The Castle Blog

Here’s an all new feature on the Castle Publishing blog - we will be bringing you interviews with Castle authors and other interesting people. First off we have Warren Payne, director of OMF NZ and author of the new Castle book Konnichi wa Kiwi about his experiences as a missionary in Japan between 1974 and 2000.

Why did you write Konnichi wa Kiwi?

Over a period of two years I began to feel God was prompting me to write my story. Many people have continually asked how I was led to go to Japan, so when OMF gave me a three month Sabbatical it was a good time to start the project. However, when I began to write the content just came and within a couple of weeks the bulk of the writing was complete. I just felt so guided by the Holy Spirit it was a real joy to do.

What was the experience of writing the book like?

Exciting and yet in some ways a risk that some may not see the book for what it is: a reflection of God’s grace in my life.

In a nutshell, what is the message you hope people will get from the book?

If you allow God to guide you He will bless you more than you can imagine, so tell others what God is doing in your life.

What are you most passionate about?

Seeing people go into cross-cultural mission with God’s strong Call on their lives.

What is the thing you love most about Japan?

The people and the way everything is so orderly and planned.

What is the thing you love most about New Zealand?

The freshness of the air and the more relaxed lifestyle. A very multi-cultural society that is learning to live together.

What is the best thing about being a missionary?

Seeing people come to Christ and built into His local church. When you know you are doing what God desires for your life then cross-cultural missionary work is very exciting, challenging and fulfilling.

What was the hardest thing about being a missionary?

Believing that even when things are not always going as you would like that God is in control. Ministry with people is always a challenge.

What advice would you give someone thinking about overseas missions?

Please read my book, including appendix one! If God is clearly using you now among internationals ask Him if you should do that overseas. Pray for and about overseas mission work in a way that keeps you up to date. Allow God to speak and He will.

What is your dream for the book?

That God will get all the glory and that through the book many will hear God speak, respond positively to what He says then share their stories with others.

For more info about OMF, visit the OMF website. To purchase copies of Konnichi wa Kiwi, contact Castle Publishing here.

We here at Castle Publishing are excited to be launching an all-new Castle premier title: Konnichi wa Kiwi by OMF NZ Director Warren Payne. This a joint publishing effort between OMF and Castle Publishing.

Konnichi wa Kiwi is a really fascinating book. Primarily it is an autobiography in which Warren tells the story of how he and his young family served as missionaries in Japan between 1974 and 2000. It is an easy-to-read and often humorous account of what it’s like for an ordinary New Zealander to be faced with the cross-cultural challenges of a completely different culture.

Warren is passionate about seeing people go out into the mission field. So Konnichi wa Kiwi also includes study questions that will help people find God’s direction for their lives.

Warren is a brilliant and humble man who has been incredibly faithful in following God’s calling on his life. A few years ago he assisted in the publishing and promotion of the Castle classic Beyond Death and Dishonour by Michiharu Shinya. He talks about his experiences with that book in Konnichi wa Kiwi. It was great to be working with Warren again on this new book.

Konnichi wa Kiwi comes highly recommended, and is excellent value for money at just NZ$14.95 (rrp). For more info or to order copies, contact us. Ask for it at your local Christian bookshop.

I was reading an entry in the classic daily devotional ‘My Utmost for His Highest’ by Oswald Chambers the other day and came across this excellent Easter quote…

“The bedrock of our Christian faith is the unmerited, fathomless marvel of the love of God exhibited on the Cross of Calvary, a love we never can and never shall merit. Paul says this is the reason we are more than conquerors in all these things, super-victors, with a joy we would not have but for the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.”

