Church House Publishing - Common Worship 10th Anniversary Special Offer (pdf, 303kb)

THIS YEAR marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of Common Worship, the Church of England’s prayers, services and liturgy that has effectively replaced the old 1662 Book of Common Prayer in most Anglican churches — and to mark that anniversary Church House Publishing are offering some amazing savings on selected Common Worship books.

The savings range from as much as 70% off the calfskin and bonded leather editions, reduced from £50 and £40 to only £15 per volume, to better than 57% off the standard hardbacks, down from £17.50 to only £7.50: in the words of @chbookshop, “It’s the offer of the decade!”

The good news is that the offer is open to all bookshops: normal trade discount applies to the discounted prices — simply place your orders direct with Norwich Books & Music; and remember, all NB&M trade orders are carriage-free, no minimum order required, with next-day delivery as standard on orders placed before 12 noon: full contact details on the offer flyer (pdf, 303kb).

So what are you waiting for? If there’s an Anglican church on your patch, download the consumer version of the flyer, print it and stamp it with your details and use it to make them an offer they can’t refuse! Offer ends 31st December 2010, subject to availability.

• Church House Publishing is not yet on twitter, but you can follow their sister imprint Canterbury Press @canterburybooks

Shops Promoting this Offer (A-Z by location)

Are you promoting this offer? Leave a comment or let me know if you’d like to be added to this list.

• Lincoln: Unicorn Tree Books: Common Worship 10th Anniversary & a stunning anniversary present!
• London: Church House Bookshop: It’s the offer of the decade!

Church House Publishing - agreement signed

On Wednesday July 1st, the Church of England officially announced that the Archbishops Council had finalised its agreement (see previous reports) to hand over its publishing division, Church House Publishing, to Hymns Ancient and Modern:

The Archbishops’ Council has signed an agreement with Anglican charity Hymns Ancient & Modern to publish liturgy, key reference titles and other resources for the Church.

Under the agreement, the Council will continue to publish a range of titles to support the ministry and mission of the Church under its Church House Publishing imprint, with Hymns Ancient & Modern (HA&M) acting as its production and marketing arm.

Philip Fletcher, who chairs the Archbishops’ Council’s Publishing Group, said: “Hymns Ancient & Modern have a long and distinguished track record in publishing. This agreement with them will ensure that a full range of vital Church resources, including Common Worship, Crockford’s, the Church of England Year Book and other key titles will continue to be published to high standards in an economic way. We shall also be working with Hymns Ancient and Modern on maintaining and developing the Council’s electronic output, including Visual Liturgy Live and Crockford’s online.”

Whilst this announcement answers some of the questions previously raised — particularly those raised by the Revd David Green concerning the future of the Church of England’s e-publishing — a number of other questions have not been addressed, most importantly about what this handover means for Church House Publishing staff.

Private correspondence offers me some reassurance in this regard but even so I find it very sad and deeply disconcerting that the Church — the one organisation which above all others ought to be committed to putting people first — seems by this announcement to regard the transfer as nothing more than a business transaction, making no mention whatsoever of the people concerned. Publicly, it seems, no regrets, no recognition for achievements and no good wishes for the future.

For those people it is, without a doubt, the end of an era. For publishing in the Church of England it may well be a new beginning. Be that as it may, however, as I recently said of Zondervan publishing, this is not the Archbishops’ Council’s finest hour.

David Green offers further thoughts on the matter here: End of an era for CHP.

Previous Reports

• Church House Publishing: There’s certainly a future but is there any hope?
• Church House Publishing: Where did the money go?
• Church House Publishing: More Questions

Church House Publishing, 8 May 2009 - The Archbishops’ Council is in discussion with Hymns Ancient & Modern...

To start this week, I’d like to once again draw attention to the proposed handover of Church House Publishing to Hymns Ancient & Modern.

The Revd David Green — a former Church House Publishing employee — has highlighted this issue several times now on his blog but, as far as I’m aware, there has not yet been any response from the Archbishops’ Council and, as I write, the story has dropped off the bottom of the official C of E News Page. Unfortunately the C of E website doesn’t allow comments: unless the C of E news editor chooses to tell us what feedback has been received on any given story, we’re left in the dark. That, however, is another story. David’s latest questions deserve a wider hearing:

• Under the terms of the agreement to outsource CHP’s publishing function to Hymns Ancient & Modern, will the Archbishops’ Council retain the right to publish any product that it considers important to publish, even if it is expected that such a product will not be commercially viable?
• If the Archbishops’ Council future publishing output is now subject singly to commercial concerns following the outsourcing of its publishing function to Hymns Ancient & Modern, can the Archbishops’ Council confirm which titles and genres of title stand to be lost to the Church of England in the future?
• Is the Archbishops’ Council able to confirm that, with the outsourcing of CHP’s publishing function to Hymns Ancient & Modern, the new-media work of CHP (including Visual Liturgy) may be discontinued?
• Under the terms of the agreement to outsource CHP’s publishing function to Hymns Ancient & Modern, can the Archbishops’ Council confirm that technical support will continue to be provided to CHP’s existing portfolio of new media products including Visual Liturgy?
• What provision — pastoral as well as financial — is being made for staff who now face the very real possibility of redundancy? (ht: Phil)

The following two questions are not quite as important as the others, I think… but are still good questions.

