True, in an era where the population of dechurched and unchurched is ever increasing, publishing a book where return is above cost can be tough. And several authors, in the name of true vocation to their calling, were and still is writing books at a loss in a sincere hope to get the message through the masses. The numbers are discouraging. Fewer and fewer Christian authors are making it in the publishing industry. The spirit of upcoming authors even with the talent and true vocation to the spread the Word are dampened with the ever marginalization of the Christian faith. It seems now that there is no incentive to publish a Christian book.
To give you a concrete idea of the ever shrinking Christian market, these are the concrete facts that you have to surmount in publishing a book. The actual growth of the number of Christians does not commensurate to the actual growth of the population. While population grew exponentially since 1900’s, churches only grew by 50%. To illustrate, assuming that Americans were only 10 million back in 1900’s and 100 million by today, the population grew by 1000%. While Christians, assuming they were only 1 million back in 1900’s, they are only 1.5 million today with the mere 50% rate of their growth! And of the 350,000 churches in America, 75% or 4 out of 5 of that are either declining or plateauing. 80-85% of those churches also are already on the downside. Meaning that they are not experiencing any growth anymore and are struggling. To translate, this generation is the largest unchurched and dechurced era in American history. And alarming as it is, the number of next generation clergies are also decreasing. Only a mere 7 % of clergies are of the age of 35 and younger in 1999 (imagine the actual figure today!) where it was 24% in 1975.
These numbers are not meant to discourage you but rather intended to inform you of the reality. And to let you know that because of this hard realization, the necessity of promoting your book is already an imperative. If you write a book without adequate promotion, your publication will be subjected to the numbers above and that will almost be a guarantee that your book will fail.
So how do you overcome all these challenges? First, you must have a concrete marketing plan to promote your book before launching it. If marketing is not your thing and you need help to go about it, there is an online publishing course that can give you invaluable insight and method to market your book at a fraction of a cost when you hire a professional. Some sites do not only guide you through the whole marketing process but can also give tips on how to go about writing and presenting your book effectively. The people behind this website are aware of the decreasing number of Christian authors and are advocating that you become an effective author to give you an incentive with your effort to spread the Gospel. Your publishing effort has to profit so that the endeavor to spread the Gospel will be sustainable.
