Publishing religious books

Publishing religious books

Publishing religious books is very difficult. In a way, religion as a subject has become a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you can expect your book to contain a steady stream of clients among your fellow believers. On the other hand, unlike conventional books that have a wide range of customers, religious books only attract several people. Due to religious differences, it is safe to assume that the non-Christian population is not interested in the book you wrote. While this significantly reduces the market for your articles, it also provides some beneficial marketing strategies for a successful career in book publishing. That is how you will succeed in this profession.

Select your market

Authors and publishers tend to write on a vast topic to gain more audiences. However, the most successful strategy to use is to define your target market and create a product that meets the needs of that market. An excellent example of this is chicken soup for a chain of souls. There are thousands of inspiring stories, testaments, and bible verses that can be put together in a single book that suits all people. Students, parents, teachers, grandmothers and athletes. But what Chicken Soup did was compile a list of inspiring stories and create separate books for these categories, and the result is that we now have soup titles. Chickens for both: teen spirit, gloomy spirit, single parent spirit, entrepreneurial spirit, etc.

Also, publishers did not cut their market with this rating; how did they double it? One person may be a teenage entrepreneur who also mourns the loss of a loved one. So with 3 Chicken Soup books that meet these needs, this person could purchase them to meet their need for spiritual nourishment as a grieving person, teenager, and entrepreneur.

Always point to a second book.

Much like the way movies are often expanded into trilogies, publishers have the power to tell if the same author will have another chance to write a continuation of the book. Depending on the benefit obtained from the authors’ first book, another suggestion may or may not come from the publisher. Ronda Byrne became famous after publishing her best-selling book, The Secret. After that, the publishers decided to allow Burns to write two more books, The Secret Gratitude Book and The Power. Now, no formula guarantees that you will write a second book. But here’s a general rule of thumb: do your best with your first book, and if readers love what you’ve written, you can look forward to a second book.

Extend the “shelf life” of your book

Books are non-perishable materials, but they also have a kind of life. Some books are all-time favourites or something your grandchildren will love to read as much as you did five decades ago. Think of topics that will never end the season. Include your personal stories. Theoretical knowledge is best explained from a personal point of view, and people can never object to it because you have personally experienced such things.

We have a different reason why we want to publish our books, but Christians around the world should at least put this on their list: to make their books a vehicle for spreading the word of God.