:37):
night and you're speaking with her, it might not be
something that you say, like, hey, you need to read
this book. But you might just bring a copy of
Like a River and put it on her table and say,
this is a guy that lost his son. He explains
the whole process, his whole entire grieving process, page by page.
(05:59):
If you want to see what happened, what didn't work
for him, and then what eventually did. If you want
to read that, here here, just drop it on the
table right here. I don't think it's too soon for that.
Somebody says, here, I'm seeing you in Albuquerque in a
few weeks. Will the book be available there? I'm so excited. Yes.
(06:22):
We don't know exactly how the book's going to be available.
We're going to probably work with local vendors, so local
bookstores that carry it will probably invite them to come
to our shows and bring some with them that will
prevent us. Well, first of all, there's all kinds of
reasons why ye Apparel can't physically carry it unless we
(06:45):
buy them and resell them. So the easier process is
a local bookstore comes in to our shows, which is
very possible, and we'll make sure that it's in Albuquerque.
Here's what it says, will you be selling a limited
stock of signed copies I'm gonna sign. I'm gonna I'm
gonna always sign books, so if you need, if you
(07:07):
need a sign book, I'm not hard to find. I
will always sign books. And the next one says, how
do I get a signed copy? There's gonna be lots
of ways. I'll continue to tell you different ways, but
I'm not gonna slow that down. There's not like a
limited number that I'm gonna sign. This question says, do
(07:28):
you have this book on tape? I'm just a fireman.
I'm not very good at reading. You know it's interesting, Yes,
this book is going to be on audible. But and
I know he's joking, and this is actually my friend Jared.
I know Jared, but it is interesting. Let me just
(07:48):
throw this out there that I realize there's a lot
of people that think I don't read books. It's not
my thing. I don't read books, and so the audiobook
is for you. Great, But I would challenge you to
give this book a shot because I'm not a really
smart guy, and I think, I hope, I pray, and
I believe that even the person that says they can't
(08:10):
read very well, or they don't read and they don't
like reading, or they get too distracted with reading, I
would be willing to bet that this book is still
okay for you because I think I speak in a
language that you could understand. I'm not super intellectual, right,
give it a try, Give a try, please. This person says,
(08:31):
do you have Bible verses in it? Yes? I do.
Every chapter is going to start with a Bible verse.
Plus there is some other things I unpack in there.
Will it be on Amazon? Yes it will. That's an
easy way to get it. Amazon's super easy. This person says,
what's the best part of the book? I could tell you,
but then that would be giving it away, wouldn't it.
(08:57):
I will say this for those of you that know
me and know my story, I'm not necessarily saying this
is the best part. But for those of you that
know me, know that River, my son, he's the one
that gets on the title of this book. He's the
one that gets you know, the first chapter and the
catalyst and so much that happens after it. But truly,
the star of the book itself is Maverick. I'll give
(09:21):
you that much. Next person says, I'm a school librarian.
Will you come speak to our FCA club in San Antonio? Certainly,
certainly you could. You could find me on my website
grangersmith dot com. There is a contact page and there
is a speaking request form. Typically, I do not charge
(09:42):
anything for speaking at something like that or church. Next
question here says what has the Lord taught you while
writing this book? Oh, man, I would say patience because
it's been a long time. It's been a long slow ride.
Making an album is a lot quicker than this. This
(10:06):
question says, I'm excited to read it. My question is
for your wife, what were your thoughts on this book? Well,
Amber's not sitting here with me, but Amber has been
so supportive, so supportive, and it's been very interesting because
as I write some of the stories in the book,
and as you might have noticed, those of you that
are watching this podcast right now maybe on YouTube, you
(10:27):
might notice that I'm actually sitting in the place where
Amber does arise. I wanted to change up this episode
since I'm not answering typical questions. I'm sitting in her spot.
But she's been so encouraging to me, and there was
interesting times when I was writing a part of the
story and I would say a fact about what was happening.
(10:48):
For instance, there was one time when I was talking
to Amber in the book and I said, we were
sitting on the edge of the bed having this discussion, right,
And later she comes to me and she goes, hey,
you know, we weren't sitting on the edge of the bed.
We were sitting on the stairs at the bottom of
the stairs. I trust her memory over mine, and I
was like, you're right, You're totally right. The meat of
(11:12):
the conversation in my mind was so important that it
took over the facts of my surroundings and where I
actually was very interesting that happened in different places of
the book as I had as I sent it to
all the people that were involved, and they came back
with me and were like, yeah, try this try this.
(11:36):
Here's the question says, will the book be about the
timelines of grief that you experienced? Yes, somewhat, somewhat yes.
What was the most difficult sentence you wrote in the
book and why? H I don't really know. I can't
really tell you the most difficult sentence, but I tell
you the most difficult chapter was chapter seven. It's called
(11:58):
the Dark Night of the Soul, and it was difficult
to write, but that's an understatement compared to how difficult
it was to live. And the Dark Night of the
Soul comes six chapters after we lost riv so that
story was at the very beginning. So don't think it's that.
(12:19):
What I've been saying is as people as I've given
this book out and people have read through, and sometimes
they'll text me and there'll be a certain amount of
pages in and they'll say, you, granger, I read I'm
at I'm trying to find where it is. I'm at
page you know, ninety five or whatever. Yeah, we're in
(12:42):
ninety five, ninety six hundred, and I realized that they're
in the Dark Night of the Soul chapter and they're like, man,
I just can't believe this. I can't I can't believe
this chapter, et cetera, et cetera. In my usually I
don't reply because what I'm really is read chapter eight.
(13:03):
You get the chapter seven. You might get stuck, and
you might you might get a really weird feeling, a
really bad feeling. You might understand a little bit of
how it felt to write it and experience it. But
the best thing I could say is get the chapter eight.
Read chapter eight, then we'll talk. Then we could talk.
It almost needs to come with a warning label. I'll
(13:25):
give you this book, or you could buy this book,
but don't message me at chapter seven, message me after
chapter eight. This question says, what is your greatest hope
that comes from this book? My greatest hope is that
even one person, and that's the reason I want to
(13:47):
get it into so many hands is to help the
odds of this but that even one person could find
the same hope and peace and rest at the source
of the river during their darkest time, during their maybe
their darkest night of the soul, like I did, and
this book the Lord used as a catalyst for that.
(14:10):
That's that's my greatest hope. Question says is it tough
for you or Amber to read through the book. Well,
I read the audiobook. Obviously, I've read it many times
after I've written it for the editing process, but I
read the final copy for the first time while I
(14:31):
was reading the audio recording the audiobook, and that was
the really first time, the first time that I heard
all of my changes in my little edits together, flowing together,
not just in clumps and sections. And I cried probably
every chapter, not always sad tears. Put it that way.
(15:01):
This question says, would you rate how hard it was
to write? Surprisingly, not hard. It was not hard. I
mean we're not talking emotionally, we're talking just physically. Practically.
It was not hard to write because it was all
right there in my head. I was ready to come out.