On the Easter theme, we have two brilliant books that examine the death and resurrection of Jesus:

Why Did Jesus Die? by Dick Tripp was published by Castle Publishing last year. World-renowned writer, J.I. Packer said about this book, “Dick Tripp combs the Scriptures to find and focus every reference to history’s most momentous event. Does a more thorough coverage of the biblical data exist anywhere? I doubt it.” The book offers fascinating insights into the death of Jesus. The strongest impression I got from the book was the fact that the death of Jesus is the central moment of the Bible. Everything in the Old Testament leads up to that event, and everything following the death and resurrection is a result of it. I highly recommend this book - it’ll open your eyes up to the full scope of the Easter story.

Another excellent Easter title is The Art of Easter. This provides another way of looking at the truths of the death and resurrection. The Art of Easter is a beautifully presented coffee table book featuring contemporary New Zealand Christian art, based on the traditional Stations of the Cross, insightfully and creatively interpreted.

The impact of these two books can flow on beyond just Easter weekend. Both are available in New Zealand from your local Christian bookshop. Why Did Jesus Die? is just $26.95 and The Art of Easter just $24.95. Or order copies direct from Castle by contacting us.

Have a wonderful Easter!

Since 2000, Castle has developed as a commercial publishing company with high production standards. We always aim for the best possible quality. Over the last three or fours years, we have offered that same level of service to self-publishers and other organisations. Our clients have included large organisations like the Salvation Army, Pascoes and OMF NZ, but also lots of individual authors who have fulfilled their ambitions and produced great self-published books.

Here are the main publishing services we offer. You can use any or all of them:

Editing. Authors can be a bit nervous about editing, but it really is a crucial part of getting your book ready for publication. A good editor can ‘get inside the author’s skin’, maintaining the author’s ‘voice’ and tone while polishing the writing to make it easier to read and more accurate. The final result of editing should be to add value, not subtract it. Some manuscripts only need a little bit of editing and some need a lot! Castle provides experienced editors who treat your work with care and attention to detail.

Design. Even though we’ve been told a million times not to judge a book by its cover, the truth is that most people do! The quality of the cover will shape a person’s impression of the quality of the book itself. The cover design needs to be eye-catching and in keeping with the tone and content of the book. Book design also extends beyond the cover to the inside pages, and that’s where layout and typesetting come in…

Layout and Typesetting. Professional layout and typesetting change your manuscript from a plain old Word document into a book. The true art of layout and typesetting is to create a coherent design that flows from the cover to the inside pages, while taking into account the comfort and perspective of the reader. In other words, make the book look good and easy to read! It involves selecting typefaces, working out line spacing and placing all the elements (body text, page numbers, headers, headings and pictures) on the page.

ISBN and Barcode. The ins and outs of the legal requirements of book publishing can be a bit daunting. So Castle takes care of obtaining an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) (required by law for all books published in New Zealand) and a barcode (so that the book can be sold in bookshops).

Proofreading. As my boss is fond of saying, ‘It’s easier to change something before it’s printed than after.’ That’s why proofreading is so important. This process eliminates any last minute mistakes - misspelt words, missing words etc. We have experienced proofreaders who can help ensure that your work is free of annoying little errors.

Printing and Binding. The last step in the production process. Our sister company, Wentforth Print, has over 30 years’ experience in the printing business. They have in-house offset printing facilities for large quantities and the latest digital technology for smaller quantities and ‘print-on-demand’ jobs (so that you can get new stock as and when you need it). They also act as brokers for off-shore printing.

Distribution. In many cases, Castle is able to assist in distributing your book to the booktrade. In particular, Castle has a great working relationship with the New Zealand Christian booktrade. We will assess your finished book, and if we think we can help, we will buy stock from you and on-sell it to bookshops.

Support and Advice. This where it really comes in handy working with a commercial publishing company. As you self-publish your book you can take advantage of our experience and expertise. As part of the total package, we will guide you through the publishing process and give you advice on things like setting a retail price and marketing your book.

Contact us for more info or to get a publishing services quote.

