Writers say publishers need to take note of Christian speculative fiction.  What about the readers?
 

I find myself in what might be the making of a fairly significant rant.  The topic is Christian fantasy and science fiction, and the complainers.

At Double-Edged Publishing where I volunteer as President and Director, we have been working out the details to become a book publisher.  After all, for over a year, I’ve been hearing writers complain that there aren’t enough companies willing to look at works that are both speculative and from a Christian world view.  Starting last November, we began to roll out our first speculative book titles to follow our two earlier anthology releases.

The reaction to our efforts—admittedly under promoted—has been underwhelming.

My imagination, as I was poised to sign off on the projects, was that the many Christians who write speculative fiction would take a look, and that some percent of them would buy copies of the books.  If I imagined correctly, there are way fewer Christians who write speculative fiction than I thought!

I’ll be the first to admit that DEP isn’t the kind of company that comes to mind when a person thinks about publishing, or even Christian publishing.  However, we do have books and we do pay authors.  Anyone in the world can order our books from Amazon and have it in hand at the same speed as if they ordered from one of the “big guys” most of the time.  So from the book buyer’s point of view, we are no different from anyone else.

It has been said that getting editors interested in Christian fiction needs to be a priority.  My reaction to that is that getting readers interested ought to be the priority.  Certainly getting the large publishers involved is a worthy goal.  But there are already a healthy number of small independent publishers out there producing quality books.

Many people are looking into the crystal ball and saying that small independent press will make a mark in the publishing world.  From a writer’s point of view, we make a lot of sense.

Big publishing houses are out to make the most money they can.  In March, I was at cons with representatives of some rather respectable (read “big guys”) publishing houses.  I don’t have their permission to quote them, so I won’t name names.  The gist of a myriad of conversations was that the big houses can’t afford to publish something that won’t sell.  Therefore, they stick with tried and true motifs.  It has been said that to say, “My book is totally new, unlike anything out there,” is heard by big publishers as, “There is no shelf at B&N on which to sell your book.”

Independent presses, with our low cost per title, can take some chances.  Authors should see this as a great asset for their unique efforts!

With readers complaining that everything is a derivative of everything else, and with authors saying no one will give their works a fair look, it would seem that small presses would be a naturally popular alternative.

The ironic thing is that buyers—though they long for something new—don’t want to take a chance with new authors from small publishers.  So, what’s to be done?

I don’t know.  I know that I continue to hear the many voices of ambitious writers longing for to find a publisher who will consider their fantasy/science fiction that includes Christian themes. I also know that I hear the rails against what we do from Christians who just have no tolerance for fantasy or science fiction as well as from fans of fantasy and science fiction who have no tolerance for Christian themes!  We get criticized from both sides.

All the while, I have books waiting for someone to give them a loving home.  Can DEP continue to operate as a publishing company if buyers don’t buy books.  Well, actually, at Double-Edged Publishing, we can.  Did I mention we don’t operate out of a typical business model? The question is really whether we should.  Are we doing the authors any favors by putting out books few people buy?  I have no answer at this time.

For now, we are aggressively moving forward with our plans.  Our Winter 2008 catalog includes three spec-fic books plus our two previously published anthologies.  By summer’s end, our catalog will add at least three more titles, perhaps as many as six more.  Will our efforts pay off for Christian spec-fic writers?  For Christian spec-fic readers?  We’ll see.

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