I'm kind of scanning around here on these questions. When
(15:30):
did you decide you were open, You're going to open
up and write this book? Probably about September twenty twenty one. Yeah, yeah,
twenty twenty two was the proposal. January twenty twenty two
(15:51):
was when we was that right, No, I'm good, my
ears mixed up twenty twenty. September twenty twenty was the
first was like, yeah, I got to write a book,
something like that. I don't know how many of y'all
know that COVID kind of messed up all of our
(16:12):
memories on months and years. There's a lot of questions
like that, what made you want to write this book?
You know what? I just woke up one day. Honestly,
I had thought about it a lot, and I woke
up one day and just thought, I got to do it.
I need to do it. I need to start the process.
So I called my brother Tyler, who's my manager, and
(16:34):
he said, well, I think my advice to you is
to call two people that you know that have written books.
And one was Ryan Mickler, who has the Order of
the Order of the Man podcast. Message him because he's
just releasing a book. And then message ed my Latt,
who's written hundreds of books. So I did that. Both
(16:54):
of those guys were very helpful and sent me in
the direction of a literary EI who then could say, Okay, well,
here's the process, here's what we need to do. Here's
what you need to put together before we can propose
this to different publishers. This question says what your was
(17:16):
your wife a big part of helping you deal with
the loss. You could read the book for that one,
because that's up for that's up for a good conversation.
This question says, I'm a fan of your music. I
(17:36):
share the same faith. Why should I read this book?
Lord knows I do need help in my life? That's interesting.
It's an interesting question. By country Boy Revival, that's his
name on Instagram. I would say this, country Boy Revival,
I would say this, will you if you like my music,
(17:58):
if you've been a fan of my music, and I
would say that it might be right to say that
as I've put out a music video from a song
that you've liked, you've trusted me with that music video.
I would say, may I extend that trust to this book?
May I ask you to trust me that you should
(18:21):
read this book. I could go through some generic reasons,
but I would ask, will you trust me and read
the book and let me know what you think. I'm
gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back
to continue these questions. Okay, this podcast is brought to
(18:42):
you today, as you could probably guess by my book
Like a River, That's what I want to talk about.
Because as I sit here and record this, it is
still not available to the world, but it will be
on August first by the time you are hearing this.
If you're hearing this right now and do not have
the book Like a River, I would encourage you to
(19:04):
go to Amazon dot com, pullet your app, pull out
your Prime app, pull out your Walmart dot Com app
if that's what you use, or Barnes and Noble, wherever
you like to find books. I would encourage you to
check out my book Like a River. And if you
are a fan of this book, if you already know
a little bit about this book, and you know that
(19:25):
it could help people, maybe someone that's hurting or lost,
or broken or heartbroken in any way, then you think, well,
down the road, I want to get that person a book.
I would encourage you to get it today for them
so that we could make a bigger impact with the
immediate number we get this week on that book. If
(19:47):
that doesn't make any sense to you, here's what I'm
trying to say. This is our best shot this week,
because it's brand new and it has pre orders included.
This is our best shot to get on some kind
of bestseller list. If it does that, it gets into
the hands of so many others. So that's my goal.
Is to get this book my story. When I lost
my son Riv, I had no idea the pain that
(20:11):
I would be plunged into, and that it was a
kind of pain that I could not bring myself out of.
I learned that I didn't have to do that, and
I want to show other people as many people as
I can, so they don't go to the extent in
their brokenness that I did. That's in a nutshell, that's
(20:32):
why I wrote Like a River. It's it's a story
of hope. It's a story of purpose on the other
side of your pain. Please check it out. It comes
out August first, as we speak. It's called Like a River.
It's my brand new book. All right, we're back here
answering your questions about the book. Like a River comes
(20:55):
out tomorrow, August first. If you're listening real time. If
you're not listening real time, then out it is out
and you could find this book anywhere you like to
find books. Amazon is super easy. If you go to
grangersmith dot com at least right now there is that's
we're kind of using that as the hub that has
all the links to all the different places that sell
books like Walmart dot com and Barnes Andnoble dot com
(21:17):
and Amazon dot com all that kind of stuff, So
you could find the book at any of those places.
And I would say, and this is not an advertisement,
but I would say, Amazon, you know, it's super easy,
and it's not going anywhere for a while at least.
Moving on with your questions, I asked you to Aunt
to give me some questions on Instagram, and I'm just
(21:38):
kind of scrolling through here questions specifically about the book.
This question says, was it therapeutic in a way? And yeah,
that's a pretty common question, and sure, yeah, absolutely. I
told I've told this story of about losing riv and
what has happened to me afterward. I've told the story
many many times, whether it's on the Smiths or I've
(21:59):
mentioned it many times on this podcast. I've talked about
it on radio shows and Good Morning Americas and Today's
shows and you name it. I am second shows. But
writing the book was different than all of them because
it was much deeper. It was going into a world
that was much more detailed, and I brought up stuff
(22:25):
that I've never brought up before, not even to Amber.
I wrote stuff in this book that Amber didn't know
that no one on the planet in fact knew. And
it wasn't until I finished the manuscript itself that I
needed to call Amber and tell her, Hey, there's some
stuff in this book that you don't know about. So
(22:48):
that's that. Yeah, so it was therapeutic in that way. Yes,
The question says, book signings in New York next next week.
I'm seeing you on August the second. She said, I'm
reading it right now and it's taking my breath away. Yeah,
thank you. I'll find you. I'll find you. We will
(23:10):
be doing signings. Here's the question says, is it appropriate
for a seventeen year old that loves your music? Yeah,
I'll say seventeen. Yes. I would say you might have
caution with your younger kids twelve and under eleven and
under may caution. You may want to read it first.
(23:32):
I wouldn't say it's bad for kids, but I would
as a parent, I would read it first. I have
not let my kids read it yet. I'll put it
that way. Seventeen Yep. Great. Here's what it says. No question.
Just wanted to say, I'm so excited for it to
be delivered. Thank you. Here's what it says, is your
(23:57):
book saying, you agree with Calvinism. If so, why I
know it's the books. No, the book does not say that.
Here's one that says, does this book tell us the
secret to why I am depraved? I don't know. I don't.
(24:19):
I don't think so this is good. You guys are
getting so deep on these Uh. Here's one that says,
how did you decide what the chapters of this book
would be in what order? That was? That was done, thankfully,
in the in the proposal process. So I did that
(24:42):
before I even wrote them. I knew the order of
the chapters before I wrote the actual book, and the
chapters were just had working titles, so I was able
to know, I'm going this direction with it, I'm going
out on chapter two, I'm going this direction. Chapter three,
I'm gonna talk about this chapter four, I'll go here.
So that was that made it a lot easier to write.
So putting that in order before anything else happened was
(25:07):
critical to the way my brain worked. Here's another question saying,
was writing this book healing for you? Yeah? In so
many ways, In so many ways, it was healing for me.
But truly, let me tell you, that's not why I
wrote it. I didn't write it so that it would
(25:30):
be healing for me. That's cool, that's a great that's
a great little point. But I wrote it so that
it would be healing for you. Really, truly. Here's one
that says, if I haven't experienced loss of a kid
slash young loved one, is it still something I'll enjoy?
(25:54):
I would say, I would say absolutely. This is not this.
