"Christian" business models?
I was recently invited to translate a Christian book. While the subject matter was interesting, the price I was being offered was less than half my "pain threshold" for book translation, the excuse being that it was a Christian book...
This is just one example of a practice I've come across not only in Christian publishing but also in Christian holiday camps and the like. I hear horror stories along these lines from the Christian music industry too. On the one hand, workers and artists are expected to contribute their time and energy for free or for minimal pay; on the other, the product or service is sold at pretty much normal market rates. Where is the difference going? Can it be justified?
Half of my life revolves around doing a lot of Christian ministry stuff on a voluntary basis. I'm happy do that for zero pay (I deem reimbursement of reasonable expenses to be perfectly legitimate and to be expected, although I don't always file for them). The other half revolves around running a secular business where I charge and clients are happy to pay (well, usually!).
I can make both these models work separately, but I really struggle with attempts to hybridise them. I am not sure how a business model serving a Christian market is supposed to work, or indeed whether it should work. Any thoughts?
This is just one example of a practice I've come across not only in Christian publishing but also in Christian holiday camps and the like. I hear horror stories along these lines from the Christian music industry too. On the one hand, workers and artists are expected to contribute their time and energy for free or for minimal pay; on the other, the product or service is sold at pretty much normal market rates. Where is the difference going? Can it be justified?
Half of my life revolves around doing a lot of Christian ministry stuff on a voluntary basis. I'm happy do that for zero pay (I deem reimbursement of reasonable expenses to be perfectly legitimate and to be expected, although I don't always file for them). The other half revolves around running a secular business where I charge and clients are happy to pay (well, usually!).
I can make both these models work separately, but I really struggle with attempts to hybridise them. I am not sure how a business model serving a Christian market is supposed to work, or indeed whether it should work. Any thoughts?

Comments
It's a tricky one. When I did more freelance work I had a sliding scale of charges depending on the nature of the client / customer.
I do think the Christian scene is particularly prone to messing people around though.
Or may be it is, but it certainly shouldn't be.
You would be entitled to decline the work for the payment offered.
If your ministry is really that good, you can pay your employees in full and ask/allow/NONCOERCIVELY them to donate to your group as they (privately) do or do not see fit.
My first thought is to wonder what the size of the print run looks like. Back when I was (briefly) involved in academic publishing there was a flat cost from the printers for about the first 2500 copies - I’m sure that number depends on a number of factors, but if you’re not selling a lot of copies you could be charging market rates without making anything like market profits.
I suspect there is such a thing as semi-volunteer work where it’s just too much work to ask someone to do it for free but they just can’t make it work on market rates. The question I suppose is whether you want to volunteer the difference between your normal rate and what they’re paying on that basis. If you think they can actually afford market rates and choose not to then obviously no.
I fear I see no way around it but to demand full wages--or none!--because the hybrid situation leads to the worst kind of exploitation.
Now mind you, I could be converted if the CEO of such an organization made a point of receiving exactly the same sacrifical salary as the lowest paid employee. And no extra allowances, either!
Realistically though differential pricing is very much a fact of life everywhere - airlines being the obvious example. More relevantly, it's not uncommon for professionals to have different lines of work at different rates - there's the high-paying work that funds the mortgage and the pension plan, and then work they find interesting or care about for some reason that brings in some money but not nearly enough to make an entire practice out of it.
LC mentions the employer-employee relationship which is a different calculus. But I think the point in both scenarios is to recognize that you are giving something you don't have to (assuming you have other options) and that you have the ability to say no if it's not making sense or they're simply asking too much.
Many who ask for reduced rates can actually afford to pay. There's nothing so infuriating as someone asks and gets a reduced rate and then later learning what they'd valued more - often themselves.
If you want a reduced rate I need you to disclose something the justifies me doing it. It's bit enough that you espouse Christianity or another special pleading.
This was my least uncharitable thought, too. However, I have previously translated a niche book on energy transition, by an EU politician, which was not expected to have a big print run, for over twice the rate being offered here. Perhaps somebody subsidised the process, but at least they were willing to ensure everybody in it was paid properly.
I practice differential pricing to some extent but as mentioned I have a "pain threshold".
One of my big annoyances with this state of affairs is hinted at by @Lamb Chopped: guileless believers can get trapped into low-income jobs for Christian ministries to the extent that they do not make proper pension plans, get proper qualifications, or learn proper professional skills (I've previously successfully lobbied for a local Christian camp to change its "employment" policy because of this, but it was hard work and I didn't do my "Christian" reputation any good as a result).
I do indeed count myself lucky/blessed to be able to run a successful business and have half my time left over to do Christian stuff for free, all the more so in that it means I will have some sort of a pension eventually. What I find ironic is that it took leaving the full-time ministry scene to discover that this was possible, and realise how many people were being ripped off.
Ah, yes. The business of saving soles...
Which speaks of the kinds of attitudes Eutychus talks about in the initial part of his reply above, and reflects the generally very bad understanding of economics in church circles.
"Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."
These fall into the same category as "Let's do this one cheaply as a pilot, and if it succeeds then there'll be lots more follow-on work for you later". I've never ever known those to work. You do the first one cheap and the follow-on never comes. The only pilots I've seen work are where you do the first one full price, and then do the follow-on projects cheaper because you can reduce costs due to economies of scale.
There's also the problem that a lot of people value your work according to how much they have to pay for it. I have had cases in my own family where people have preferred going to some unknown, unqualified asshole who charges them 400 dollars to do their immigration papers--wrongly--in preference to having us do it right for free. (How do I know? Because after he fucked it up, they came to us to fix it. How many times has this happened? *knocks head against wall*)
I really appreciate being treated like a valuable person (current job) rather than an annoying slave (last major job).
Very good point!
