“The Christmas Story Pastor knows how to tell a story and tell it well, entertaining our imaginations, touching our hearts. Delightful reading.”

-Rev. Dr. Stephen Sidorak, Executive Director,
Christian Conference of Connecticut

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The Whole Story of A Christmas Dozen

"This overnight success is really something, isn't it?" The question came from a reporter writing a feature article on The Christmas Story Pastor in December 2000. The holiday "sleeper," A Christmas Dozen, had just sold out its First Printing in 40 days and 40 nights without being in a bookstore. After the article came out, the paperback would sell almost as many of its Second Printing in the next 20 days.

"I'd hardly call it an overnight success," Steve Burt answered. "I wrote one of the twelve Christmas stories in 1972. Twenty-nine years is an awfully long overnight, don't you think? Fact is, the stories were already a success. They were printed and reprinted in dozens of magazines, newspapers, newsletters. They've been shared aloud in thousands of churches and in small groups from here to Africa. The individual stories were already a success. What's astounding is how the unadvertised, privately printed collection took off.

"Steve Burt has been reading his Christmas stories aloud for years-in churches, nursing homes, senior centers, libraries, schools, civic groups. ("The Christmas Story Pastor was a nickname he picked up in several newspaper headlines in the early 1990's.) But he was always juggling the magazine and newspaper versions when he read, because the stories weren't collected together. Folks always said, after his public readings, "If you had those in one book, I'd buy a few copies to give as gifts." Finally, after having enough people say that, Steve typeset the manuscript and shipped it off to a printer-not for bookstores but so he'd have copies available when people asked after his readings.

The book arrived at his house in October 2000. Only he, his wife, and the UPS driver knew about it. But a local librarian got wind of it and convinced the author to place several dozen copies in a small independent bookstore. Another two dozen found their way into the hospital's gift shop. So now there were two retail outlets.

The same librarian got the author booked for a morning radio show. Instead of doing just a "local author" interview, the host invited Steve to read four stories aloud. By the time the author got home from the show, both retail outlets had called to say their stock was gone!

In the next eight weeks Steve Burt found himself reading almost every afternoon or evening (sometimes both) at a different site within an hour's drive of home. People often purchased 5, 10, 15 copies at the booksignings that followed a public reading. The book got listed on Amazon.com and shot from 1,900,000th place to 6,900th in three weeks. The First Printing disappeared so fast that there was one week of readings (before the arrival of the emergency Second Printing) when there were no books available, only rain checks. All this because of word of mouth, and the author had no time to try to get it into bookstores.

So in Spring 2001, because so many people asked for audiobook versions for gifts and for the visually impaired, Steve recorded the double CD and double cassette versions. A Third Printing of the paperback is scheduled for Summer 2001, with a Fourth likely in 2001 as well. A hardcover gift edition is in the planning stages.

The book's popularity has accelerated so rapidly that (as of April 30, 2001) Steve Burt has had to step back from his occupation as a professional Interim/Redevelopment Pastor to devote his full attention to distributing the book, reading publicly, and writing more stories.

Asked if the book will get to bookstores, Steve said, "Maybe this year if I can find the time to work it out."