Printers & Publishers

God willing, I am going to receive a big Ang Pau in the form of 10 advance copies of my book, Tafsiran Injil Yohanes (John’s Gospel commentary) from my printers tomorrow, being the last day of the Lunar New Year, Chap Goh Mei. I am taking my cousin and her family to dinner to celebrate the end of CNY and hopefully show her my new book. I don’t know whether she remembers much of Malay because she left Malaysia during her Primary school years and now holds a doctorate in French literature. I thought I should reconnect after we met about a year ago before they return to France in July. Publishing a book in Sabah is quite a challenge. My book titled Departure Points which came out just before Christmas 2019 has one of the most reputable publishers in the State but that means it adds costs to the whole process. But to save money on my John’s commentary, I will self publish and engage a printing company that will print 1,000 copies of my book. The formatting and proof-reading process has taken exactly 5 weeks.
If the sale goes well,  I will probably get a publisher to do a reprint so that it can be ordered online and distributed internationally, especially the large Indonesian Christian market. I am glad that one of my proof readers commented that my Malay is Indonesian-flavoured, how can it not be since I have been preaching from the Indonesian Bible since 1988? But intentionally so, that the Indonesian Christians would feel an infinity to the book and not to close to the West Malaysian style which is almost incomprehensible (spoken Malay) to our Indonesian brothers and sisters. Now I will work on my fourth book project this time in English (2021) and John 13-21 (Malay, 2022). That’s the target anyway. Pastoral work keeps me busy. Last night was the men’s fellowship and tonight is the prayer meeting and Sunday I shall be preaching twice in church on a series on the book of Exodus, in readiness for Good Friday which is about 2 months’ away,