This is not a book directed towards people that have
lost a child. I would say that it works really
well with that group. But that's not at all who
it's for. It's for everybody, truly. This is my story
(26:19):
what happened to me. Take it however you want to
take it, but it's for everybody. It's a message for everybody. Yes,
here's the question that says, what did your community look
like for you and your wife before and after your loss?
(26:43):
Had we had a good community on both sides. They're
good neighbors, good friends, good fans, good family. Yeah, we
had it on both sides. Very very thankful for that.
When will it be available in Europe? Oh? I don't know.
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish like a
river would get out there quicker, But that's something I
(27:05):
cannot control. Here's what it says, such a powerful read.
Thank you. When will it be mailed? You should get
it tomorrow. You should get it tomorrow from when you
hear this podcast. Here's what it says. When you felt
(27:26):
like you couldn't go any further, like you couldn't take
another step, what did you do? Yeah? You know. That
is something I really go into detail about in this book,
is the step by step process I did and the
(27:47):
extent of the steps that I took, and most of
them nine point nine nine percent of the steps I
took and things that I did, like you said, when
I couldn't go any further, ninety nine percent of it
did not work. In fact, most of it made things worse.
And that's why I want you to read it, so
(28:07):
that maybe you don't have to go through as many
things as I did before you find the one percent.
There's anyone says, no question, just looking forward to purchasing,
purchasing the book and meeting you in August and Tulsa,
me too. Here's one said, if I pre ordered it
(28:29):
on Amazon? Am I going to get one? For sure? Yes?
Yes you will, lindsay on here says is it hard
putting your personal story out for everyone to see. That
is the most difficult part. That is, hands down the
most difficult part is not only putting my story out,
but putting the most vulnerable parts of my story out
(28:52):
in the open. That's very difficult. It's worth it. The
payoff is worth it. The ability to possibly reach someone
with a ray of hope, with an idea of peace
and hope and rest within the darkest night for them.
If I could reach them with that, it's worth it.
Is worth all of the embarrassment and uncomfortable moments that
(29:17):
I would have sharing my story within the public. Here's
another one says the same thing. Do you feel vulnerable
now that parts of your story you are about to
be heard for the first time? Yep, I do. What
was the hardest thing about writing this book and how
did you cope to keep writing? The hardest part about
(29:40):
writing the book really was the patience in the process itself,
because I want to just do things and get it done,
and sometimes I would hit a block and be like,
I don't know, I can't. I need to stop now.
I need to wait for the creative energy to roll again.
I don't have it right now. And you can't just
(30:02):
power through it, like mowing the grass. I used to
have a lawn business, and when I would mow grass,
you could just power through it. You're tired, you can't
think anymore, your sunburn you just you just go them
to power through them, to finish. But you can't do
that with creative things. That's the hardest part. Here's the
(30:28):
question says, how do you cope with PTSD? Lots of
different ways and few of them work. That's exactly I
lay that out as clear as I can in the book. Yeah,
here's what it says. It might be too soon to ask,
(30:48):
but do you plan to write more books in the future.
I do. When I signed over with Like a River
to HarperCollins, my publisher, it was a four book deal.
Four books, So this is the first one, and you
should expect in some form maybe different kinds of books.
(31:08):
But three more and Lord willing more after that. I
really enjoyed the process, and so I really hope that
there are many more. Let's see here, there's a lot
of questions that say, what was the most difficult part
(31:29):
of writing the book? Or was it therapeutic? And was
it difficult? Was it hard? Was it. I've got a
lot of questions like that, will you be doing a
book tour? I see a lot of those questions, and
the answer is kind of. I'm going to be going
around and doing different conferences and preaching different places, So
(31:51):
it's not going to be officially a tour, but I
will be going to a lot of different places with
this book after music touring stops. Yes. Question here says
is it appropriate for teenagers? I would I would read
it first if you're if you're a teenager and you
don't have anyone that's supervising you, then read it. If
(32:11):
you're a parent asking me that, then you read it
first and then advise. I'm saying personally, it's okay for you.
Here's one It says, when will you let your kids
read or have it for them to read? Still praying
through that, Yeah, there's some parts in there that I'm
(32:33):
still praying through for them. Here's one says, what is
your favorite chapter? By the way, big fan of the podcast,
thanks Braden. That my favorite chapter? Probably there's there's uh
several that I love because because of different reasons. Chapter
(32:54):
five is about my dad and a lot of people
walk away and they're like man, I like chapter five,
so that's that's a big one for me. But m hm,
chapter eleven it's a good one too. Chapter eight, that's
a good one too. Not because I'm like, oh I
wrote a cool chapter. I'm because the story in it
is impossible for me to have made up. Are you
(33:23):
planning to be a guest speaker at church? Yeah? I am.
If you would like me too, you could talk to
your pastor and you could reach out to me through
grangersmith dot com and the contact page. Yeah. Somebody says
where can I buy it? Yeah? Amazon, it's a good
place that's old to start with that, but you any
place that you like to buy books. This question says,
(33:47):
will it be released only in hardcover editions? Is there
a soft cover coming down the road? I believe. So
this is my first time in the book world that
I believe that they start hardcover like this, and then
they for a while and then they go to soft cover.
But it's cool to have these, especially this one, this
particular one I'm holding because this is the first print,
(34:10):
the first edition, so there are already at least one
word that needs to be changed from this edition. So
what we'll do is and I've turned that in. So
they go back and on the second print when they're
ready to reorder, Lord Willing, then it's the second edition
and it's got that one word fixed, right. But at
(34:34):
that point, the first edition doesn't exist anymore. So it
becomes a kind of a novelty, kind of a keepsake,
kind of more valuable than any of the other versions.
So if you get a soft cover down the road,
cool most of what people read will probably be the
soft cover, but there will only be this one run
of first edition hardcovers. Here's a question that says, did
(35:00):
you include how you arrived to forgive yourself through Christ?
I think many are struggling believing that Christ covers all
and they are not exempt for God's grace. That perseveres
I'm oh, that prevents them forgiving themselves, which hinders their
(35:20):
relationship to God. Sorry, I read that in three different pieces.
Let me read it again together. Did you include how
you arrived to forgive yourself through Christ? I think many
struggle believing that Christ covers all and they are not
exempt for God's grace, and that prevents them from forgiving themselves,
(35:43):
which hinders their relationship with God. I would highly recommend
you read this book because I think you'll find that
there is a flaw in what you're saying. Well, you're asking,
and I'm pretty sure sure that this book lays out
pretty well that you can't forgive yourself. That's something somebody
(36:08):
else has to do, right, that's complicated. But read the book,
we'll talk. Read the book, then we'll talk. This one
says what chapter was your favorite to write? So that's
different than what's my favorite chapter? What was your favorite
(36:29):
chapter to write? And that's five? Chapter five? Chapter five
one was I loved writing that chapter. I'm scrolling through
with my eyes on my phone, scrolling through Instagram questions,
(36:51):
and I am kind of scrolling now looking for a
question that's different. That's why I'm pausing because there's a
lot of questions that are the same, like what was
the hardest part about writing it? How long have you
planned this? When did you decide to write it? How
many drafts of this book are there? That's interesting. I
(37:17):
don't know twenty, there's a lot. I just wrote, and rewrote,
and rewrote, and rewrote, and rewrote over and over. Did
you ever have a writer's block and how did you
handle it? Yeah? I did the best thing to handle
a writer's block. The best thing is a really good
night's sleep and some decent food and stay hydrated. Really,
(37:42):
there's so many other things you could do, but if
you don't do those three things, then you're gonna have problems.
