When you hear “Publishing house,” what comes to your mind? You probably envision a mega publishing house established in a huge warehouse with large presses and massive rolls of paper. While that is often the case, let us not forget that there are various models of publishing.
We have identified three main models of publishing below. Desert Tree Ministry operates on the principles of the last two models (mini and micro) and does not aspire to the first model (mega). Ideally, all three models should co-exist and complement each other in the publishing work.
For a starter equipment list, see Machine List.
Examples of a mega publishing house include Pacific Press in America, Safeliz in Spain, or Advent Press in Ghana. This type of publishing house often serves an international community and is capable of producing huge volumes of books or tracts. If you ever get an opportunity to tour one of these publishing houses, it will be an amazing experience you will not forget!
Typical market niches include books in major world languages. Take for example the missionary book of the year. Various French-speaking countries of West Africa could combine their orders and ask the publishing house to print tens or hundreds of thousands of the same book. This lowers production cost, and eventually the final price of the book.
It is usually necessary to plan far in advance and to have a hefty budget to print a project like this. You will need to plan where to safely store your stock when it arrives.
The purpose of a mini publishing house model is to fill in the gaps left by the mega publishing house model. For example, somebody translates the missionary book of the year into a local language, but they only need 500 or 2000 copies. An order of this size is inconvenient and impractical to send to a distant country for printing. Shipping costs would raise the final cost of the book significantly.
A mini publishing house can help facilitate the translation team, and then the printing of the book or materials. Printing can be done on demand. For example, you could print 250 books to start with and test the market. Then you print as needed. Time from order to delivery is significantly less because the mini publishing house operates in the country or area that it serves.
This model is also ideal for providing tracts or Bible studies in various languages where demand is not nearly as high as for the larger languages.
The purpose of the micro publishing center is to fill in the gaps left by the mini publishing house. This model is the most simple model, and can be no more than a computer and a printer, and perhaps a stapler. For example, a church elder or pastor wants to encourage the members of his church to give Bible studies or to be active in sharing literature. He downloads a few tracts and studies and prints out 20 copies of each on his home printer to share with his members.
This model can grow into a mini publishing house as God provides the way to buy more machines and equipment and as more people ask for literature.