There is no better way to illustrate the ministry and mission value of what Snowfall Press is doing, than to share this story of one of our publishers.
Geoff serves with an international missions agency dedicated to reaching the unreached people groups around the globe. The challenge in some of these remote areas is that printing is very difficult and very expensive. Many times, the demand for a book will be just tens or hundreds of copies, which makes traditional printing a difficult decision. These missions groups are making the Bible and other resources available to these groups for the first time.
Missions work, thanks to technology advances, has a come a long way. The laptop and word processing programs are critical tools today. Even in the jungle, the world continues to get smaller as communication tools get better. In Geoff’s case, all of his email communication is done over HF radio. It’s very slow and doesn’t allow the internet at this point, but it does give him a way to send and receive small emails. There is an internet option (it’s on his wish list) but it’s expensive (about $3000 to set up and then about $300 a month). Eleven months out of the year, this is one of the only communication options in the jungle. When Geoff is done with his manuscripts, he has to wait until one of his visits out to town to upload the files to Snowfall Press.
Even with this sort of infrastructure as part of the ministry, other mission teams are excited about Snowfall Press and its possibilities. When compared to the in house service…”Snowfall Press can’t be beat. Geoff says, “It’s often difficult to staff our little in-house print service. And with Snowfall Press we’re getting proper books instead of the more fragile comb or spiral bound books.” He also reports that the cost (even after shipping) is way better, and in some cases the timing is even quicker. Everything is better.
Geoff says, “The place where Snowfall Press really will make a difference over and against the typical offset printing that people do for the NT translations, is that Snowfall Press makes it much more cost effective when you’re printing less than several thousand copies. That’s most of the people groups we’re working in here.”
Snowfall Press is a service provider for content creators. Whether these creators are missionaries in the jungle, or are large traditional publishers, independent publishers, authors, catalog companies, ministries, churches…and the list goes on; Snowfall Press is designed to put this content into bound softcover books…one book at a time.
What are other ways this technology can be used? Have you ever considered using a bound book for your content rather than going down to the local copy shop to print it?
