accidental author uses disney attractions to share scripture with families
in disney devotionals books one and two, alumnus albert thweatt combines spiritual formation with his family’s love for disney parks, over 10,000 copies already sold on amazon.com
cate zenzen |
albert thweatt is a man of many careers. a former teacher turned paramedic, thweatt never dreamed he could add “author” to his list of professions. yet in 2019, two published books under his name became available on amazon.com, and have since sold over 10,000 copies.
thweatt grew up in the lipscomb community as an alumnus of lipscomb academy, and with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education from the university. after teaching 6th grade at lipscomb academy for 16 years, he decided it was time for a change. he left education for further training to become a paramedic and began his new career working the night shift. while this gave him more flexibility during the day, thweatt realized he was missing an important part of his family’s nighttime routine.
“since my two boys were born, we had a nightly devotional with them where we would read scripture and pray. now that i was working nights, i was missing our nightly devotional time and i hated that,” said thweatt.
to continue being a part of his family’s spiritual formation, thweatt decided to create his own devotionals for his wife to read while he was gone. after writing a few generic pieces, he realized his work needed a theme or common topic to keep his sons engaged. thweatt chose disney, a family favorite, to pull each one together.
“we’re disney nerds in our family, we’ve been numerous times. i think we’ve taken my oldest son since he was six months old, and i just knew i could somehow connect disney world to something faith-based to get their attention,” said thweatt.
each submission is centered on an attraction, ride, show, or event at disney world. the entries begin with fun facts about the attraction, then lead into scripture and a biblical message. thweatt included specific passages from scripture for further study as well. as his sons got older, this compilation lived on thweatt’s computer archives for about 5 years. he wasn’t sure why he saved them, he just knew they may come in handy in the future. it was later that thweatt realized his work could fit within a niche market.
“my wife is a huge disney fan, bigger than i am, she’ll buy disney books and stories. she found this book about two sisters who worked at disney in the college program. i read it and noticed it was published by a company called themepark press, they have a lot of disney books about history, fiction and facts. online it said they’d love to publish anything disney related, and i wondered if they’d publish some devotionals,” said thweatt.
thweatt and his family on one of their trips to disney world
since themepark press is not a spiritual company, thweatt didn’t expect to hear back from the publisher. yet within a week of submitting his idea, he received an email from the company. after sending some examples of his work, thweatt had a publishing deal. he went through what he’d written, edited it, and added more to make for an even 100 entries. within 14 months of first contacting his publisher, thweatt’s work was available on amazon.com.
“the first book came out august 1 of last year, we shared it on facebook and somebody hosted a book signing for me from our church. to be honest, i thought i would sell it to family, friends and some people at church,” said thweatt.
the book was more popular than thweatt had anticipated, and he was surprised to learn that nothing like this had ever been published before. his idea to make a bible lesson out of each attraction was unique, and about a month after its release people started asking about a second book.
“i had some people ask me, ‘when are you going to write book two?’ and i would laugh it off and say i had never even planned on writing book one. after about a month i emailed my publisher about writing another book. i felt like god was giving me another opportunity,” said thweatt.
this time, thweatt knew his work would be published. with a deadline of 45 days, he worked like crazy and wrote about two devotionals a day. to make this book different, he pulled attractions from disneyland along with highlights from some of the resorts, cruise ships, and the waterpark, disney springs. again, he wrote an even 100 entries for consistency.
disney devotionals book two came out around christmas, an ideal time for sales. thweatt attributes his success to word of mouth and social media, but he also received some unexpected publicity. some popular disney-centered sites, including kenny the pirate, posted positive reviews of his work, and he was also featured on the national podcast, marvelously goofy dads. the amount of interest these books received was never anticipated by thweatt, but he said it was an answer to prayer.
“it’s just amazing what this book has brought and the blessing it’s been to connect with people. i even had one mom tell me her son accepted jesus because they were reading these books together. i give all the glory to god for being given this avenue to share this with people,” said thweatt.
find thweatt's books online at amazon.com.