Wexford Carol

 Wikipedia says:

 The Wexford Carol (Irish: Carúl Loch Garman, Carúl Inis Córthaidh) is a traditional religious Irish Christmas carol originating from County Wexford, and specifically, Enniscorthy (whence its other name), and dating to the 12th century.[1][unreliable source?] The subject of the song is that of the nativity of Jesus Christ. "The Wexford Carol" is one of the oldest extant Christmas carols in the European tradition. Traditions abound concerning the song. For many years, it was felt that only men should sing it.[citation needed] It was only at the current revival of all things Irish that this attitude changed. Many popular female artists, such as Loreena McKennitt, recorded the “Wexford Carol” during the 1990s. The song achieved a new popularity because of the work of William Grattan Flood (1859 - 1928), who was organist and musical director at St. Aidan's Cathedral in Enniscorthy. He transcribed the carol from a local singer, and had it published in the Oxford Book of Carols, putting Enniscorthy into most carol books around the world. The song is sometimes known by its first verse, "Good people all this Christmas time."


Good people all, this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved son
With Mary holy we should pray,
To God with love this Christmas Day
In Bethlehem upon that morn,
There was a blessed Messiah born
The night before that happy tide
The noble Virgin and her guide
Were long time seeking up and down
To find a lodging in the town
But mark right well what came to pass
From every door repelled, alas
As was foretold, their refuge all
Was but a humble ox's stall
Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep
To whom God's angel did appear
Which put the shepherds in great fear
Arise and go, the angels said
To Bethlehem, be not afraid
For there you'll find, this happy morn
A princely babe, sweet Jesus, born
With thankful heart and joyful mind
The shepherds went the babe to find
And as God's angel had foretold
They did our Saviour Christ behold
Within a manger he was laid
And by his side a virgin maid
Attending on the Lord of Life
Who came on earth to end all strife
There were three wise men from afar
Directed by a glorious star
And on they wandered night and day
Until they came where Jesus lay
And when they came unto that place
Where our beloved Messiah lay
They humbly cast them at his feet
With gifts of gold and incense sweet.

Going Digital

I looked over my recent sales and all of them were digital.

Lulu.com is working with other firms to publish their works as e-books, or is it i-books?

This is my author site on Lulu.

This links two books to Apple - Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant and Jesus Priceless Treasure.

I will be working with Lulu.com to make everything digital. I may add a price to some PDF downloads, but leave the rest free. Another way to distribute free to readers is to set up a public Dropbox. This is fun, because I am far ahead of my younger students in technology. To be honest, they are in the graduate program in adult education, so they are not computer science students. Still, I enjoy their responses to free TV broadcasting on the Net...and Tweeting a blog post while linking it on Facebook.

The two children's books are done. More will be posted on those titles tomorrow.

The Story of Jesus in PicturesFull ColorColoring BookSeptember Discount

The discount code can be used in September for 20% off the entire order. The graphic for that is below and linked on the blog.

The Story of Jesus in Pictures--full color on the inside--is now close to perfection and available on Lulu.com.

Norma Boeckler has done a remarkable job in creating beautiful illustrations for teaching children the message of the Gospel. Notice that there is a second version with the same drawings in black and white only. They were the line drawings used for the final color version.

The captions are identical in the two books, aimed at children and people learning English as a second language.

One of our non-Lutheran friends was disappointed with the full-color book. She wanted the coloring book version for herself and her granddaughter, which is now almost perfected. I needed to add the Small Catechism to create enough pages for now. Soon I will add lessons instead, so the book can be used in Sunday School and VBS. The extra pages were needed for the binding. My daughter-in-law Tammy asked for lesson material.

You can look up the free PDF versions here. Let Norma Boeckler know how much you appreciate her work on the books and the blog by posting a comment. You can also email me and I will add that.

New Children's Book Being Published: Art by Norma Boeckler

By Norma Boeckler

I will have the new children's book uploaded to Lulu.com today.

The picture book is full color.

Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant Goes Digital

There is also a discussion guide.
Cover design by Norma Boeckler.


Dear Gregory Jackson,

Lulu's goal is a simple one: help you sell more books. This note is to tell you about an exciting new effort from Lulu to help achieve this goal by ensuring your work is able to reach readers across all devices, starting with the 130 million+ customers who own an iPhone®, iPad®, or iPod touch® and shop at the iBookstore℠. Over the coming weeks, at no charge to you, we'll be making the title you have for sale on Lulu.com also available as an eBook edition on the iBookstore.

If for any reason you don't want your book available in the iBookstore, you can opt-out easily. Just send an email to ipad_opt_out@lulu.com with the subjectline Opt-Out of eBook conversion. If you wish to opt-out, please make sure to do so within 5 business days of receiving this message. Otherwise, you don't have to do anything to have your book included in this program and we think it's a great idea to join the ranks of Lulu authors who have already sold 60,000 eBooks through the iBookstore.

We cannot guarantee the new eBook formatted version of your book will appear on the iBookstore, but we're taking measures to ensure a high success rate. Here's how the process will work:
We'll begin the process on your behalf by converting Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant: A Doctrinal Comparison of Three Christian Confessions   into an ePub formatted eBook – absolutely free.

