Ever since the 1970’s “WWJD” and “What Would Jesus Do” have been popping up everywhere – bumper stickers – graffiti – conversations and more. Where did it come from? It came from In His Steps by Charles Monroe Sheldon, a Congregational Pastor who lived in Topeka Kansas at the end of the 19th century. To encourage people to come back on chilly winter days to the Sunday evening service he wrote stories to read a chapter at a time on Sunday nights. The stories were popular and people came out for the second service to find out what was going to happen next. The best known of these stories is In His Steps, read during the winter of 1896-1897.

In His Steps was serialized in a Chicago religious magazine. Nobody wanted to publish it as a book because they didn’t think it would sell. Sheldon convinced the magazine to print a paperback edition. It sold out and the same people who previously had no interest wanted to publish it. It was expensive to file for a copyright in the 1890’s so the weekly magazine In His Steps first appeared in was not copyrighted. This meant that the copyright on the book edition was invalid and anyone could publish it. They did, and it ended up with well over thirty editions and was reputed by Sheldon to have sold many millions of copies. Kincaid Books has a trade paperback edition available on Amazon, and we would be thrilled if you bought a copy. But we also want you to read it, so we are making the ebook available for free download. The ebook is available in two versions, in mobi format for Kindles and in epub format for most everything else