My wife and I live on the New Zealand Superannuation. It is
enough for us to survive on, and have the occasional cup of hot chocolate at a
cafe.
From time to time, I have attended Church Home Groups, or
Small groups, for bible study, or study to advance my theological knowledge
etc. Without fail the studies have used a booklet, often called a study guide,
written by some one with personal, or deduced knowledge, relating to the subject.
Because of copyright restrictions, the study guides and personal study books
cannot be photocopied, so each participant must purchase a booklet. Okay, so an
average cost seems to be $8 - $10 each. Average small groups vary from six to twenty
people. The publisher gets $60 to $200 per group.
Likewise, if you wish to catch up on what your favourite
Pastor is writing, then you could be paying anything up to $50 per book. Have
you checked out the price of a bible lately?
I can actually remember saying to my wife, prior to
publishing anything, that I would write Christian literature because there was
a captive market and I could make a fortune. Well that didn't go too well. I
could not afford to pay an editor, cover person or spend time searching for a
publisher or agent. I went for Smashwords because at the time they were the
only people who could take my MS Word document and turn it into an EBook free.
I published Ripples, a book of stories with a Christian and
moral theme for children, and Pastors, and a novel: The Begat Legacy. Some
copies of Ripples were purchased, mainly, I suspect, by family, although they
deny it. At $0.99c, I thought the price was reasonable. The Begat Legacy, an 800,000-word
novel, aimed at the secular market, I priced at $2.99c. A few copies sold but
not many.
I got to thinking! Checking out Smashwords and Amazon free
EBooks, I found that there are not many Christian Books available. There are a large
number of pornographic and general available however. During 'Read an EBook week',
I priced Ripples free and The Begat Legacy for $1.99. There were downloads of a
couple of copies of Ripples but none for 'Begat'.
I then made both available free. There have been many
downloads since then.
So what do I make of all this? From now on, I will make all
my Christian EBooks available free. I do not class 'Begat' in that category as
it is targeted at people who would not pick up an overtly Christian book. It is R18 and designed to open some minds to the fact that there is such a thing as
Christianity. If only one person picks up a bible to check what I have written,
I will be satisfied with it.
The big question left is; Why do Christian writers,
particularly of study guides, apologetics and doctrine, put their books
financially out of the reach of so many? They publish to a captive market, a
market eager to purchase books that they can be assured are suitable for their
tastes and beliefs. If we are to reach and teach, then should we not be
publishing free? Did not Paul work for a living while he served?
Mm, interesting!
