Yesterday a most interesting letter came across my desk. It was from a friend in California, sent to several of his friends, asking each of us to share our experiences in the effort to get books published. It invited balanced input, but the impetus for such a letter seemed clear: Those of us who fancy ourselves authors with some conscience and integrity find growing company when comparing the nightmares that have befallen us at the hands of publishers. Shuffling of editors, changes in price and publication date without notice, invisible promotion, and various unkept promises are increasingly common threads of the conversation.
I find it both mildly comforting and deeply disturbing that I was not alone in experiencing all of these and more with my first publishing venture. The publishing house that was negotiating million-dollar-plus contracts with Johnny Cash and David Stockman at the time couldn't seem to spell the name of my community correctly or get my picture in focus on the book jacket.
But, of course, the two realities are connected. Even the names Cash and Stockman point to what is more and more blatantly the bottom line in the publishing industry. And if you are not "marketable" to the mainstream, for the most part you can expect to be treated with less than care and respect.
FORTUNATELY, THERE ARE some exceptions. When Sojourners editor Jim Wallis called Robert Ellsberg of Orbis Books in January 1989 with a proposal for a book that had to be completed by June of that year, Ellsberg moved heaven and earth to make it happen. On a virtually unheard-of timetable in the publishing world, Crucible of Fire: The Church Confronts Apartheid was out in time for Sojourners' national "Soweto Days" campaign.
Orbis Books "stands for something," says Ellsberg. "The message and spirit that inform our program make Orbis a unique monument in religious publishing -- a tribute to Maryknoll and to the prophetic vision of Miguel D'Escoto and Phil Scharper and all those who got us started."
Orbis, the publishing arm of Maryknoll (the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America), was founded in 1970 as part of the society's mission education efforts. D'Escoto, a Maryknoll priest who later became Nicaragua's foreign minister, was the original director, and Scharper, a Catholic layperson, was the first editorial director.
Indeed it was a new vision that gave birth to Orbis. For centuries the notion of mission carried with it the understanding that the West was the official headquarters of Christianity. Theology was spoken in a Western, white, male voice, and evangelization often included a lack of sensitivity and respect for local cultures.
But with the dramatic changes brought by Vatican II (1962-65) -- and with the burgeoning of churches throughout Latin America, Africa, and Asia -- the focus shifted. The church was no longer perceived as a Western institution with franchises, but as a global reality. Evangelization came to be understood not simply as seeking converts but trying to incarnate the values of Jesus -- the promotion of justice, peace, and the common good -- within the diversity of cultures.
And theology was broadened to include reflection on faith in the context of structural violence and oppression, a "rereading of the Christian story from the perspective of those at the bottom," according to Ellsberg. Orbis -- which means "world" in Latin -- was begun, he says, "to amplify the voices of Christians in the Third World, to raise consciousness in the United States about social issues from a religious perspective, and to promote dialogue and human understanding."
IN 1973 ORBIS published the English translation of Gustavo Gutierrez's A Theology of Liberation. It was Orbis' banner book, and it was followed by several other books from Latin America. "Orbis introduced a North American audience to a new source of theological vitality," says Ellsberg. "Liberation theology didn't just introduce a few new books for the shelf, but it called into question all the books on the shelf. It offered a challenge to rich, privileged, powerful Christians, a call to conversion, an invitation to see from the eyes of the poor."
In the fall of 1987, when Robert Ellsberg took his position as editor-in-chief at Orbis, 13 of the 17 titles being published that season were Latin American translations. But, he says, sales indicated that a saturation point had been reached. Events in Eastern Europe and elsewhere were demanding attention, and interest in liberation theology seemed to be waning.
However, the gift of Latin American theology remained: the insistence that context was of ultimate importance. "It had the effect of rendering all theology contextual," says Ellsberg. It prompted new theological voices from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and among African Americans and women. Orbis put many of those voices into print.
"We are a publishing house that tries to be attentive to the signs of the times," says Ellsberg. "That's not exactly the same as other commercial houses who determine what next season's fashions are going to be. We try to discern where the Spirit is at work in the world."
That discernment has led to a wide mix of books, covering topics ranging from economic development and political issues to missiology, spirituality, interfaith dialogue, and biblical studies. Students, activists, scholars, clergy, and laypersons can all find something of interest among the 45 titles Orbis publishes each year.
One of the press' strengths is its personal testimony books. "In my life what has been extremely important is not so much ideas but the people who embody those ideas, the people who have shown that the gospel is not about ideas but about life," says Ellsberg. Among the wide array of such books are the stories of Pierre Raphael, chaplain at Riker's Island in New York City, the world's largest prison colony; Niall O'Brien, a Columbian priest imprisoned during Marcos' reign in the Philippines; Sheila Cassidy, a British physician tortured for her work in Chile; Abraham Heschel, the noted Jewish theologian; and Don Lito, a peasant of El Salvador.
Orbis books seem to come into being by a combination of planning and grace. Jesuit Jon Sobrino called up Ellsberg just days after his brothers at San Salvador's University of Central America were massacred in November 1989. Sobrino's memorial tribute, along with biographical notes and writings of the murdered Jesuits, became Companions of Jesus.