No matter what you're doing, you're gonna have problems if
you're not getting good rest, good fuel, and hydrating. Sound stupid,
but that's the real deal. There's one says, what was
the process from conceptualization to publishing? The key to all
(38:08):
of that was there was a I found an agency,
a literary agency called the FED Agency. And there're stuff
that you don't think about when you're just reading, casually reading,
but if you open up the first page, it says
this author is represented by the FED Agency. It's like
on the literally the first page. And they're the glue
(38:30):
that just really connects a lot of things and holds
it together. So they are the people that said, Okay,
what are you thinking? What's your working title here? What
what kind of chapters are you thinking? What's the book about?
Who is it to? Who's a demographic? Who do you
think will read this? Who does it matter to you?
What's the message you want those people to hear, okay,
(38:54):
So they just walk through different questions and help me
decide how I'm gonna go about it, how I'm gonna
get that blank page going on page one on chapter one,
where I'm going with it. And they also help take
this whole thought idea, because before Like a River was
a book, it was just a proposal. And the Fed
Agency takes this proposal and they go, hey, this isn't
(39:17):
a book yet, but here's the idea of it, and
here's who's writing it, and here's the story that he
wants to tell that he hasn't told yet, but he
wants to tell. And they pitch it out to all
these different publishers and they say, who wants this, who's
interested in taking this and helping put this on shelves
and different different e commerce stores. We ended up getting
(39:41):
our publisher. You know. They came forward and we talked
to a lot of great ones. We prayed through that
whole process, and then when the right one came, and
after we'd prayed a lot about it because it's so important,
then they said, okay, green light go. We love it.
We love your concept, we love your title, we love
(40:02):
where you want to go with it. It's all yours.
You have four months. I think that's about what they
gave me about something like four months. You have four
months to write it, have it turned in by this day,
and I think it was September first of last year,
and I was like cool, So I finished it in
two months instead of four, and that was it and
(40:24):
we were off to the races. I am so encouraged
by so many people that have reached out and that
are interested in this book. And I am as I'm
sitting here tonight as I record this ahead of time,
I just can't imagine what the feeling will be when
(40:47):
people are actually reacting to it and messaging me after
they've actually read it, because from now right now, most
of the world has not seen it or read it.
So this is the last podcast that I will do
Lord Willing that I don't that people don't know the
story of Like a River, and so I'm just I'm excited,
(41:08):
and I want to make my plea one more time.
If you haven't checked this book out, grab it and
what really helps me. Let me reword that what really
helps this book and the message behind it is the
first week. What matters is those sales on the first week.
And so I kind of started the podcast with this,
(41:30):
but I'll say it again. This is what I've learned
through endless zoom calls with the publisher that that first
week matters a lot because we either will or will
not end up on some kind of bestseller list. And
if we do, then there are people that will buy
it just because of that, and there will stores that
will carry it just because of that. If we don't,
(41:52):
then that's okay, but we won't be on those lists,
and it will just won't get into the new level.
It won't get into the next level of buyers. The
next level of buyers is who I'm partially interested in
because they don't know me at all. They've never heard
my name, they don't know my music, they don't know
my story, they don't know about River. They're just casual
book readers that could be very surprised by the contents
(42:15):
of this book. So all that to be said, the
way to get to them is by having a good
first week. And the way to have a good first
week is that if you're thinking about getting this book
for someone for like Christmas or their birthday, and you're
thinking I'll grab one for me now, and I'll grab
this book later for Christmas. I would encourage you just
(42:38):
to go ahead when you're getting it on Amazon or whatever.
Just make it too right now, make the quantity too
so that then you can hang on to the second
copy and then you'll give it to them later for Christmas,
so that those numbers do better the first week. This
revealing a lot. I don't think I've ever been this
(42:58):
upfront and kind of sales pitchy with any music or album,
and I think that should say something about what this
means to me compared to album. I've never sat on
a podcast and told you to please buy two albums
or go stream at a million times. I've never told you that.
I just said, if you like the music, play it.
(43:19):
I hope you like it. This is different. I'm saying,
give this book a shot. If you're not a reader,
give it a shot. The audiobook is cool and I
love it, but this is what counts for these bestseller lists.
So give it a shot and then let me know
what you think. Email me Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com.
(43:43):
That is the normal email I read for this podcast,
So check it out. Email me let me know what
you think. Let me know if it stirs something in you.
Let me know if you hate it. If you're like, man,
don't ever write a book again. This is terrible, let
me know that too. But either way, I love you guys,
and I'm so excited about what is going to be
(44:03):
August first, the release of Like a River. See you, guys,
thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate
all of you guys. You could help me out by
rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe
to this channel. Hit that little like button and the
notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload
(44:24):
a video. If you have a question for me that
you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at
gmail dot com. Yi
I brought up stuff that I've never brought up before,
not even to Amber. I wrote stuff in this book
that Amber didn't know, that no one on the planet
in fact knew. And it wasn't until I finished the
manuscript itself that I needed to call Amber and tell her, Hey,
there's some stuff in this book that you don't know about. Okay,
(00:32):
welcome to the podcast. This is a special episode, and
I'm going to read your questions about Like a River tomorrow.
As this releases every Monday morning, So as this releases
tomorrow is August first, if you're listening to it in
real time or on the actual day it releases, which
most people probably won't. But for the people that are,
(00:52):
my book, Like a River comes out tomorrow. So motivated
by that, so excited, I mean, probably little bit nervous
about it too, because it's just I looked back on
the process of this, and January of twenty twenty one
is when I finished the proposal to start pitching to publishers.
(01:14):
So before that, you know, is when I was putting
my thoughts together. So it's been quite a process. And
I remember putting together that proposal and when we finally
ended up getting the publishing deal, the green light to
write the book. They were talking about fall of twenty
twenty three, and I remember thinking, that's decades away. It
(01:36):
feels so long from now and now here. We are
literally one day tomorrow it releases. And so if you
haven't gotten like a River yet, first of all, let
me just give you my little pitch. This is my
life story and well at least the last five years,
which have been the most impactful of my entire life,
and we're going to cover in this book with me,
(01:59):
I'm going to cover the the journey through grief and
loss of my little boy, three year old boy River
as we lost him, my wife and I lost him,
And the book is going to open with that. In fact,
I got one right here. I got it right here.
The book opens with that. Chapter one. We're going straight
(02:21):
into it. So let me start reading the very beginning.
It says, soak in this moment because it won't last forever.
It was the last thought I remember having before everything changed.
