In the Name of “Mission Work” book about CAM/Mast

[mike]

I wonder how well this book will sell to the target audience if it's only available through Amazon. That's not going to reach a large portion of the intended audience. I'd be interested to learn whether it could be advertised in magazines that plain people and CAM constituents would subscribe to, such as the Budget or PCBE. Maybe there's not a US-based order fulfillment location other than Amazon.

[Soloist]

I wonder how well this book will sell to the target audience if it's only available through Amazon. That's not going to reach a large portion of the intended audience. I'd be interested to learn whether it could be advertised in magazines that plain people and CAM constituents would subscribe to, such as the Budget or PCBE. Maybe there's not a US-based order fulfillment location other than Amazon.

I don’t know that the plain people would be the intended audience.

[steve-in-kville]

It might also just be a similar stance as to people seeking counseling outside the church. They might believe it’s none of Grace’s business. One could argue that a biblically trained person can investigate it themselves.

The optics on an outside investigation is a two-edged sword: on one hand, it would put donors at ease there these situations are being handled, not just swept under the rug.

On the other hand, it would have a negative "marketing" impact in such a way that CAM has a rampant problem and had to bring in an outside party to fix.

[Josh]

I wonder how well this book will sell to the target audience if it's only available through Amazon. That's not going to reach a large portion of the intended audience. I'd be interested to learn whether it could be advertised in magazines that plain people and CAM constituents would subscribe to, such as the Budget or PCBE. Maybe there's not a US-based order fulfillment location other than Amazon.

I checked with a plain book distributor and they hadn’t heard of it. They don’t bother with self published books on Amazon since it’s impossible for bookstores etc to make a profit on them.

[steve-in-kville]

It was mentioned upstream that a place like Clay Book Store would be a good place, but there is no way that is gonna happen. I doubt Clay would handle those Amish romance novels that were all the rage a while back. Definitely not something like this.

[mike]

I wonder how well this book will sell to the target audience if it's only available through Amazon. That's not going to reach a large portion of the intended audience. I'd be interested to learn whether it could be advertised in magazines that plain people and CAM constituents would subscribe to, such as the Budget or PCBE. Maybe there's not a US-based order fulfillment location other than Amazon.

I don’t know that the plain people would be the intended audience.

I see. I would have assumed that the primary target audience would be CAM's staff and constituents, and a secondary audience would be anyone else who is interested in mission work. There's also an audience that I would describe as disaffected conservative Anabaptists for whom the book is more fuel for the dislike they already have for their culture. Maybe that last audience is actually the most likely group to buy and promote the book, but I wouldn't have thought they were the target audience.

Or is the target audience the general public, or maybe Christians generally? I don't think the former is that interested in a book about problems in Christian missions. I don't know if the Christian audience generally speaking is interested in a book that is focused on the problems of a minority Christian group's mission work. I still think this book is basically focused on plain Anabaptists who are interested in doing mission work.

The title of the book is In the Name of "Mission Work". It's a broad criticism of how conservative Anabaptists do mission work, beyond just the mishandling of the JM scandal. It may have bearing on other Christian missions, but at least some of the critiques won't make sense outside of the conservative Anabaptist mission context.

[mike]

It was mentioned upstream that a place like Clay Book Store would be a good place, but there is no way that is gonna happen. I doubt Clay would handle those Amish romance novels that were all the rage a while back. Definitely not something like this.

Clay is pretty loose as far as their used book section, but I think their new books are less so.

[Josh]

Old Orders don’t get directly involved in missions and used to be opposed to mission boards, etc.

Many of their arguments against doing so are the same arguments made in this book.

[mike]

Old Orders don’t get directly involved in missions and used to be opposed to mission boards, etc.

Many of their arguments against doing so are the same arguments made in this book.

Yet a lot of them support missions financially. I say this as board member of a prison ministry which has some financial support from Amish and other plain groups that would not have their own mission organizations.

[steve-in-kville]

It was mentioned upstream that a place like Clay Book Store would be a good place, but there is no way that is gonna happen. I doubt Clay would handle those Amish romance novels that were all the rage a while back. Definitely not something like this.

Clay is pretty loose as far as their used book section, but I think their new books are less so.

Haven't been there in many years. They are a great source of topo maps. My wife gets in every once and again.