Last year an old friend of Ellsberg called with an idea for a book by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the "marginalized rebel priest" of Haiti. Ellsberg thought Orbis would be lucky to sell a thousand copies of In the Parish of the Poor, but concluded "Orbis exists to do this kind of book." A month after it was published, Aristide was elected president of Haiti. The book has gone through four printings. "It looked like incredible foresight on our part," Ellsberg smiles. Before the recent coup, several big-name publishing houses were pursuing him to sell rights to the book.
Robert Ellsberg believes that much of his own life's journey paved the way to Orbis. In 1969, at the age of 13, he was named by the federal government as an unindicted co-conspirator for his help photocopying the Pentagon Papers. The papers, which exposed the government's abuses during the Vietnam War, were released to the press by his father, Daniel Ellsberg. The elder Ellsberg had been influenced by pacifists and by the writings of Gandhi. Robert says he "began to see through Gandhian eyes."
At 18, he refused to register for the draft and felt the need of a support community. He left Harvard University and joined the Catholic Worker in New York City, where he lived from 1975 to 1980, serving as editor of its paper for three years. There Ellsberg discovered radical Christian voices, including Dorothy Day, Daniel Berrigan, Thomas Merton, and Jim Douglass. He received a fellowship to the Maryknoll Language School in Bolivia and traveled for a year throughout Latin America. As he traveled, he met Maryknoll missioners and read Orbis books, which he claims was "almost like a second conversion."
The invitation to be Orbis' editor-in-chief was a "heaven-sent opportunity," says Ellsberg. "It was a chance to be editorial director of the publishing house I admired most. There's not another publishing company in the world with the freedom to publish with such integrity." That freedom comes not only from Orbis' conscience, but also because it is subsidized by Maryknoll and has never been intent on turning a profit.
"Other publishers think, 'If I do enough cookbooks or biographies of celebrities, I can maybe squeeze in the book I really want to publish; if I have enough best-sellers, I can subsidize the really important books that make a difference,'" says Ellsberg. "The logic of success is that eventually you're owned by a company that publishes books, and drills for oil, and makes nuclear power plants, and sells pizza. And you've got an accountant who looks over your shoulder and says, 'Well, pizza sales are up 20 percent; your book sales are only up 10 percent.' Or, 'This book sold 20,000 copies -- why did you publish that book that only sold a thousand copies?'
"Rather than all that money subsidizing great publishing with integrity," he continues, "it has the effect of eventually squeezing out anything that doesn't make money. It means you have to publish what most people want to read -- mass-market editions for bookstores and malls. More and more this is what's happening in religious publishing. A lot of great, independent, successful religious publishers get so successful that they get bought out and merge and get bigger and bigger.
"Orbis Books has a different mission. We don't want just to publish the best books in theology -- but to change the world. You partly change the world by changing the church. And you change the church by evangelizing from the standpoint of the poor. We are a publishing house that has made a 'preferential option for the poor.' "
Orbis Books' entire annual budget is less than some of the advances offered by the big-money publishing houses. But being small in the publishing world doesn't mean a sacrifice of quality. In fact, it indicates a desire to give each author and title close attention.
Last fall James H. Cone's Martin & Malcolm & America was a watershed book, receiving excellent reviews and widespread mainstream coverage, and sparking a highly successful speaking tour. "Going with Orbis is not just a conscience move anymore," says Ellsberg. Cone's book, he says, "paves the way to reach other authors who are dissatisfied elsewhere."
Orbis books continue to win an array of press awards. But perhaps more important, they churn things up a bit. Last fall Swarthmore College ordered copies of Vincent Harding's Hope and History for all its freshmen and staff. Students, faculty, maintenance staff, and service workers all got together to discuss the book and racism on campus.
Around the globe, Orbis publications are viewed as prophetic. Each year several hundred Third World libraries are each given $1,000 worth of Orbis books of their choice, paid for by a German funding agency committed to spreading the word.
"I feel honored and privileged to be part of something that has made -- and continues to make -- such an important contribution," says Robert Ellsberg. He feels personal delight that many of his heroes and mentors from 20 years ago are now friends by virtue of being Orbis authors. Many remind him about the difference Orbis Books has made to them.
"I feel particular satisfaction in the relationship we've developed with Sojourners," he adds, noting that the first connection was almost 20 years ago when Jim Wallis went to New York to interview Dorothy Day and do a special issue on the Catholic Worker. The latest collaboration was the fall 1991 release of Cloud of Witnesses.
"We have the same vision and purpose," says Ellsberg. Indeed, to read a list of Sojourners' writers and then page through an Orbis catalog brings an astounding amount of convergence. Several Orbis books have been excerpted, and at least two serialized, in the magazine. As Ellsberg observed at the Sojourners 20th Anniversary Festival, Orbis has become our "unofficial publisher," having produced books from 28 of Sojourners' contributing editors and writers.
Robert Ellsberg observes that each time he receives a new issue of Sojourners, "I look first to see if any Orbis book is reviewed; if not, then if any are advertised; and then if any of our authors are featured writers. I'm rarely disappointed on all those grounds." He adds, "If nothing else, I start to think, which of these writers is going to be the next Orbis author?"
During a recent visit that Ellsberg made to Washington, DC, we reminisced about the first Orbis-Sojourners publishing venture, and reflected on the halting steps in South Africa toward the dismantling of apartheid. Only a publisher with a conscience could comment so sincerely, "I'm pleased to say that sales of our South Africa books have dropped off dramatically."
Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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