Whether you want us to consider publishing your work as a Castle title, or if you are interesting in Castle providing publishing services, the first step is the manuscript assessment process. Castle provides this free of charge and from this process we make a recommendation about what we think the best publishing solution is for your work. Here’s how the process usually works…

1. Contact us. It’s important that you let us know that you are intending to send us your manuscript or manuscript idea. You can also contact us early in the writing process if you want some advice while you are still working on the text. The easiest way to get in touch is by using the contact form here. Or you can call on (New Zealand) 09 378 4052.

2. Manuscript form. Once you’ve contacted us, we will email you a manuscript form. This form asks some important background questions that help us get a clearer idea about what you hope to achieve with your book. We will immediately consider your completed form before moving to step 3.

3. Manuscript sample. Having reviewed your completed form, we will usually request a manuscript sample. Generally this will consist of three to four chapters of your book. It is best if this is supplied printed and mailed to us rather than emailed. If you would like this sample returned to you, please include a stamped return envelop. From this sample we can get an idea of the tone and style of your writing, and begin to establish whether we can publish your script as a Castle title or recommend our publishing services for self-publishing. It can take a little longer to respond to your manuscript sample as we like to do your work justice and consider it carefully before responding. But feel free to contact us during this process to see how things are going.

4. Full manuscript. If we think that your work might have potential as a Castle title, we will request the full manuscript so that we can read right through the text and make our final decision. We will also need your full manuscript if you are using our publishing services so that we can begin work on your book. Usually, we will ask you to supply your full manuscript in paper form for assessment and in digital form for the publishing process. If you would like your printed manuscript returned to you, please include a stamped return envelop. Once again, assessment of your full manuscript can take some time, but you can always contact us to see how things are progressing.

That’s the process. Sometimes it will vary a little depending on the situation, but the most important step is step 1. Contact us now!

Late last year, Castle published a brilliant new book called Passion and Fire: Igniting Your Passion for God by Nathan Shaw. This is Nathan’s second book - his first was published in the States. Passion and Fire carries a foreword by well-known Christian author, John Loren Sandford.

At Castle we are excited about this book, not least of all because it adds another excellent author to our list, but also because Nathan is presenting a crucial message. From what I’ve noticed recently, there seems to be a growing desire amongst Christians to connect with God at a deeper level, and I believe this desire is being sparked by the Holy Spirit. Nathan’s book comes at exactly the right time.

I highly recommend Passion and Fire, not because this is a Castle title and I’d like to see it sell really well, but because I genuinely believe this book can help change your life and enhance your relationship with God.

In the coming weeks, we hope to be able to bring you a short interview with Nathan here on the blog, so that you can hear about why he wrote the book and more.

If you’d like to order Passion and Fire contact us.

Castle has a couple of publishing scenarios that work well and mean that books that wouldn’t have seen the light of day otherwise are given the chance to shine in the big wide world.

Castle’s point of departure

In my last post, I described a pretty tough publishing scene that makes it virtually impossible for the majority of manuscripts to be published. The reason this situation exists is that for most publishers the bottom line is making a buck or two. This is Castle’s first point of departure.

Of course it is great when sales of a book make a profit, and at Castle we always aim for that, but it isn’t our primary goal. Our primary goal, as our vision statement says, is “that people with compassion, passion and drive can impact society”. This ‘altruistic’ approach arises from the Christian beliefs of the people that run Castle. We believe in the written word and believe that there are things more important than making a big profit. When money comes our way through good business practices, we reinvest it in other publishing projects.

Castle functions because we work with authors who have the same ethic as we do. They have stories that they want to tell because they genuinely believe that their stories will help others.

Our publishing scenarios

So, let’s have a brief look at Castle’s two main scenarios for publishing.

1. Castle premier titles. We get sent lots of manuscripts, but we don’t ignore them! When someone comes to us with an idea, we like to give it a fair hearing. Out of that process we find some real gems, and we take these manuscripts on as Castle premier titles that we publish under the Castle name.

