Why Self-Publish?
This article by Gary DeMar kicked off my desire to address the subject of why Comprehensive Christianity has gone with a self-publishing approach.
Christian Publishing Companies Are A Bigger Problem Than Amazon
Gary’s article is in response to one by Tim Challies bemoaning Amazon’s pulling of books in response to the “trans”gressing of America along all moral fronts Short answer, Amazon is not the problem, just a symptom.
Gary points out several things, the short version of which is true across the board, “Christian” publishing has been symptomatic of the problem for a lot longer than Amazon. Symptomatic of what? The failure of the church in America. Ok, that’s a topic for another time… back to the topic at hand.
The state beast is out of control. Tyranny is ascendant. Buying and selling for those not carrying the message of the beast on their hands, tongues and in their heads are increasingly blocked. (How far this blocking will go is something to ponder seriously and prepare for, cuz no, you ain’t gettin’ raptured out of it… again, another article.)
Facebook, Patreon, PayPal, YouTube, etc., etc. have all de-platformed not just Christians, but even conservatives teaching things that could be mistaken as Christian in the fundamentals. Jordan Peterson is who I’m thinking of. Instead of whining about it, he went out and built his own platform which is scheduled to come out of beta soon. The CrossPolitic crew isn’t sitting still. They get this in a big way and are building out their own platform, network, etc.
Given the situation and example of others that have come under fire, the approach here at Comprehensive Christianity is to run as “un-platformed” as possible and to enable our customers to participate as “un-platformed” and as directly with us as possible. Un-platformed?
The internet’s core technologies remain the best method of communication vs. someone’s privatized, silo’d intranet space such as Facebook. De-platformed is when a platform blocks or kicks you out. Un-platformed is to choose yourself to have as few platforms as possible that can do this to you.
We have our own website, ComprehensiveChristianity.com and no Facebook or any other “social media” page. Why would I want more intermediaries than necessary between me and those I want to communicate with? Day to day it is impossible to know who, if anyone, is seeing your social media posts and no one is seeing posts to content originated outside of FB… such as these blog posts.
While I post content from here to FB, I much prefer that you sign up for our email Newsletter and / or that you contact me directly via email: tim@comprehensivechristianity.com.
Email is by far the most effective communications channel vs. social media. Advertisers pay much more for verified, targeted email addresses than for social media “When you look at the effectiveness of email compared to social media and take a peek at the ROI of each, it’s pretty clear that email is the winner. By a lot.” (July 2019). Also, I want to develop a relationship with you, not just advertise to you. Most of the blog content is intended to be about the comprehensiveness of Christianity, just like the name says, not to just promote what we publish as ebooks.
Have all dependencies been removed? Can’t I still be de-platformed by: my website hosting service, my credit card processor, the DNS system, the U.S. banking system? Yep. Two thoughts:
I pray we would count it all joy to be considered such a threat to have that happen.
Are there truly Christian owned alternatives? I’d consider them. If there aren’t, we’re back to the failure of the church. One wonders what our member’s money is being invested in after their tithe and expenses are met?
E-books are generated, edited, produced and sold here. Amazon is an add-on for convenience of those that prefer it or who don’t know how to deal with an epub file.
Paper books are provided for now, through Amazon’s Print-on-Delivery (POD) service. This is purely convenience for me. There are a host of other POD and self-printing services that could be used. I’m open to suggestions, particularly if y’all want hard backs.
Far as I’m concerned, Amazon is a net blessing… for now. Want alternatives? Support efforts like this. Use the core technologies of the internet and get off the silo’d traps of FB, FB Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp (ALL of which are Facebook), Twitter, et. al. Be actually social and connect with each other.
Facebook’s main initial claim to fame was being able to find people. That value has passed. You’ve found each other already! Time to move on! Use social media (self-promotion) locations to exchange email addresses. You can chat, share pictures and everything else you do on “social media”, but with more control and actual, valuable visibility.
Yes, you can share easily with groups in email.
You can reply to all or just one person (also a value over texting).
Setting it up takes a few minutes and isn’t as brain dead simple as FB, but brain dead is how we got to this point. Time to switch on a couple neurons.
So many advantages and capabilities that will have to await a future post and perhaps training video(s). This series I did 5 years ago when I was doing tech consulting / coaching, may have some out of date bits, but give you some tips on using the most powerful and effective communication vehicle on the internet: Email. (Don’t you roll your eyes at me, you pitiful “only-texters” <grin>)
Email training video #1: (Gmail used as example, but any decent email provider will have similar functions and capabilities.)
Can’t Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook deplatform you? Not if you own your own URL. For instance, Gmail could kill my address: therenshaw@gmail.com, but not tim@comprehensivechristianity.com or tim@timrenshaw.com, which I can host anywhere. Splurge on the +/- $12 / year to get your own domain / email address!
As you can see “self-publishing” goes WAY beyond just ebooks. Take back as much control of your communications / publishing as you can and start now.