No doubt Ignatius Press could publish this great material in just about any format with no advertising and still sell some copies to people like us, but I don’t just want this material to reach people like us. I want it to reach lukewarm Catholics, 8th graders going through the motions of Confirmation, people who are just starting to learn about their Catholic faith, people who don’t know the NAB from the NBA. Those people absolutely do not buy multi-volume Bible reference sets, and they don’t own collections of study Bibles on Kindle either. But they might buy a single good-looking study Bible, or someone might buy one for them, if only Ignatius would publish one .
Look, I don’t think anyone here would be opposed to Ignatius creating a single volume as one of the versions they publish.
However, you are the one who is “attacking” Ignatius Press by basically saying they don’t know what they are doing if they don’t publish a single volume first.
We are poking holes in your hypothesis that Ignatius Press doesn’t know their market (which is not just us people out in the internet, but also bookstores).
Book publishers TYPICALLY don’t use the “print on demand” printing services for new books (they tend to only use it when they underestimate the demand for a book - or older books). Plus, “print on demand” is usually limited to “perfect bind” books (the kind you see in most paperbacks & some hard cover) and not “case bind” books (case bind is what most larger books, esp nice Bibles have).
When a publisher hires a printer to print & bind their books, they basically have to buy a large number of books at once to make it affordable.
If their market research tells them that they cannot economically afford to start with a single volume, then they are not going to do it.
Now, of course it all about saving souls and spreading the Word of God, but Ignatius Press can’t do that if a book puts them in the red.
Remember: publishing companies are like movie producers. They take educated RISKS that a book is going to sell and invest a lot of money into the book with the HOPE that it makes money or at WORSE, breaks even.
But if they think it going to be a lose, they usually don’t do it.
My point (again) is that if Ignatius Press doesn’t publish a single volume right away, it will be because their market research tells them it’s a risk.
But it doesn’t mean that they never will. Religious & non-profit publishers (like Ignatius) sometimes seek donations to cover publishing costs of an important book they can’t take the financial risk on.
Or perhaps, they will simply wait until they sell enough multi-volume versions to recoup the investment they made by paying the editors. Then, once they are out of the hole, perhaps they will be able to print a single volume?
Point is (again) - if they don’t do a single volume right away, I’m sure they have a valid reason.
God Bless.
so, I do not use that one when I am away from the internets.
There are pros and cons to each. It’s not one-size-fits-all.