Mar 21

Bible publishing, a lifetime of work.

Global Distribution, publishing No Comments »

Because the publishing industry is usually focused on sales and profits, and the big news tends to be about award winning authors, and books that hit the best-sellers lists after sales in the hundreds of thousands, and even millions of units; it is refreshing to hear stories of books published after years of diligent work, that eventually pay out more than money could ever buy.

Recently, we received a letter from a missionary in Peru who shared this story with us. I hope that it impacts you like it did us:

…I’m writing from Lima where we arrived last night with the Ticuna Bibles…the Ticuna language is the mother tongue for some 50,000 people living along 600 miles of the Amazon River in the 3 countries of Peru, Colombia and Brazil which involves 2 national languages in addition to the Ticuna language. The Peru/Colombia and Brazil versions of the New Testament were dedicated in 1987 and have gone through two reprints since then. The Peru/Colombia version of the Old Testament selected portions (40%) was dedicated in 2007 and the dedication on the Brazil version took place in May 2009. And now, thanks to…you Snowfall Press, we have both the New Testament and the Old Testament selected portions in one book.

The Ticunas have their own Bible Institute…and we’re now planning to give each of the graduates of next year’s cycle one of the Ticuna Bibles you have so wonderfully made available.

Blessings on you and the work there at Snowfall Press…

It is stories like this that help us get up each morning, and serve our publishers. Thanks for the work that you do. If you have another story about your book, and the impact it has made on someone, please share it with us.

Tagged with: • • • • • • • •
Sep 21

Our retail adventure

Sales No Comments »

We have moved into the second week of our most recent adventure – Christian retailing! In August, we finalized a partnership with a company in Tennessee,  to operate two temporary book events in the SW suburbs of Minneapolis, called the $5 Christian Book Sale.

St Louis Park

Fortunately, we had some retail ownership experience, and so many of the business licenses, and other fun details were familiar. Our first shipment of product arrived on September 7, and we were open for business in the first store (Eden Prairie) on September 11.

Having been in Christian publishing for 15 years, and having traveled the world to visit hundreds of Christian bookstores, I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into, and both Christen and I were excited to be able to share great quality resources at bargain prices with our community. So far, that is exactly what we are doing, and the response has been wonderful.
The bookstores are not called the $5 Christian Book Sales for no reason. Our marketing boasts that the stores carry (more or less) 20,000 books at $5 or less. Bibles and reference books are sold at 30% off and we even have some nice gift items to round out the inventory.

So, for the next 90+ days, we will be sharing Christ, one book at a time with the Southwest metro area. Come on by and check us out if you are in the area.

Tagged with: • • • • •
Jun 23

Bibles on demand

Distribution, Printing, publishing No Comments »

In a roundabout way, I used to work for the International Bible Society (IBS) before they became IBS-STL, before they became Biblica. (I worked for STL Distribution which merged with IBS in 2007) I had the opportunity to really learn about what they did, why they did it and of course how they did it. The work of all Bible agencies is incredibly important, especially as they do translation work in languages where the Bible may not be available in written form, or in physical form.

IBS works primarily in languages where populations are more than one million. Other agencies like Wycliffe, work in languages where the populations are smaller, and where they have to actually craft the written language from scratch. In almost all cases, once the Bible translation work has been completed, the Bibles are produced either in country, or as close to the region as possible. This is important for logistical costs.

One of the challenges with printing a Mali Bible in Africa is that Mali readers outside of Africa have a difficult time getting a copy. It has to be hand carried or shipped, and this can be very expensive and take considerable time.

There is a solution. Virtual Storehouse (.com) is a non-profit organization that makes more than 160 Bible language translations available on demand right now. Here is some info from their website:

We believe that as we eliminate barriers to scripture access, the potential impact and reach of God’s Word is exponentially expanded. Through partnerships with Snowfall Software and Snowfall Press we utilize a print-on-demand solution aimed at creating and delivering Bibles and foreign language resources to people who may not have had access before.

We are encouraged by the possibilities for digitizing scripture and the impact that these advancements will have on scripture delivery and global distribution. Technologies are now able to overcome barriers that have inhibited the spreading of God’s Word due to language or geography.

Bible Societies have long been successful at translating and distributing scripture to people groups in their home country. However, due to logistical and publishing constraints, people located outside of their home country frequently have no access to scripture in their mother tongue. Not only scripture, but other essential resources such as Bible studies, commentaries, devotionals and dictionaries, are also inaccessible.

Each of those people groups, who have settled outside of their home country or region, represents a potentially unreached market…a significant, growing market, which has been generally overlooked -until now.

Welcome to the future. How do you see this impacting the rest of the publishing industry?

Tagged with: • • • •
Apr 20

A pioneer in true book-of-one print runs

Authors, Distribution, Printing, publishing 7 Comments »

Snowfall Press is not a household name in the publishing industry…yet, but is building a rapid growth company based on a software solution first, and pairing that with best-in-class, print-on-demand hardware.

Where did they come from? Snowfall Press grew up to first, support the mission of another non-profit organization formed in partnership with CEO, Todd Tillinghast, called Virtual Storehouse. Virtual Storehouse’s mission is help eliminate barriers to scripture access by partnering with Snowfall Software and Snowfall Press to, and to utilize their print-on-demand solution aimed at creating and delivering Bibles and foreign language resources to people who may not have had access before in their own heart language.

istockphoto.com

Bible Societies have long been successful at translating and distributing scripture to people groups in their home country. However, due to logistical and publishing constraints (traditional Bible press runs are large, expensive, and hard to justify in more than one location), people located outside of their home country (Africans from Mali who live in the US, for example) frequently have no access to scripture (or other resources) in their mother tongue. This is a significant, growing market, which has been generally overlooked -until now.

Today, Snowfall Press is leading a quiet, game changing revolution in the publish-on-demand (POD) industry. Snowfall Press is creating a network of distributed POD facilities to enable local printing of books around the world. What started with Bibles has now moved into books.

Now authors (or micro-publishers as they are now defined) who want to manage their own publishing process, can bring a PDF file, upload it to their account (at no charge) and print a run of one book, for only the cost of the that one book…with no hidden fees, or other access charges.

This system is so ingenious, that it can easily be mated with websites that sell books, and virtually stock the warehouse. When a book is sold and paid for, the e-tailer website sends a message to Snowfall Press to print the book and ship it directly to the consumer. The author/publisher keeps all the revenue other than the actual cost of the printed book.

This is the explosive growth area in publishing. According to Publishers Weekly, well over 1 million books are published worldwide every year. A ‘staggering’ 764,000 of those are self (micro) published.

The opportunities are huge for publishing entrepreneurs like Snowfall Press.

Tagged with: • • • •
preload preload preload