So right at the beginning of this book, we're getting
into the meat of what happened, the catalyst that then
turned into many other things that happened in my life
(02:44):
that are worth telling they that's an understatement. It's so
important for me to tell this story that I'm literally
giving up the biggest passion hobby career of my life,
and that's touring as a musician. I'm giving all of
that up because I believe that this message in this
(03:05):
book and me supporting the book and trying to get
it into as many hands as possible is more important
than all the fame and all the glory, and all
the stages and all the money and all the festivals
and all the shows forever that I could breathe there
on this earth. I think I'm pretty sure, especially if
(03:28):
you know me, that's a statement. I'm making a statement
for my life about this. Okay, what I want to
do today because it comes up tomorrow. So if you,
if you haven't gotten one, please help me and get
this book. And the reason I say help me is
because in these next seven days eight days, it's very
important for all those best seller lists. Why is that important? Well,
(03:50):
that's important because that kicks you up on the algorithm
that gets you onto other lists. And there's certain people,
certain kinds of people that don't know me, that only
buy books on those lists. So why is that important
because that gets it, that spreads this word, this message
in this book further than my own reach, further than
people that would listen to this podcast, further than country
(04:11):
music or smiths or fans of me in general. So
that's why it's important to kick up the sales enough
to get on some kind of bestseller list. So that's
my immediate short term goal right now. I asked Instagram
if you guys had any questions about this book, and
(04:32):
then promise that I would read them on the podcast.
And so typically on this podcast, I answer your questions
when you email me Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com. Today,
I'm going to break the form just a little bit,
just shy of two hundred episodes, and I'm gonna answer
questions specifically about like a river and there's a bunch
(04:54):
and so I'm just gonna kind of scroll through. I'm
gonna scan them a little bit and see if it's
something that I've already repeated or not, and we'll just
see what happens here. First question says, is the book
too soon to share with a friend who just lost
her twenty year old son last month. No, I would
(05:14):
say no. I would say that it's it would be
too soon for a lot of things in the grief process,
like telling her it's time to get us, it's time
to go, it's time to go back to work, it's
time to be engaged, it's time to put on your
makeup and pick up your bootstraps and go. It's too
soon for that. But as you bring her lasagna one
(05:37):
night and you're speaking with her, it might not be
something that you say, like, hey, you need to read
this book. But you might just bring a copy of
Like a River and put it on her table and say,
this is a guy that lost his son. He explains
the whole process, his whole entire grieving process, page by page.
(05:59):
If you want to see what happened, what didn't work
for him, and then what eventually did. If you want
to read that, here here, just drop it on the
table right here. I don't think it's too soon for that.
Somebody says, here, I'm seeing you in Albuquerque in a
few weeks. Will the book be available there? I'm so excited. Yes.
(06:22):
We don't know exactly how the book's going to be available.
We're going to probably work with local vendors, so local
bookstores that carry it will probably invite them to come
to our shows and bring some with them that will
prevent us. Well, first of all, there's all kinds of
reasons why ye Apparel can't physically carry it unless we
(06:45):
buy them and resell them. So the easier process is
a local bookstore comes in to our shows, which is
very possible, and we'll make sure that it's in Albuquerque.
Here's what it says, will you be selling a limited
stock of signed copies I'm gonna sign. I'm gonna I'm
gonna always sign books, so if you need, if you
(07:07):
need a sign book, I'm not hard to find. I
will always sign books. And the next one says, how
do I get a signed copy? There's gonna be lots
of ways. I'll continue to tell you different ways, but
I'm not gonna slow that down. There's not like a
limited number that I'm gonna sign. This question says, do
(07:28):
you have this book on tape? I'm just a fireman.
I'm not very good at reading. You know it's interesting, Yes,
this book is going to be on audible. But and
I know he's joking, and this is actually my friend Jared.
I know Jared, but it is interesting. Let me just
(07:48):
throw this out there that I realize there's a lot
of people that think I don't read books. It's not
my thing. I don't read books, and so the audiobook
is for you. Great, But I would challenge you to
give this book a shot because I'm not a really
smart guy, and I think, I hope, I pray, and
I believe that even the person that says they can't
(08:10):
read very well, or they don't read and they don't
like reading, or they get too distracted with reading, I
would be willing to bet that this book is still
okay for you because I think I speak in a
language that you could understand. I'm not super intellectual, right,
give it a try, Give a try, please. This person says,
(08:31):
do you have Bible verses in it? Yes? I do.
Every chapter is going to start with a Bible verse.
Plus there is some other things I unpack in there.
Will it be on Amazon? Yes it will. That's an
easy way to get it. Amazon's super easy. This person says,
what's the best part of the book? I could tell you,
but then that would be giving it away, wouldn't it.
(08:57):
I will say this for those of you that know
me and know my story, I'm not necessarily saying this
is the best part. But for those of you that
know me, know that River, my son, he's the one
that gets on the title of this book. He's the
one that gets you know, the first chapter and the
catalyst and so much that happens after it. But truly,
the star of the book itself is Maverick. I'll give
(09:21):
you that much. Next person says, I'm a school librarian.
Will you come speak to our FCA club in San Antonio? Certainly,
certainly you could. You could find me on my website
grangersmith dot com. There is a contact page and there
is a speaking request form. Typically, I do not charge
(09:42):
anything for speaking at something like that or church. Next
question here says what has the Lord taught you while
writing this book? Oh, man, I would say patience because
it's been a long time. It's been a long slow ride.
Making an album is a lot quicker than this. This
(10:06):
question says, I'm excited to read it. My question is
for your wife, what were your thoughts on this book? Well,
Amber's not sitting here with me, but Amber has been
so supportive, so supportive, and it's been very interesting because
as I write some of the stories in the book,
and as you might have noticed, those of you that
are watching this podcast right now maybe on YouTube, you
(10:27):
might notice that I'm actually sitting in the place where
Amber does arise. I wanted to change up this episode
since I'm not answering typical questions. I'm sitting in her spot.
But she's been so encouraging to me, and there was
interesting times when I was writing a part of the
story and I would say a fact about what was happening.
(10:48):
For instance, there was one time when I was talking
to Amber in the book and I said, we were
sitting on the edge of the bed having this discussion, right,
And later she comes to me and she goes, hey,
you know, we weren't sitting on the edge of the bed.
We were sitting on the stairs at the bottom of
the stairs. I trust her memory over mine, and I
was like, you're right, You're totally right. The meat of
(11:12):
the conversation in my mind was so important that it
took over the facts of my surroundings and where I
actually was very interesting that happened in different places of
the book as I had as I sent it to
all the people that were involved, and they came back
with me and were like, yeah, try this try this.
(11:36):
Here's the question says, will the book be about the
timelines of grief that you experienced? Yes, somewhat, somewhat yes.
What was the most difficult sentence you wrote in the
book and why? H I don't really know. I can't
really tell you the most difficult sentence, but I tell
you the most difficult chapter was chapter seven. It's called
(11:58):
the Dark Night of the Soul, and it was difficult
to write, but that's an understatement compared to how difficult
it was to live. And the Dark Night of the
Soul comes six chapters after we lost riv so that
story was at the very beginning. So don't think it's that.
