Miscellaneous Musings

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

Scripture verse: Genesis 26:4 It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (1849) is a poem and Christmas carol written by Edmund Sears. Sears' lyrics are most commonly set to one of two melodies: Carol, composed by Richard Storrs Willis, or Noel, adapted from an English...

The First Noel

Scripture verse: Isaiah 7:14 The First Noel is of classical Cornish origin and was arranged, edited and given extra lyrics by Davies Gilbert. Today, it is usually performed in a four-part hymn arrangement that was written by John Stainer. The melody consists of one...

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Scripture verse: Luke 2:10-12 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing first appeared in 1739 written by Charles Wesley. The popular version is the result of alterations by various people, including George Whitefield, who changed the opening couplet. Felix Mendelssohn composed a...
To Be-ware or not To Be-ware: Large Publisher, Small Press

To Be-ware or not To Be-ware: Large Publisher, Small Press

This week seems to be the week to blog about small presses, and seeing so many posts brought something to my mind. I’ve always considered Pelican Book Group to be a small press—as I’m sure most people do—but what exactly makes a small press a small press? Is it the size of its catalogue, number of employees, the benefits and drawbacks of being published by said press, or is it strictly the annual revenue generated (and is any of that good or bad)? As I pondered these things, I decided to do a comparison of what large publishers do and what this small press (Pelican Book Group) does.

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A World Without Amazon? (The Demise of Publishing, part 1)

If the fate of that one chain—Family Christian—affects Christian publishing so drastically, what would a world without Amazon do to publishing at large? What would happen to reading, literacy—publishing—if there was no more Amazon? Or, more likely: What would the book world be with only Amazon? With their $5.25 billion in book sales constituting only 7% of Amazon’s total revenue, the behemoth mega-store isn’t likely to disappear from the landscape any time soon, but will the rest of us be part of the ripe rolling hills of publishing five years from now?

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