Chasing Paper

Chasing Paper: Critical Reflections on Christian Books and Publishing, edited by Stephanie L. Derrick, is a broad production containing reflections from more than twenty authors in a little more than 150 pages.  Reading the book is akin to speed-dating at an international Christian publishers’ convention. This immersive experience spans history, religious affiliation, and geography with authors ranging from retired to active, Catholic to Protestant (with all the variants inherent in both traditions), and from every quadrant of the globe.

As can be expected, many of the essays are focused purely on survival, detailing the various concerns, either past or present, facing publishers. Several of these writers have existed in a state of tension for years, with little time or energy for philosophical reflections on publishing. With the timing of this publication (2021), some of the participants are still reeling from the effects of the 2008 financial downturn while attempting to forecast what the coronavirus pandemic would mean for their labors. Further challenges added to these exigencies are the digital revolution and the rise of e-commerce, especially Amazon. These realities led to some degree of repetition in the essays, but they are instructive recurrences, hammering home that these difficulties pervade the industry, regardless of geography or religious affiliation. Christian publishing is not for the faint of heart. As Philip Yancey observes, the current struggles feel especially acute compared to the golden age of publishing, when books sold quickly and profits were high.

A recurring theme in the essays written by those outside the United States is the general ineptitude of Western publications with translation, especially for books dealing with Christian living. Well-meaning mission organizations attempted to bring helpful books to foreign markets with ineffectual or even deleterious results. An African American publisher vouched for the lack of efficacy in cross-cultural publishing efforts in the US as well. Cross-cultural publishing would appear to be common-sensical, but it was found in practice to be lacking some essential ingredients. The only translated publications that successfully crossed the divide between the Minority World and the Majority World appear to be academic in nature: systematic theologies and biblical commentaries. Ultimately, the impacted parties advocated for the creation of indigenous materials that address areas of interest with appropriate cultural sensitivity. This necessitates local writers, local editors, local designers, and local publishers. One success story highlighted in the book centers on the Langham Partnership, which provides financial support for the development of original content within local communities.

The book also chronicles the participants’ struggles with prognostication. Most who attempted it thrashed about. Obviously, in the world of publishing, the past is not a good indicator of what comes next. The most honest and lively approach to the future comes from the publisher of Chasing Paper. According to Jon Stock, Wipf & Stock Publishers did not know what they were doing when they began their venture (or at least they did not attend to the received wisdom of the industry). Their strategy of figuring things out as they proceeded seems to have served them well over the past two decades and continues to frame their approach to future challenges.

The lead essay in the book by Mark Carpenter is one of the strongest. It details the rise of Christian publishing in Brazil, an exciting story that demonstrates how a publisher (in this case,  Editora Mundo Cristão) can extract technical expertise from the US while developing a completely organic product in Brazil. Peter Calvin’s contribution details the hardships faced by those working in Islamic-majority countries. The Islamization of Pakistan complicates Christian publishing there in ways that are entirely foreign to the Western world. Robin Baird-Smith’s fifty years of Christian and mainstream publishing lead him to the conclusion that the future needs quality rather than quantity from publishers. Most of the essays from Roman Catholic publishers are absorbed with sales, with Peter Dwyer saying the key to future sales will be “an evolving balance of digital text, audio, print, video, social media, and interactive” (78). No doubt the near future will add one or two crucial disrupters to that list that will destroy this attempt at balance.

The essays written by Andy Le Peau, Sandra Zicht, and Jon Pott, all now retired, concern the rise of U.S. evangelical Christian publishing in the latter part of the 20^th century. Theirs are the meatiest entries, engaging in both history and reflection. This is, no doubt, the result of the settled and financially secure firms that employed them (IVP, Eerdmans, and Zondervan). Their combined experience of over a century in the business enabled them to substantially shape both trade and academic Christian publishing.

It is unfortunate that there are no representatives from Southern Baptists or the Eastern Orthodox included in the book. Southern Baptists are by far the largest Protestant group in the US and publish a substantial number of books and curricula. As for the Orthodox, they have several publishing outlets in the US alone that would have merited inclusion.

For those who have closely followed the fortunes of the publishing world for the past couple of decades, none of the revelations of these essays will be surprising. But for someone considering a career in publishing, particularly Christian publishing, this book should be considered an orienting device. Mission agencies that are considering future publications should examine the international essays as tales of both caution and vision. Academic publishers and readers, particularly in the field of ethics, may find the genesis and history of the Moral Traditions series from Georgetown University Press (as told by Richard Brown) to be a blueprint for future series.

Apart from a few exceptions (Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength.: A Narrative History of InterVarsity Press, 1947-2022, An Eerdmans Century: 1911-2011, and The T & T. Clark Story: A Victorian Publisher and the New Theology), the history of Christian publishers is surprisingly undocumented. Those books, along with Daniel Vaca’s Evangelicals Incorporated (Harvard University Press, 2019), would serve as fine companion pieces to this work. Derrick’s gathering of these essays is a tremendous service to both the present and the future. She has captured key “witnesses” and “changemakers” at what seems to be a tectonic transition. Hopefully, some of these partial and skeletal documents will evolve, eventually developing into full company histories or as subjects of dissertations. At present they should serve “to document a moment” (xvi), serving as a snapshot of the past forty years of Christian publishing.

Michael Garrett is the director and librarian of the Ryan Center for Biblical Studies, Union University. 

Michael Garrett

Date Of Review:

February 27, 2024