(12:19):
What I've been saying is as people as I've given
this book out and people have read through, and sometimes
they'll text me and there'll be a certain amount of
pages in and they'll say, you, granger, I read I'm
at I'm trying to find where it is. I'm at
page you know, ninety five or whatever. Yeah, we're in
(12:42):
ninety five, ninety six hundred, and I realized that they're
in the Dark Night of the Soul chapter and they're like, man,
I just can't believe this. I can't I can't believe
this chapter, et cetera, et cetera. In my usually I
don't reply because what I'm really is read chapter eight.
(13:03):
You get the chapter seven. You might get stuck, and
you might you might get a really weird feeling, a
really bad feeling. You might understand a little bit of
how it felt to write it and experience it. But
the best thing I could say is get the chapter eight.
Read chapter eight, then we'll talk. Then we could talk.
It almost needs to come with a warning label. I'll
(13:25):
give you this book, or you could buy this book,
but don't message me at chapter seven, message me after
chapter eight. This question says, what is your greatest hope
that comes from this book? My greatest hope is that
even one person, and that's the reason I want to
(13:47):
get it into so many hands is to help the
odds of this but that even one person could find
the same hope and peace and rest at the source
of the river during their darkest time, during their maybe
their darkest night of the soul, like I did, and
this book the Lord used as a catalyst for that.
(14:10):
That's that's my greatest hope. Question says is it tough
for you or Amber to read through the book. Well,
I read the audiobook. Obviously, I've read it many times
after I've written it for the editing process, but I
read the final copy for the first time while I
(14:31):
was reading the audio recording the audiobook, and that was
the really first time, the first time that I heard
all of my changes in my little edits together, flowing together,
not just in clumps and sections. And I cried probably
every chapter, not always sad tears. Put it that way.
(15:01):
This question says, would you rate how hard it was
to write? Surprisingly, not hard. It was not hard. I
mean we're not talking emotionally, we're talking just physically. Practically.
It was not hard to write because it was all
right there in my head. I was ready to come out.
I'm kind of scanning around here on these questions. When
(15:30):
did you decide you were open, You're going to open
up and write this book? Probably about September twenty twenty one. Yeah, yeah,
twenty twenty two was the proposal. January twenty twenty two
(15:51):
was when we was that right, No, I'm good, my
ears mixed up twenty twenty. September twenty twenty was the
first was like, yeah, I got to write a book,
something like that. I don't know how many of y'all
know that COVID kind of messed up all of our
(16:12):
memories on months and years. There's a lot of questions
like that, what made you want to write this book?
You know what? I just woke up one day. Honestly,
I had thought about it a lot, and I woke
up one day and just thought, I got to do it.
I need to do it. I need to start the process.
So I called my brother Tyler, who's my manager, and
(16:34):
he said, well, I think my advice to you is
to call two people that you know that have written books.
And one was Ryan Mickler, who has the Order of
the Order of the Man podcast. Message him because he's
just releasing a book. And then message ed my Latt,
who's written hundreds of books. So I did that. Both
(16:54):
of those guys were very helpful and sent me in
the direction of a literary EI who then could say, Okay, well,
here's the process, here's what we need to do. Here's
what you need to put together before we can propose
this to different publishers. This question says what your was
(17:16):
your wife a big part of helping you deal with
the loss. You could read the book for that one,
because that's up for that's up for a good conversation.
This question says, I'm a fan of your music. I
(17:36):
share the same faith. Why should I read this book?
Lord knows I do need help in my life? That's interesting.
It's an interesting question. By country Boy Revival, that's his
name on Instagram. I would say this, country Boy Revival,
I would say this, will you if you like my music,
(17:58):
if you've been a fan of my music, and I
would say that it might be right to say that
as I've put out a music video from a song
that you've liked, you've trusted me with that music video.
I would say, may I extend that trust to this book?
May I ask you to trust me that you should
(18:21):
read this book. I could go through some generic reasons,
but I would ask, will you trust me and read
the book and let me know what you think. I'm
gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back
to continue these questions. Okay, this podcast is brought to
(18:42):
you today, as you could probably guess by my book
Like a River, That's what I want to talk about.
Because as I sit here and record this, it is
still not available to the world, but it will be
on August first by the time you are hearing this.
If you're hearing this right now and do not have
the book Like a River, I would encourage you to
(19:04):
go to Amazon dot com, pullet your app, pull out
your Prime app, pull out your Walmart dot Com app
if that's what you use, or Barnes and Noble, wherever
you like to find books. I would encourage you to
check out my book Like a River. And if you
are a fan of this book, if you already know
a little bit about this book, and you know that
(19:25):
it could help people, maybe someone that's hurting or lost,
or broken or heartbroken in any way, then you think, well,
down the road, I want to get that person a book.
I would encourage you to get it today for them
so that we could make a bigger impact with the
immediate number we get this week on that book. If
(19:47):
that doesn't make any sense to you, here's what I'm
trying to say. This is our best shot this week,
because it's brand new and it has pre orders included.
This is our best shot to get on some kind
of bestseller list. If it does that, it gets into
the hands of so many others. So that's my goal.
Is to get this book my story. When I lost
my son Riv, I had no idea the pain that
(20:11):
I would be plunged into, and that it was a
kind of pain that I could not bring myself out of.
I learned that I didn't have to do that, and
I want to show other people as many people as
I can, so they don't go to the extent in
their brokenness that I did. That's in a nutshell, that's
(20:32):
why I wrote Like a River. It's it's a story
of hope. It's a story of purpose on the other
side of your pain. Please check it out. It comes
out August first, as we speak. It's called Like a River.
It's my brand new book. All right, we're back here
answering your questions about the book. Like a River comes
(20:55):
out tomorrow, August first. If you're listening real time. If
you're not listening real time, then out it is out
and you could find this book anywhere you like to
find books. Amazon is super easy. If you go to
grangersmith dot com at least right now there is that's
we're kind of using that as the hub that has
all the links to all the different places that sell
books like Walmart dot com and Barnes Andnoble dot com
(21:17):
and Amazon dot com all that kind of stuff, So
you could find the book at any of those places.
And I would say, and this is not an advertisement,
but I would say, Amazon, you know, it's super easy,
and it's not going anywhere for a while at least.
Moving on with your questions, I asked you to Aunt
to give me some questions on Instagram, and I'm just
(21:38):
kind of scrolling through here questions specifically about the book.
This question says, was it therapeutic in a way? And yeah,
that's a pretty common question, and sure, yeah, absolutely. I
told I've told this story of about losing riv and
what has happened to me afterward. I've told the story
many many times, whether it's on the Smiths or I've
(21:59):
mentioned it many times on this podcast. I've talked about
it on radio shows and Good Morning Americas and Today's
shows and you name it. I am second shows. But
writing the book was different than all of them because
it was much deeper. It was going into a world
that was much more detailed, and I brought up stuff
(22:25):
that I've never brought up before, not even to Amber.
I wrote stuff in this book that Amber didn't know
that no one on the planet in fact knew. And
it wasn't until I finished the manuscript itself that I
needed to call Amber and tell her, Hey, there's some
stuff in this book that you don't know about. So
(22:48):
that's that. Yeah, so it was therapeutic in that way. Yes,
The question says, book signings in New York next next week.