Next, we'll submit your newly formatted eBook to Apple and request a listing in the iBookstore. In some cases we may need to make tweaks to your book's catalog data* in order to meet Apple's requirements.

We will notify you once your eBook has been accepted by Apple and is available for sale in the iBookstore. At first, your book will be listed in the iBookstore with default pricing.

We'll place a new eBook project in your My Projects list on Lulu. You'll then have full control over the project, and can opt-out of iBookstore distribution, change the default price, etc. at any time. Additionally, this ePub file will be available for you to distribute to our expanding list of eBook retail partners.
To learn more about this exciting iBookstore program, visit our knowledge base. Thank you for your continued support of Lulu and our ongoing efforts to help you sell more books.

Best,

Lulu Enterprises, Inc.

*Note: "Tweaks to book catalog data (metadata)" will be minor edits such as correcting capitalization problems. We will, of course, contact you before making any significant changes.

The Latest Publishing News

Lenski's daughter, Lois, illustrated this book and many more.

One of my readers gave me a bunch of edits to do for Thy Strong Word. I thought I would be done tonight, but I am working on the format. The age of the files and working with versions of Word gave me some interesting problems to face. Now I am going through page by page to get full justification to work. The reader hinted at some software short-cut for universal justification, but this is an individual effort.

I should have the new version uploaded on Lulu by tomorrow - God willing.

Meanwhile I am ready to do some improvements and edits for Justification. I will definitely add Pastor Harley's material, with permission, because the work is well done and pre-dates my efforts. There are some other additions, planned and potential.

I am adding the Outrageous UOJ quotations and a reading list.

Next will be a children's book, aimed at the youngest children but also useful for older children as well. Norma Boeckler is already working on the illustrations. My Facebook friends love her work as much as the Ichabodians do.

Some other books need additional work on the Lulu list. Remember, they are all available free as PDF downloads.

I am happy to send PDFs or Word documents for anyone who wants to read TSW or Justification to help in editing.

I will also need some back of the book comments, with or without names.

Feel Free To Use Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant

Cover design by Norma Boeckler

A pastor asked permission to use parts of Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant, which can be ordered from Lulu.com and downloaded as a PDF for free. The Leader's Guide can also be downloaded for free.

There is no need to ask permission to use the book or parts of it, because I would like people to have unlimited privileges in their teaching efforts. The copyright prevents people from reprinting it with their name on the title page, because I know how often that happens today in the Church and Change crowd. DP Englebrecht says it is fine to break the law and deceive people, because a number of WELS pastors do that. The next church worker to murder his spouse should ask for Englebrecht to serve as prosecutor or judge.

Nevertheless, I doubt whether the Shrinkers would copy Lutheran doctrine!

Getting Close to the Final Version of Justification

Cover design and art by Norma Boeckler

My pals in publishing have been applying the lash to my back. "Where there is a whip, there is a way," they claim.

I appreciate the motivation. I have spent an enjoyable day going over an almost-final editing of the justification book. My gruff but likable editor will have a go at it, and so will some others, I am sure. If someone needs the Word document for editing purposes, I can provide that. Otherwise, the PDF will be available later tonight.

I plan on additional improvements and enlargements, but this is it for the time being. I will focus on typos and cosmetic improvements for now. Feel free to contact me at gregjackson1948@qwest.net

Upgrades are dated, so you can tell which version is uploaded by looking at the free PDF. This one will say Epiphany edition, 2011. A later one would say Lent or Easter. I expect to have an enlarged, improved edition in print for the May, 2011 Left Coast Trifecta - ELS, WELS, LCMS.

Thy Strong Word
Meanwhile, I am accumulating editing suggestions for Thy Strong Word. People are discovering how long it takes to go over a text and list corrections. One time an entire university--in Germany--looked over every page of a new book before it was printed. They found hundreds of errors and were convinced that it was the first book ever printed with no mistakes in it. Afterward, people found hundreds that were missed.

That happened with CLP. Herman Otten and a German student went over the text and found lots to correct. When they were done, LI found even more errors that they missed. Herman was dumbfounded, "But my helper was a German!"

Jesus, Lord of Creation - In Color - Now Published

This graphic is the cover art, which Norma Boeckler designed, along with all the illustrations inside.

Here is the Lulu storefront ordering link.

This is Norma Boeckler's website for the book.

I dreaded wrestling with the cover design software at Lulu, but one of the options was easy to use and provided explicit, clear instructions on making the graphic fit the cover.

Any PDF will contain the illustrations in their original color. I decided to make the printed version full color. However, I discounted the book to make it reasonable. All the books (except Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant) are non-profit, as much as Lulu allows. CLP also has a separate discussion guide.

The PDFs are all free and can be shared without fear of litigation, confiscation, or altercation.

If someone needs a number of CLPs, I can arrange a special price. I get the author's wholesale price and I can have them shipped directly from Lulu.

LPC, from Extra Nos, made an excellent suggestion for Justification. When that is completed, I will post an announcement. That will be very soon, since this is the fallow part of the teaching year. Relatively few classes are taught in January.

I expect a printable version of Justification to be ready in a week or so.

I have several improvements planned for Justification, so I will be labeling each edition and changing the title page somewhat to show the difference. If I wait for everything to be done and perfect, the manuscript will be in my estate rather than my Lulu Storefront.