Options for publishing a mission resource.

[Leslie]

Back in 1983 I first wrote the Village Medical Manual which has gone through 6 editions, first with Wycliffe, then self-published, then William Carey Library. Now WCL won't publish the 7th edition, probably because of market saturation. They are having difficulty moving the last of the 6th edition.

I have no interest in making money on this, but I don't want anyone else to make money on it either. It should be free or low-cost for anyone involved in missions. A friend of mine has offered to post it for free download on his site which also has other missions resources, namely chronoligcal Bible storying. I am in the process of mailing off a medical course that is associated with the current edition of the manual.

The whole thing is about 800 pages. The material is not easy to use in electronic form; hard copy is almost essential. What I'm wondering is this:
1. How much would it cost for someone to take a downloaded manuscript to a printer and have a single hard copy made?
2. Do you know of any other publisher that might be interested? Christian publishers usually insist on spiritual content. This content is practical cookbook medicine intended for missionaries in remote rural areas. Secular publishers aren't interested in supporting missions.
3. Does anyone have another suggestion?

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Just to print at a copy shop without binding it is going to probably run 10 cents a side or $80. You could probably get a more exact cost by searching for a place like Fedex and email them for an average estimate. A hardbound print on demand book at Lulu.com runs about $32 for 800 pages, the maximum length is right at 800 pages so that means a binding may not hold up and they don't hold up that well as it is. If you could get the book professional laid out instead of in MS that might get the page count down and the costs. This of course is all excluding shipping.

 

[Steve Curtis]

Createspace.com is another option. If you can format it to 6" x 9" or 7.5" x 9.25", you can go to 828 pages (paperback). Each copy would cost you about $11.00, exclusive of shipping.

Here is their information, and there is a calculator at the bottom of the page.

 

[Leslie]

These suggestions are helpful. I can put the information along with the download. Actually, the book works a lot better as two volumes. The 800 pages was the combined page number. I'd still like a suggestion for a publisher that may be interested.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Given the circumstances as you outlined, that would a difficult pitch to draw any publisher to the project. A publisher will want to make a bunch of copies to have a low unit cost but if they don't see a market where those copies would sell they are not going to be interested in simply making and housing the books for a long time. If you want to keep it in print, you can list it at Lulu (and maybe others) at cost and I think there is a way to "legacy" it there for future and keep it available into the future, at least as long as Lulu is in business. Lulu will take their cut on each sale, but you can zero out the markup for author/publisher to keep the price down. This sure sounds like more a candidate for that than formal offset production which could be a $12,000 project at minimum just to produce (there's layout if that is needed, storage for inventory, etc.).