I'm seeing you on August the second. She said, I'm
reading it right now and it's taking my breath away. Yeah,
thank you. I'll find you. I'll find you. We will
(23:10):
be doing signings. Here's the question says, is it appropriate
for a seventeen year old that loves your music? Yeah,
I'll say seventeen. Yes. I would say you might have
caution with your younger kids twelve and under eleven and
under may caution. You may want to read it first.
(23:32):
I wouldn't say it's bad for kids, but I would
as a parent, I would read it first. I have
not let my kids read it yet. I'll put it
that way. Seventeen Yep. Great. Here's what it says. No question.
Just wanted to say, I'm so excited for it to
be delivered. Thank you. Here's what it says, is your
(23:57):
book saying, you agree with Calvinism. If so, why I
know it's the books. No, the book does not say that.
Here's one that says, does this book tell us the
secret to why I am depraved? I don't know. I don't.
(24:19):
I don't think so this is good. You guys are
getting so deep on these Uh. Here's one that says,
how did you decide what the chapters of this book
would be in what order? That was? That was done, thankfully,
in the in the proposal process. So I did that
(24:42):
before I even wrote them. I knew the order of
the chapters before I wrote the actual book, and the
chapters were just had working titles, so I was able
to know, I'm going this direction with it, I'm going
out on chapter two, I'm going this direction. Chapter three,
I'm gonna talk about this chapter four, I'll go here.
So that was that made it a lot easier to write.
So putting that in order before anything else happened was
(25:07):
critical to the way my brain worked. Here's another question saying,
was writing this book healing for you? Yeah? In so
many ways, In so many ways, it was healing for me.
But truly, let me tell you, that's not why I
wrote it. I didn't write it so that it would
(25:30):
be healing for me. That's cool, that's a great that's
a great little point. But I wrote it so that
it would be healing for you. Really, truly. Here's one
that says, if I haven't experienced loss of a kid
slash young loved one, is it still something I'll enjoy?
(25:54):
I would say, I would say absolutely. This is not this.
This is not a book directed towards people that have
lost a child. I would say that it works really
well with that group. But that's not at all who
it's for. It's for everybody, truly. This is my story
(26:19):
what happened to me. Take it however you want to
take it, but it's for everybody. It's a message for everybody. Yes,
here's the question that says, what did your community look
like for you and your wife before and after your loss?
(26:43):
Had we had a good community on both sides. They're
good neighbors, good friends, good fans, good family. Yeah, we
had it on both sides. Very very thankful for that.
When will it be available in Europe? Oh? I don't know.
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish like a
river would get out there quicker, But that's something I
(27:05):
cannot control. Here's what it says, such a powerful read.
Thank you. When will it be mailed? You should get
it tomorrow. You should get it tomorrow from when you
hear this podcast. Here's what it says. When you felt
(27:26):
like you couldn't go any further, like you couldn't take
another step, what did you do? Yeah? You know. That
is something I really go into detail about in this book,
is the step by step process I did and the
(27:47):
extent of the steps that I took, and most of
them nine point nine nine percent of the steps I
took and things that I did, like you said, when
I couldn't go any further, ninety nine percent of it
did not work. In fact, most of it made things worse.
And that's why I want you to read it, so
(28:07):
that maybe you don't have to go through as many
things as I did before you find the one percent.
There's anyone says, no question, just looking forward to purchasing,
purchasing the book and meeting you in August and Tulsa,
me too. Here's one said, if I pre ordered it
(28:29):
on Amazon? Am I going to get one? For sure? Yes?
Yes you will, lindsay on here says is it hard
putting your personal story out for everyone to see. That
is the most difficult part. That is, hands down the
most difficult part is not only putting my story out,
but putting the most vulnerable parts of my story out
(28:52):
in the open. That's very difficult. It's worth it. The
payoff is worth it. The ability to possibly reach someone
with a ray of hope, with an idea of peace
and hope and rest within the darkest night for them.
If I could reach them with that, it's worth it.
Is worth all of the embarrassment and uncomfortable moments that
(29:17):
I would have sharing my story within the public. Here's
another one says the same thing. Do you feel vulnerable
now that parts of your story you are about to
be heard for the first time? Yep, I do. What
was the hardest thing about writing this book and how
did you cope to keep writing? The hardest part about
(29:40):
writing the book really was the patience in the process itself,
because I want to just do things and get it done,
and sometimes I would hit a block and be like,
I don't know, I can't. I need to stop now.
I need to wait for the creative energy to roll again.
I don't have it right now. And you can't just
(30:02):
power through it, like mowing the grass. I used to
have a lawn business, and when I would mow grass,
you could just power through it. You're tired, you can't
think anymore, your sunburn you just you just go them
to power through them, to finish. But you can't do
that with creative things. That's the hardest part. Here's the
(30:28):
question says, how do you cope with PTSD? Lots of
different ways and few of them work. That's exactly I
lay that out as clear as I can in the book. Yeah,
here's what it says. It might be too soon to ask,
(30:48):
but do you plan to write more books in the future.
I do. When I signed over with Like a River
to HarperCollins, my publisher, it was a four book deal.
Four books, So this is the first one, and you
should expect in some form maybe different kinds of books.
(31:08):
But three more and Lord willing more after that. I
really enjoyed the process, and so I really hope that
there are many more. Let's see here, there's a lot
of questions that say, what was the most difficult part
(31:29):
of writing the book? Or was it therapeutic? And was
it difficult? Was it hard? Was it. I've got a
lot of questions like that, will you be doing a
book tour? I see a lot of those questions, and
the answer is kind of. I'm going to be going
around and doing different conferences and preaching different places, So
(31:51):
it's not going to be officially a tour, but I
will be going to a lot of different places with
this book after music touring stops. Yes. Question here says
is it appropriate for teenagers? I would I would read
it first if you're if you're a teenager and you
don't have anyone that's supervising you, then read it. If
(32:11):
you're a parent asking me that, then you read it
first and then advise. I'm saying personally, it's okay for you.
Here's one It says, when will you let your kids
read or have it for them to read? Still praying
through that, Yeah, there's some parts in there that I'm
(32:33):
still praying through for them. Here's one says, what is
your favorite chapter? By the way, big fan of the podcast,
thanks Braden. That my favorite chapter? Probably there's there's uh
several that I love because because of different reasons. Chapter
(32:54):
five is about my dad and a lot of people
walk away and they're like man, I like chapter five,
so that's that's a big one for me. But m hm,
chapter eleven it's a good one too. Chapter eight, that's
a good one too. Not because I'm like, oh I
wrote a cool chapter. I'm because the story in it
is impossible for me to have made up. Are you
(33:23):
planning to be a guest speaker at church? Yeah? I am.
If you would like me too, you could talk to
your pastor and you could reach out to me through
grangersmith dot com and the contact page. Yeah. Somebody says
where can I buy it? Yeah? Amazon, it's a good
place that's old to start with that, but you any
place that you like to buy books. This question says,
(33:47):
will it be released only in hardcover editions? Is there
a soft cover coming down the road? I believe. So
this is my first time in the book world that
I believe that they start hardcover like this, and then
they for a while and then they go to soft cover.