• Can the Archbishops’ Council give an indication of how much money it receives in refunded VAT each year as a result of having Church House Publishing in-house and how does it expect that arrangement to continue once CHP’s publishing function is mostly outsourced to Hymns Ancient & Modern?
• To the Ministry Division. Is the Ministry Division able to say how many ordinands currently in training and curates currently serving title posts cited the publication of Mission-shaped Church as a significant factor in offering for ordination? (ht: Sheridan)

To David’s questions, I’d like to add some thoughts of my own:

If sales have dropped to the point where CHP is no longer sustainable as a publisher in its own right, I wonder to what extent the loss of the former SPCK bookshops as a sales outlet has been a contributing factor to that? I suspect there’s a long way to go yet before we see the damage done by the Brewer brothers to the UK Christian book trade finally play itself out.

Whatever the eventual outcome of this situation, I think it no exaggeration to describe Church House Publishing’s output as an essential resource not only for the Church of England itself but also for the wider Christian community. I hope that whoever takes on ultimate responsibility for marketing CHP’s output will recognise that and the excellent work currently being done by Josie Gunn and her colleagues in promoting CHP to the general Christian retail trade. This is an area that needs to be built upon, not cut back.

Finally, I am surprised that (unless I’ve missed it: I stand ready to be corrected) we have yet to see this story reported in the Church Times. Is the proposed transfer of the Church of England’s in-house publishing company to a third party simply deemed not newsworthy? There is, undoubtedly, a conflict of interest here, given that the Church Times is also owned by Hymns Ancient & Modern; but this should not, surely, be a barrier to open and honest reporting? It would be a sad day for the Church of England if the first thing Church Times readers hear of this development proves to be an announcement of a done deal. See comment from Dave Walker.

With the publication of the Common Worship library between 2000 and 2007, there was tremendous potential of course for CHP to turn a nice tidy profit. Indeed, one of the reasons that the Archbishops’ Council stated back in the mid-nineties for awarding the publishing contract to its own in-house publisher was to ensure that those funds didn’t go elsewhere to a commercial publisher but instead were used to benefit the Church of England.

… the important point that I want to make is this. To the question – where did all the Common Worship profits go? The answer is very simple – the Archbishops’ Council snaffled the lot back into its central funds. CHP were never allowed to use any of that money to invest in their own future. I think I am also right in saying that it was never allowed to appear on their bottom line. It was kept totally separate.

It’s not quite as bad as the Tory MP who claimed £2,000 in expenses to build a duck island: the Archbishops’ Council did have the perfectly legitimate right to use the profits from Common Worship as they saw fit; but did they not also have a responsibility to invest in the company and, more importantly, a duty of care towards their employees, rather than siphon off profits to the point where the company now needs to be sold off and staff now seem on the brink of being laid off?

I find myself asking the question, What Would Judas Do? Has Church House Publishing been betrayed by the Archbishops’ Council?

• Read the full post: Where did the Common Worship profits go?

Consultations involving Church House Publishing staff are ongoing

That can’t be a comfortable place for anyone to be in: my thoughts and prayers are with everyone caught up in this — please believe me when I say I think I know how you’re feeling!

The full statement (minus notes) reads as follows:

The Archbishops’ Council is in discussion with Hymns Ancient & Modern with a view to outsourcing the Council’s publishing services. The proposed agreement would maintain the Council’s long-term commitment to publishing liturgy, key reference titles and other resources for the Church.

Subject to contract, the Council would continue to publish a range of titles to support the ministry and mission of the Church under its Church House Publishing imprint, with Hymns Ancient & Modern (HA&M) acting as its production and marketing arm. HA&M already provide customer service and distribution services to Church House Publishing and act as agents for the sale of advertising space in Crockford’s Clerical Directory and The Church of England Year Book.

HA&M have provided a similar range of services to the Methodist Church for their Epworth imprint for more than 25 years. In 2006, HA&M took over Church House Bookshop, Great Smith Street, London, from the Archbishops’ Council.

Consultations involving Church House Publishing staff are ongoing

A number of important questions have already been asked by wannabepriest, with Bishop Nick Baines joining in the conversation but Dave Walker, unfortunately, finding it “difficult to comment” — no C&D this time but read between the lines: as the Church Times blogger Dave is an employee of works closely with Hymns and Ancient and Modern [1]. As Dave says, however:

the debate around this needs to happen.

Given the sale of Church House Bookshop to Hymns Ancient & Modern back in 2006 and the financial pressures Church House Publishing and the Church of England as a whole faces, this development hardly comes as a massive surprise. But as wannabepriest asks,

Who decides now what will be published?

Here’s my three penny worth:

• Does the Church of England need an independent voice for its publishing division?
• Is it right to concede so much control of the Church’s voice to the owners of the Church Times?
• What provision — pastoral as well as financial — is being made for staff who now face the very real possibility of redundancy?

My Lord Bishops: the Church’s voice and their future is your hands: please ensure that it is a future with a hope and with freedom to speak.

• Twitter Search: Church House Publishing
• Google Search: Church House Publishing / Hymns Ancient & Modern

Update, May 17, 2009
Since posting the above, I’m pleased to say that Dave Walker has commented further to clarify his own position:

I’m freelance rather than an employee. No-one is telling me what I can or cannot comment on.

Having said that Hymns Ancient and Modern is a major client of mine. In the same way that a bookshop manager (for instance) would not blog about one of their customers, or a member of the clergy about one of their parishioners I tend not to blog about my clients. Hence my ‘difficult to comment’ remark. If I had things to say to Hymns A&M on the topic (which I don’t at the moment) I’d do so by some other means than via blog comments.