This process is a bit like traditional publishing, but we form an equal partnership with the author (or the author’s backers) to publish the book. This means that both parties share in the ‘risk’ of publishing, and neither party is treated unfairly. Castle throws its full weight behind these titles, editing and producing these books to a quality level that easily competes with international publications. We fully believe in the message and quality of these books and we do our utmost to get them into the hands of readers.

2. Publishing services. Often the best scenario for having a book published is for the author to do it him or herself. Nobody can sell a book like a proactive author can.

There is plenty of self-publishing going on around the world, but unfortunately you can often spot a self-published book a mile off. The quality just isn’t the same as commercial books produced by big publishers. Castle offers a full range of publishing services for self-publishers that give the potential for these books to match commercial publications in quality. We also have systems in place that allow self-publishers to print any quantity of their book from 1 copy to over 10,000. That means authors can minimise the risk of being left with hundreds of boxes of books sitting in their garage!

Talk to us!

So that’s publishing à la Castle in a nutshell. Stay tuned for more info about our publishing scenarios. You can contact us right now if you’d like to discuss your project - we’re always happy to answer questions (for free!) and help people through the publishing process.

I’d like to start by giving a bit of an overview of the publishing scene.

Good old-fashioned publishing

Traditional publishing is a pretty tough game. In the old days, a publisher would find a manuscript that they wanted to publish in book form, and they would pay for all the capital costs of production. The author’s cut would be in the form of royalties - usually a percentage of sales. This method made book publishing highly risky, because large amounts of capital were invested in books that may or may not sell.

This publishing model was constructed in a time when the publishing market was less competitive - there were fewer new books entering the market, and books weren’t competing so much with other media. To reduce the risk of this model, publishers started to seek out authors that were already well known or produce books based on buzz topics that were more likely to yield a profit. Author royalties also shrank. Famous authors who sell millions of books make money but mid-range authors selling say 5000 make very little.

How to get a bestseller

This model still exists, but it results in a very small number of manuscripts by ‘ordinary’ people being published by publishing houses. It has been estimated that only about 1% of unsolicited manuscripts (ie manuscripts that the publishing house hasn’t directly asked the author for) are published worldwide.

This problem is made worse in a country like New Zealand where a very small market exists. We only have a population of about 4 million people. To give you an idea of what ‘good’ sales figures are in NZ, to achieve platinum level premier bestseller status you need to sell 50,000 copies if it is a fiction title, 5,000 copies if it is a poetry title, 100,000 if it is non-fiction title, and 40,000 if it is a children or teen title [source: Booksellers NZ]. The list of platinum bestsellers includes Once Were Warriors, Whale Rider and the Edmonds Cookbook - if you are a New Zealander, you know how popular these titles have been. At the time of writing, the platinum list only includes 26 titles - that is the total number of NZ books that have achieved platinum sales.

Bronze level (the lowest bestseller status) is achieved by selling just 5,000 fiction units, 1,000 poetry units, 10,000 non-fiction units or 7,000 children/teen units. While these figures look modest, most publishers in NZ are very happy to reach these levels. If 5,000 novels sold is a bestseller, you can imagine how many novels don’t reach that level.

New approaches…

So, New Zealand is a small market. If you are writing a Christian book, for example, your market gets even smaller. Local titles compete with 100s of overseas titles being released each month. In reality traditional publishing is hardly feasible in New Zealand. This sounds like a pretty sad state of affairs, but the publishing scene is moving to adjust. Castle, for example, has found some ways to make it as feasible as possible. In the next installment I’ll discuss how Castle works.

This is the all-new Castle Publishing blog. We’re still adding features, but it’s a place where you can read about what’s happening at Castle and also get useful information about the publishing process. From time to time we will have guest articles from authors and other interesting people.

We want your feedback, so if you have any questions you’d like answered, please let us know. A page with contact details will be up shortly, but meantime, leave a comment and subscribe to the blog by clicking the link on the right hand side of the screen.

Find out more about Castle by clicking on the ‘About’ tab above.