But it's cool to have these, especially this one, this
particular one I'm holding because this is the first print,
(34:10):
the first edition, so there are already at least one
word that needs to be changed from this edition. So
what we'll do is and I've turned that in. So
they go back and on the second print when they're
ready to reorder, Lord Willing, then it's the second edition
and it's got that one word fixed, right. But at
(34:34):
that point, the first edition doesn't exist anymore. So it
becomes a kind of a novelty, kind of a keepsake,
kind of more valuable than any of the other versions.
So if you get a soft cover down the road,
cool most of what people read will probably be the
soft cover, but there will only be this one run
of first edition hardcovers. Here's a question that says, did
(35:00):
you include how you arrived to forgive yourself through Christ?
I think many are struggling believing that Christ covers all
and they are not exempt for God's grace. That perseveres
I'm oh, that prevents them forgiving themselves, which hinders their
(35:20):
relationship to God. Sorry, I read that in three different pieces.
Let me read it again together. Did you include how
you arrived to forgive yourself through Christ? I think many
struggle believing that Christ covers all and they are not
exempt for God's grace, and that prevents them from forgiving themselves,
(35:43):
which hinders their relationship with God. I would highly recommend
you read this book because I think you'll find that
there is a flaw in what you're saying. Well, you're asking,
and I'm pretty sure sure that this book lays out
pretty well that you can't forgive yourself. That's something somebody
(36:08):
else has to do, right, that's complicated. But read the book,
we'll talk. Read the book, then we'll talk. This one
says what chapter was your favorite to write? So that's
different than what's my favorite chapter? What was your favorite
(36:29):
chapter to write? And that's five? Chapter five? Chapter five
one was I loved writing that chapter. I'm scrolling through
with my eyes on my phone, scrolling through Instagram questions,
(36:51):
and I am kind of scrolling now looking for a
question that's different. That's why I'm pausing because there's a
lot of questions that are the same, like what was
the hardest part about writing it? How long have you
planned this? When did you decide to write it? How
many drafts of this book are there? That's interesting. I
(37:17):
don't know twenty, there's a lot. I just wrote, and rewrote,
and rewrote, and rewrote, and rewrote over and over. Did
you ever have a writer's block and how did you
handle it? Yeah? I did the best thing to handle
a writer's block. The best thing is a really good
night's sleep and some decent food and stay hydrated. Really,
(37:42):
there's so many other things you could do, but if
you don't do those three things, then you're gonna have problems.
No matter what you're doing, you're gonna have problems if
you're not getting good rest, good fuel, and hydrating. Sound stupid,
but that's the real deal. There's one says, what was
the process from conceptualization to publishing? The key to all
(38:08):
of that was there was a I found an agency,
a literary agency called the FED Agency. And there're stuff
that you don't think about when you're just reading, casually reading,
but if you open up the first page, it says
this author is represented by the FED Agency. It's like
on the literally the first page. And they're the glue
(38:30):
that just really connects a lot of things and holds
it together. So they are the people that said, Okay,
what are you thinking? What's your working title here? What
what kind of chapters are you thinking? What's the book about?
Who is it to? Who's a demographic? Who do you
think will read this? Who does it matter to you?
What's the message you want those people to hear, okay,
(38:54):
So they just walk through different questions and help me
decide how I'm gonna go about it, how I'm gonna
get that blank page going on page one on chapter one,
where I'm going with it. And they also help take
this whole thought idea, because before Like a River was
a book, it was just a proposal. And the Fed
Agency takes this proposal and they go, hey, this isn't
(39:17):
a book yet, but here's the idea of it, and
here's who's writing it, and here's the story that he
wants to tell that he hasn't told yet, but he
wants to tell. And they pitch it out to all
these different publishers and they say, who wants this, who's
interested in taking this and helping put this on shelves
and different different e commerce stores. We ended up getting
(39:41):
our publisher. You know. They came forward and we talked
to a lot of great ones. We prayed through that
whole process, and then when the right one came, and
after we'd prayed a lot about it because it's so important,
then they said, okay, green light go. We love it.
We love your concept, we love your title, we love
(40:02):
where you want to go with it. It's all yours.
You have four months. I think that's about what they
gave me about something like four months. You have four
months to write it, have it turned in by this day,
and I think it was September first of last year,
and I was like cool, So I finished it in
two months instead of four, and that was it and
(40:24):
we were off to the races. I am so encouraged
by so many people that have reached out and that
are interested in this book. And I am as I'm
sitting here tonight as I record this ahead of time,
I just can't imagine what the feeling will be when
(40:47):
people are actually reacting to it and messaging me after
they've actually read it, because from now right now, most
of the world has not seen it or read it.
So this is the last podcast that I will do
Lord Willing that I don't that people don't know the
story of Like a River, and so I'm just I'm excited,
(41:08):
and I want to make my plea one more time.
If you haven't checked this book out, grab it and
what really helps me. Let me reword that what really
helps this book and the message behind it is the
first week. What matters is those sales on the first week.
And so I kind of started the podcast with this,
(41:30):
but I'll say it again. This is what I've learned
through endless zoom calls with the publisher that that first
week matters a lot because we either will or will
not end up on some kind of bestseller list. And
if we do, then there are people that will buy
it just because of that, and there will stores that
will carry it just because of that. If we don't,
(41:52):
then that's okay, but we won't be on those lists,
and it will just won't get into the new level.
It won't get into the next level of buyers. The
next level of buyers is who I'm partially interested in
because they don't know me at all. They've never heard
my name, they don't know my music, they don't know
my story, they don't know about River. They're just casual
book readers that could be very surprised by the contents
(42:15):
of this book. So all that to be said, the
way to get to them is by having a good
first week. And the way to have a good first
week is that if you're thinking about getting this book
for someone for like Christmas or their birthday, and you're
thinking I'll grab one for me now, and I'll grab
this book later for Christmas. I would encourage you just
(42:38):
to go ahead when you're getting it on Amazon or whatever.
Just make it too right now, make the quantity too
so that then you can hang on to the second
copy and then you'll give it to them later for Christmas,
so that those numbers do better the first week. This
revealing a lot. I don't think I've ever been this
(42:58):
upfront and kind of sales pitchy with any music or album,
and I think that should say something about what this
means to me compared to album. I've never sat on
a podcast and told you to please buy two albums
or go stream at a million times. I've never told you that.
I just said, if you like the music, play it.
(43:19):
I hope you like it. This is different. I'm saying,
give this book a shot. If you're not a reader,
give it a shot. The audiobook is cool and I
love it, but this is what counts for these bestseller lists.
So give it a shot and then let me know
what you think. Email me Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com.
(43:43):
That is the normal email I read for this podcast,
So check it out. Email me let me know what
you think. Let me know if it stirs something in you.
Let me know if you hate it. If you're like, man,
don't ever write a book again. This is terrible, let
me know that too. But either way, I love you guys,
and I'm so excited about what is going to be
(44:03):
August first, the release of Like a River. See you, guys,
thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate
all of you guys. You could help me out by
rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe
to this channel. Hit that little like button and the
notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload
(44:24):
a video. If you have a question for me that
you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at
gmail dot com. Yi
Host
Granger Smith
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