FRIENDS IN NEED
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
As wrapped up as I am in the work of Catholic Answers, I realize that it's just one of many apostolates seeking to promote the faith. I know of dozens of groups that have a national outreach, and there are hundreds that focus on parish- or diocesan-based work. It all adds up, to the benefit of the entire Church in America--and beyond.
There aren't many Catholic apostolates that manage to get by solely on the sale of materials. Come to think of it, I can't bring to mind any that do.
Catholic Answers earns income from magazine subscription fees, speaking honoraria, book and CD sales, advertising revenue, and so on, but all that covers less than half of our annual budget. The rest comes from donations. Without donations, our level of work would be much different from what it is.
But we're in a peculiar position. Much of our work is the sort that lends itself to being underwritten through donations. Other Catholic organizations don't have that advantage. While they may receive donations, most of their income comes from sales of materials. When sales slump, for whatever reason, such organizations are put in a real bind.
In Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield," one of the characters says this: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
That's how close it can be for an individual or a family, and that's how close it can be for an apostolate. A small profit, and everything is daisies. A small loss, and everything is bleak. A persistent small loss, and the doors close permanently.
I don't want to see that happen to any of the good apostolates out there--my own first, of course, but also those many others that have been laboring in the Lord's vineyard. Today I want to bring to your attention one such apostolate because (a) I long have been impressed with it and (b) it could use your help.
I'm talking about Sophia Institute Press, a small operation that, since 1983, has produced a large number of very good books.
John Barger began by seeking out classic titles that had gone out of print or that could be repackaged into more digestible and more saleable forms. For example, he shortened and partly retranslated several theologically-deep (and sometimes, because of their bulk, off-putting) works by Thomas Aquinas and ended up bringing the saint's writings to a whole new audience.
John didn't restrict himself to 750-year-old works. He also brought back books by Dietrich von Hildebrand, Romano Guardini, Christopher Dawson, and many lesser-known but equally fine writers.
More recently, Sophia began publishing books by new authors, and now its backlist includes many contemporary works that are every bit as good as the classics.
I remember, years ago, meeting with Fr. Joseph Fessio at Ignatius Press in San Francisco. I asked him how many copies of a book he would need to sell to turn a profit. He said he would need to sell as few as 3,000 copies, but not a few of the titles Ignatius published never reached even that level.
You might think, "Well, I could sell 3,000 copies of any decent book. Catholic publishers should be well in the black." I can assure you that it's not so simple.
Sure, some books do very nicely. My "Catholicism and Fundamentalism" is well into six figures, and it still sells nicely, even though it was published as long ago as 1988. Ignatius Press published "The Ratzinger Report" some years earlier, and it sold even better than my book (justifiable so, I have to admit). But these are exceptions.
The plain truth is that very few Catholic books sell into six figures. For that matter, few sell into five figures. In orthodox Catholic publishing, you have a hit if you sell 10,000 copies of a title. It certainly is a niche market.
Good Catholic publishers, such as Ignatius and Sophia and even Catholic Answers, intentionally compound the problem by not publishing only books that are likely to sell widely. (They would have few titles on their shelves if they restricted themselves that way!) These publishers are apostolates first, and their goal is to get out the best books, even though for many of those books there will be few readers.
It's a balancing act. You hope the few books that sell widely will subsidize the many books that just break even or that don't quite break even.
Using this approach, Sophia Institute Press has managed to get by since 1983, but it hasn't been easy. There have been ups and down and some miscalculations.
Over the last year or so, most Catholic apostolates have noticed a softening in sales and donations, Catholic Answers included. Maybe it's the economy, but who really knows? We just know the softening is for real.
For Sophia the softening has been multiplied by disappointing sales for two titles that were thought to be likely money makers.
Regina Doman's "Angel in the Waters," which appeared two years ago, has been the publisher's all-time bestseller. The folks at Sophia thought, "Why not reach out to the Spanish-speaking market with a Spanish version?" It seemed like a slam-dunk but turned out to be just a dunk. The Spanish version flopped. Ouch!
Then there was this summer's intriguing book "Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?" by David Carlin. It seemed like just the right book for an election year in which the Catholic vote promised to be important. But there turned out to be a problem.
Sophia distributes many of its books through Catholic book stores, few of which wanted to stock "Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?" Store owners thought, erroneously, that the book favored the Republican Party, and the owners didn't want to be perceived as mixing politics and religion. So they didn't put the book on their shelves. Double ouch!
Sophia generates about 90 percent of its income from sales. When sales are down, either because of a general softening or because of miscalculations, the whole business is put in jeopardy.
At the moment the company has little cash on hand, and it needs cash if it is to reprint its perennial sellers that are just now--unfortunate coincidence!--going out of print and if it is to print new titles that are in the queue, such as Dave Armstrong's "The One-Minute Apologist," Dale O'Leary's "One Man, One Woman" (a defense of traditional marriage), and Henri Daniel-Rops' classic "What Is the Bible?"
I hope you will assist Sophia by writing a generous check, which you can send to:
Sophia Institute Press
P.O. Box 5284
Manchester, NH 03108
If you want to make a donation by credit card, you can visit:
www.sophiainstitute.com
or you can call:
(800) 888-9344
If you can give a donation of at least $100, Sophia will send you, as a token of its thanks, two books by Dave Armstrong, "A Biblical Defense of Catholicism" and "The Catholic Verses."
For a donation of $50 you will get David Currie's "Rapture: The End-Times Error that Leaves the Bible Behind" or Patrick Madrid's "Search and Rescue."
For $20 the premium is Dwight Longenecker's "Adventures in Orthodoxy."
I do hope you'll give Sophia a hand. The folks there have done the Lord's work for a long time now, and I'm happy to have an opportunity to put in a good word for them.
p.s., If you have a comment about anything appearing in this E-Letter, please do not hit your Reply button. Instead, go to Catholic Answers' discussion forums at
http://forums.catholic.com
where you may post your comment in the forum dedicated to the E-Letter. You will find a thread devoted to this issue of the E-Letter. Feel free to add your comment in the form of a reply to that thread.
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