Like everyone who has one, when I had my own business, I had to live. Some projects paid massively (occasionally money for old rope in the mayhem that was deregulation in the financial services sector in the mid 1990's) which allowed me to do some pro bono work and reduced fee work.
Mind you just because I could, didn't mean I would. When I did it was usually for smaller, less fashionable matters who had usually offered to pay the going rate but which I was able to bless a good work by not charging.
Because there isn't clear teaching against it and at this point by default most churches accept whatever 'market innovation' gets foisted on them.
Snap.
Don't misunderstand me; I think uberisation in general (and a whole bunch of things linked to surveillance capitalism) is immoral, it's just that churches aren't in the mode of speaking out on subjects like that.
That's... pretty troubling. There seems to be a world parallel to my own where adulterous temptation lies around every corner and is frequently indulged in. Then again my extended family is pretty much a bastion of heteronormative monogamy.
Indeed. Chance would be a fine thing. Even just so I could refuse the offer.
Not to say that this is not the case at your church, but anywhere this appears to be happening, I would look at whether they are truly volunteering or if there is an element of coercion.
I have had to draw clear lines for my supervisor -- the senior minister -- more than once. I am an hourly worker. If I'm going to field calls from church members (a number of whom now have my cell number since I've been working at home for nearly a year) outside of regular hours, the church needs to pay me overtime.
Commissioning or text editors are expected to double as fact-checkers, proofreaders, help write marketing copy and organise cover blurbs. Editors sometimes act as typesetters if they know how to use graphic design software like InDesign for digital and print media. Almost no publisher (in South Africa) now pays for detailed manuscript assessment or development which is often crucial to the success or completion of a manuscript. The costs for paper, printing and binding have gone up and the publisher working with a skeleton staff often struggles to cope with distribution, shipping, selling, storage of a backlist, discounts, returns, reprints etc. Although there is more flexibility (in my limited experience) when it comes to working from home or freelancing for different clients, the fight to get market-related payment is just as hard.
And one way for inexperienced would-be editors or book designers or illustrators to break into publishing is to offer to 'intern' for six months with no remuneration, as is done on lifestyle publications. Sometimes the new intern becomes indispensable and the gamble pays off. Most of the time it is just another unethical and exploitative practice. The more so since the corporate publishing industry is now mostly staffed by under-paid women although in most places men remain dominant in senior management.
If someone is worthy of doing the work for you, in their professional capacity (in any part), then they are worthy or appropriate remuneration.
I am reminded of the Quaker business models - which always inspire me. They involved paying fair wages, building towns for their workers, providing social security for the families.
Also, they had a reputation for being honest and sincere. So would have had no truck with this sort of attitude.
And - I think - the business owners tended to earn money in line with their position, not draining money from the business.
Definitely a good start.
If they get paid.more than.you that's a definite red flag (not sure if that's fitting or ironic).
As a strict rule the simple rule messes with some things more than I think it ought (demanding payment to read the lectionary at your normal service, is a bit extreme), but so does coercion the other way (and obv professionals* need stricter boundaries and get approached for things I wouldn't).
*Who can feasibily do professional work without company authorisation
I have occasionally offered my services free of charge, but I always charge the going rate in commercial transactions.
That's basically what I do, and it makes the ethical position a lot clearer to my mind. But it requires one to be in a position in which one can afford to do that, which not everybody is.
(Update: the person who made the translation offer was nice enough to get back to me after my controlled diatribe. Since they are by trade a lecturer in practical theology, I suggested that this thread topic would make a good syllabus item for them
It's not uncommon to have a paid employee coordinating teams of volunteers. That's not usually exploitative, because there's usually a delineation between the tasks and expectations of the volunteers and the paid employee, and the volunteers are just volunteers - if the volunteers are also employees, there's more scope for exploitation.
I do several things on a voluntary basis that are quite close to my paid job, and use all the same skills, but there's a clear separation between the things I'm paid to do and the things I do for free (although when I have competing deadlines for both, it doesn't always feel like it!)
But I'm certainly in a clearer position than, for example, many teachers (who find themselves spending their own money on school supplies etc., working extra hours for free / putting in extra effort to help address the needs of individual pupils, and so on.)
I think all of these potentially exploitative situations have something in common - the thing that should maybe be paid work is also a thing that the employee wants to do. Teachers want their pupils to succeed, and tend to be invested in their pupils. So they want to go the extra mile for them. Our parishioners want our church to flourish, and they want stuff to get done.
So they're not quite the same as the blatant exploitation / abuse of power type situations, where employees are pressured to do extra work for free / perform extra services for their boss / etc. under the threat of being sacked.
When people want to do the things they are employed to do, they often play an active part in their own exploitation...
I also think if the publisher wants a quality translation, they need to be willing to pay quality wages for a quality translator. (Redundancy intended).
This reminds me of a meme I saw this morning.
Having coffee with Jesus
Contractor: I have been thinking of adding a fish symbol to my webpage.
Jesus: I think not.
Contractor: Why not?
Jesus: Let the quality of your work, the fairness of your prices, and the satisfaction of your customers show who you are.
The charity have got back to me too. I think I've got their attention.
And that is not a high bar.
I have zero desire to go the extra unpaid mile at my job. Where I work it's mainly thoughtlessness that's the problem -- it doesn't occur to church members that I'm not getting paid in the evening and on weekends. When my boss has called me outside of working hours, it's been because she's stuck somehow and doesn't know what else to do.
As for the idea that people who like their work may play an active part in their own exploitation -- ugh. People who are underpaid and/or under-resourced at their jobs and go the extra mile because they care are still being exploited; that they are not adequately paid and/or resourced is someone's choice. It might not seem blatant to you, but it does to me. The very fact that they care is being exploited.