Why Self-Publish Theology Translations?
Theology translations are not the most common works to encounter in self-publishing: the practice is better-known for genre fiction or memoirs. In itself, though, it is simply a technique, applicable to any kind of written work.
What is it, then, that makes self-publishing appealing, especially for a work of this kind? It is easier to see when we consider the three main styles of publishing: academic presses, mainstream presses, and self-publishing.
Academic presses are generally connected to a college or university, though they may be connected to independent institutes as well. Such presses are best known for monographs, exceedingly erudite, often fairly slim, works on highly-specific subjects, sold for outrageous sums. Typical academic books are priced highly because they have a low sales volume (very few people would generally be interested in reading them, so few sales made); in addition, the most common purchasers of such academic works are libraries at other colleges and universities, not individuals. It is a sealed-off world of institutions publishing exorbitantly-priced books simply for each other to read. Many theological translations end up here, being the result of and input for academic research.
This is not always the case: many academic presses will try to aim certain of their books at a wider public, and price them accordingly. Many major universities—Princeton, Oxford, Harvard, etc.—are well-known for such publications. These publications probably won't sell at the same volume as those from completely mainstream presses, but they will do well enough; the low prices can also be subsidized by other institutional funds. (Though not always: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press has its Popular Patristics series, aimed, as the title says, at a wide audience, and the pricing reflects that. However, the seminary is not rich enough to subsidize these publications, so manuscript submitters need to come with their own funding. That's why I've never submitted any translations to them.)
Another aspect of academic presses is their institutional quality: generally, they aim to publish works coming from their own faculty. They might also publish the works of other academics, if there is a match in specialties between academic and press. Being an independent scholar, I have few-to-no contacts within academic institutions, and so I don't have any hope of publication in such presses. Academic publications are also, as mentioned above, generally intended for academics alone, and I don't want my translations relegated to the ivory tower.
Mainstream presses are ruled by the marketplace. A press may have a good intention, a specific aim with its publications, but those publications, at the end of the day, must make money, or the press will fail. So mainstream presses will often forego books that fit perfectly with the aim and niche of their press, if the book will not be marketable enough. For a mainstream book is an investment: there is payment to the author or translator; there is the upfront payment for the print run; there is advertising and marketing; there is the whole machinery of press staff to make everything run.
That being said, there are some presses which, though not academic or institutional in the sense outlined above, may have an endowment or a powerful donor backing them. In that case, the press may be able to publish the occasional book at a loss, if it befits the mission of the press. But that is the exception, not the rule.
Self-publishing covers a wide range. Some endowed or donor-backed presses, like those just mentioned, may be able to forego market forces completely: some donors may decide to treat a press as a money-losing ministry rather than a market venture. In that case, the press is more akin to self-publishing than to a mainstream press.
Self-publishing in the past could require a hefty outlay on the author's part: he might have to pay for the whole print run, and then hope to sell enough copies to cover his costs (and a bit more). The modern self-published author typically uses a print-on-demand service, eliminating this large starting cost. There may be other costs: the author may hire a proofreader, an editor, a layout or cover designer, or possibly even pay for marketing. But those things are not strictly necessary, unlike with a mainstream press.
If he wanted (and I know a self-published author of this kind), the author could simply do his own proofreading, editing, layout, cover design, and skip marketing. At the bare minimum, the modern self-published author simply needs a properly-formatted manuscript, and his book can be available for sale.
Without professional services, without marketing, the self-published author will rarely sell much. If he is in it for the money, he will need to adopt many practices of the mainstream press, though he will always be at a disadvantage. The mainstream press has connections with stores, with media outlets, with catalogs; only the rarest of the rare self-published authors is able to obtain a similar level of success as a mainstream press does. But, because of the huge decrease (or, sometimes, almost complete elimination) of overhead, the self-published author can ignore market forces: his publishing can be more similar to a donor-backed ministry press, one that prints what he likes, what he thinks is worth printing, regardless of whether it sells.
Is the author's goal to make money? Then self-publishing is an unlikely route: a mainstream press is the best shot (though most authors don't make that much). Is the author's goal to have his book read? Again, the mainstream press is the best bet: such a press has many well-trod avenues for getting readers to hear about books, as well as for getting books in libraries. (Libraries rarely, if ever, accept self-published books.) Is the author's goal simply to have his work available? Then academic presses or self-publishing can be sufficient. If he is a true denizen of academia, he should have connections to academic presses, and those would be his aim; if he is independent, then the ivory towers are locked to him. Then he may turn to the mainstream presses, but, if they deem a book not marketable enough, then his last resort is self-publishing, or "copyleft" distribution. The latter blocks out all hope of monetary recompense, and it often means there will be no hard copies of the book, nothing on Amazon, but it makes the work freely available to all with an Internet connection...as long as they're able to find it in the increasingly-hard-to-search Internet.
Self-publishing is a middle ground between "copyleft" distribution and the mainstream press. Like the former, it's an "anything goes" rubber-stamp: there's no submissions editor to evaluate a work's worth and marketability. Hit "publish," and it's done. Like the latter, though, self-publishing results in tangible books, in the distant possibility of a few royalties, and in access to a few channels to possible readers. (Some may choose an Amazon-only distribution; with a bit of outlay, a self-published author may get in contact with other booksellers, such as via Ingram Spark's connections.) That way, the author is able to piggyback on the search presence of big names like Amazon, so that his work has a bit more chance of appearing on a search than if it's only on a primitive, Grecian-named blog.
My goal is to have my work accessible, able to affect others, though I certainly wouldn't mind a bit of recompense (or, maybe, honorarium, if I want my "work" to really be "leisure": Pieper says that the products of leisure can never receive a wage, a recompense, or else leisure itself is overtaken by the "total-work-state").1 The method for freest accessibility is my blog, with its "copyleft" distribution. But I run into the issues of unfindability, as well as my pride in wanting to see my name in print. So I aim for mainstream presses first, to connect in to their distribution and marketing channels (and, I freely admit, to make a bit of money); when that fails, I now turn to self-publishing, for it has the balance of easy access (I'm able to set the cost as I want, though restricted by the need to work around print costs and royalty structures) and a channel for findability—as well as the occasional ducat or two.
So it is that I've begun to self-publish—not genre fiction or memoirs—but semi-scholarly theological translations. The benefits of self-publishing—ease of start-up, a channel for discovery, the non-necessity of marketability, etc.—apply to me as well as the composer of space operas. Whether it will be any more effective than my blog for actually getting my work under the eyes of readers is unknown, but it's certainly worth a shot. God sows even in the crags of the rocks, for good soil may yet be hiding where no one bothered to look.
1 See Josef Pieper, Leisure and Worship (Muße und Kult), better known by the title of its English translation, Leisure, the Basis of Culture.↩
Text ©2024 Brandon P. Otto. Licensed via CC BY-NC. Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.
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