There are far more knowledgeable apologists out there writing books (with, you know, actual credentials), but often I've found that these works rarely meet the skeptic in a humble, accessible way. And style and humor, which skeptics tend to appreciate, are frequently absent. So I'm endeavoring to hit this niche of young, cynical, but open to debate, kind of skeptic.
So now that I've explained who the intended audience is and a general idea of the book's contents, how could I best go about getting this into their hands?
I've worked with Christian publishers in the past (Lifeway & Thomas Nelson) on projects for other people, so taking this to them is an option. However, Christian publishers do not publish books that a skeptic would read. I could blindly approach a secular publisher, but they would control the price of the book (potentially severing part of the audience with a high price) as well as the book's content. I'm not a fan of either of these options. But perhaps I'm missing some obvious advantage I haven't considered.
Another option would be to self-publish the book through Amazon, wherein I'd control both the content and the price of the book.I did this for one of my fiction titles and moved close to 70,000 ebook copies over a 3-year period. How many of those actually read the book, I have no idea. But probably a small percentage. So this method, even absent a huge marketing push, is better for actually getting the title into more hands. But this option has its downside too, if one considers this "charging for ministry."
I do not believe in charging for ministry (thanks a lot, Steve!), but I'm not sure if that's the case here or not. I could give this title away for free, as an ebook, and potentially reach a huge number of people who might benefit from the work. But there would be zero compensation for my time, and this is a fairly substantial work.
Please help me decide which publishing option makes the most sense and whether self-publishing the title would be considered charging for ministry. Thanks for reading this very long post.
![Confused :?](./images/smilies/icon_e_confused.gif)