Thinking Out Loud: The Flip Side

Yesterday I asked a very serious question about establishing a presence in the Christian publishing industry, including Christian retail. From what I can gather, the industry is in serious decline, anyway, with each publishing house depending on a runaway blockbuster to maximize profits while most other books break even.

So, I gave some examples of thinking out loud on a philosophy of ministry that would involve an "end run" around the industry in order to do ministry. Today, I'll give the counterpoint to what I brought up yesterday.

First, I mentioned the idea that it would be presumptuous of me to assume that people would want to pay for what I wrote. Well, the first counterpoint is that any writer, Christian or non-Christian, lets the market bear that responsibility. In other words, nobody's putting a gun to their heads (like college professors kind of do) to buy any book. And, if it's good, got something to say and adds to the big world of ideas...well, folks usually get around to financially rewarding those who are truly innovative and creative.

Secondly, "self-publishing" has drawbacks (namely the initial financial commitment from the author), but it also has some plusses. Innately, those seem to be that if you truly believe in your message, you'll want to get it out there to people that need it...and Christian publishers can take a lot of time from the initial acceptance to putting the book on the shelves. Sometimes that can take two years. You can do it in half the time yourself...if not a quarter of that time. Also, this gives you and your creative friends a chance to collaborate--everything from the cover art to the layout to the editing to the photography of the author. It's a little-engine-that-could kind of fun thing that might be worthwhile just going through the process...profit margin or no.

Blogging is limited in scope. It might be cost-effective, but there's only so many blog readers. Sure, you could be aggressive and advertise (although it would seem somewhat weird to put ads in our church bulletin for links to our staff's blogs) but that still doesn't have the broad-based appeal of books/retail. Besides, you can do both.

Complete creative control can be a negative. Editors are extremely helpful, and professionals can take a very good idea and turn it into excellence.

Comments do allow for interaction, but if you set up a web page to support the book, you can get that same thing accomplished. This, too, would allow more of your friends to be involved in the process. As for the "in person" thing, I'd imagine you'd get a lot more "in person" if you went on the obligatory "book tours" where you signed copies. Especially in Christian pubishing, you could increase that exponentially by touring churches and such.

It might not be daily...but it becomes timeless if it's in book form. It'll sit on library shelves or exist in homes or friends will loan it out or it'll find its way into folks' hands in a variety of ways. There's still something to holding a book in your hands that will never go away...technology may change but books will always be around.

And, finally, to the point of a writing ministry "collective," well, you can still have books published and join other writers to form collectives and get together and drink coffee and critique and run ideas past and still have time to use a web collective for other endeavors big and small. If it were an in-person collective, much more the better.

So, that's the flip side of yesterday's thoughts...