The Faith Business

So quite a few of my previous poetry ventures have been faith based (poetic interpretations of the bible and worship poetry) and it is in my mind at the moment about making money from my faith.

 

Growing up I was really into Christian music and contemporary worship music but over time, despite being Christian musician and worship leader, I began to feel cynical about what I perceived the Christian music industry to be. My family was poor but we weren’t poverty stricken thanks to my parents thriftiness, but I think it affected me. All the money I had was from working on my paper round and I spent a good chunk of it on music, some from big name high street stores but more likely from 2^nd hand record stores. This was before internet shopping and streaming was a thing.

 

If there was a Christian album I wanted then it always smarted a bit because they would usually have to be bought from the Christian book shop and the price was usually 50 per cent more than a new album from HMV or Virgin.

 

I realise now that the artist, distributor, record company, struggling Christian book shop, would all take a cut from this sale which probably doesn’t amount to much. But even that sentence displays my belief that the artist, record companies and distributors were well off, comfortable.

 

I was a massive Delirious? fan in my teens and they are still the band I have seen most live thanks to their yearly tours and appearances at Christian festivals. They would also release a new album each year which is creatively commendable but after a while, as a fan made it feel like you were being squeezed.

 

This was undoubtedly the way music industry was back then (it is very different now with digital media) and Delirious? needed to make a living which may not have been a lot but you sensed that they were big business and weren’t struggling in the same way that smaller bands like Brown Bear Music probably were. I don’t mean to pick on Delirious? and I am certain that they and the other mainstream Christian acts from that that time were entirely honourable and their hearts were good, but it bothered me that accessing their music came at a particularly high cost and those who may be most in need of it couldn’t afford to be blessed by it.

 

I didn’t really think about it until after university when I started exploring self publishing and ebooks. My first biblical poetry book ‘Solomon’s song of songs’ was an experiment in publishing for Kindle and largely for myself but it was the first time that I questioned it for myself. I listed the book for the least amount possible and made it available for free promotions and between the freebies and paid downloads I think it amounted to over 1000 purchases and I made about £30. At this time I was in a different job that I hated and I thought about trying to make something more of it but the idea of trying to profit from my faith made me feel uncomfortable and I felt it was more important and gratifying to have something that was accessible to as many people as possible and that would be a blessing rather than a business opportunity.

 

This has informed all my subsequent publications and musical releases which have been made available for as cheap as possible or for free with options to tip, depending where they were listed.

 

With my current project and current work situation I have questioned this again. This project is bigger than anything I have done before and I think it has potential for further reach and interest. It is something that I think a Christian publisher would probably be interested in and something that I could make money from, but my inclination is still that it should be as cheap as possible because I think it will be a helpful book for Christians and non Christians. My heart says it should be this way. But I am tempted to pursue a more commercial path with it. I am doing a considerable amount of work on it alongside my full time job and it is something that could potentially open other creative opportunities. Despite this it still doesn’t feel right, I feel that the business side of taking that decision, contracts, marketing, promotion, trying to monetise it and make a profit, it doesn’t feel right.

 

Yet thousands of authors, bands, artists, are making money from their faith. Does that make it ok?

 

I would love to hear someone’s perspective on this.