The Third Five Years:
November 2008—October 2013
Another website, a new series of brochures, and more books
Usually I received requests several times a year to translate some of the material on missionarycare.com into another language. I routinely granted permission to translate whatever the person requested, as long as the translated material was made available free of charge. Usually some minor things were translated, but they had little circulation and little impact on missionaries in that other language.
However, in January 2011, three Korean men associated with a Korean congregation right here in our county met with me. We agreed on their translating material into Korean. The day after we met, I sent them the following email.
I give Hunn Choi and/or John Choi permission to translate any or all of the brochures or books (except one) on www.missionarycare.com and/or www.crossculturalworkers.com into Korean. I do not hold the rights to the book Raising Resilient MKs so I cannot grant permission for that. If you ever want to translate that book you would need to get permission from the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) in Colorado Springs, CO. You have my permission to post these translations on your website as long as Korean missionaries are allowed to download them free of charge.
The translator for the project was Meesaeng Lee Choi, wife of Hunn Choi. Meesaeng was born and educated in Korea, came to the USA when she was in her 30s, and is now Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Asbury Theological Seminary. She and Hunn have taken the Member Care Training Course at Heartstream Resources in PA. They are developing Korean member care in central Kentucky and have founded the All Nations Mission Center (ANMC) at http://www.anmcusa.org/.
In June 2013 the ANMC posted 52 brochures of the “What Missionaries Ought to Know…” series in Korean at http://www.anmcusa.org/. By the end of October, 2013 they had posted four more, and people had downloaded 323,757 copies of the brochures in Korean!
An interesting finding occurred during the first 15 months these were posted. From June 2012 through September 2013 no additional brochures were posted, and the posted brochures were always in the same order with 20 per page (20 on the first page, 20 on the second page, and 12 on the third page). It was very clear that the page on which they were posted greatly influenced downloads. Here are averages (means) for each page:
In fact, not a single brochure on page 3 had as many downloaded as the lowest one on page one. Only two of the 20 brochures on page 2 were as large as the lowest on page 1. Clearly, which page a resource is posted makes a difference.
Brochures
During these next five years, I continued to write brochures for the “What Missionaries Ought to know…” series and the “Missionary Marriage Issues” series, and these also appeared on the crossculturalworkers.com website as well. I also began receiving email from unmarried missionaries who pointed out that I had material for Third Culture Kids and for married couples, but I was ignoring about a quarter of the missionary force; so I began a new series on “Missionary Singles Issues.”
Additional brochures for the “What Missionaries Ought to Know…” series.2008-2013
Stewardship of Self (no new brochures)
Additional brochures for the “Marriage Issues” series.2003-2008
Singles Issues
Additional brochures during 2008-2013
37 new brochures as follows:
15 brochures in the Ought to Know series and
8 brochures in the Missionary Marriage Issues series
14 brochures in the Missionary Singles Issues series
Total Brochures Available
55 brochures in the Ought to Know series and
9 Brochures in the Stewardship of Self series with Dr. Seitz.
16 brochures in the Missionary Marriage Issues series
14 brochures in the Missionary Singles Issues series
94 total brochures
Brochures downloaded during these five years
Database
I also continued to add new references in the database. During this five year interval I added 52 new records, so by the end of October, 2013, there were 899 records in the database. People viewed 422,659 full citations during these five years.
Books
I revised What Missionaries Ought to Know each year, and I added several other books to the e-books page. Here is a list of the books added.
Books downloaded during these five years:
E-readers
Although the Amazon Kindle was an instant success in the USA when it was first launched in October, 2007, we did not see a lot of missionaries on the field with them. They cost $400 and could not be used outside of the USA. However, after Amazon announced an international version which could download titles in more than 100 countries in 2009, and prices below $200 in 2010, we began to see Kindles and Nooks “everywhere.” E-readers seemed to be the perfect fit for missionaries because they could carry thousands of books in a small device that weighed a few ounces rather than lugging around books weighing hundreds of pounds.
In January, 2011, we began posting two additional formats of each book available. One format is the .mobi format for the Amazon Kindle, and the other format is the .epub format for Barnes and Noble’s Nook as well as most of the other
E-readers. By the end of October, 2013, people had downloaded 31,104 books in E-reader formats—all of this in less than three years.
Brigada Today and GMCN Newsletter
When the material was first posted, I tried various means of publicizing it. I presented papers at meetings and handed out floppy disks containing the material. I sent individual emails to the member care people at all IFMA and EFMA (now combined as Missio Nexus) agencies announcing the material. I put classified ads in EMQ (Evangelical Missions Quarterly). I put quarter-page ads in EMQ. Nothing had a significant effect on the number of books or brochures downloaded.
During the seven years from the time the first e-books were posted until October, 2010, the largest number of books downloaded in a single month was 1898, and that was far above the next largest number downloaded. I had submitted several items to Brigada Today (http://www.brigada.org) saying in different words each time that “there is a lot of free material on missionarycare.com including lots of brochures and some good books.” I had tried listing some of the brochures and/or books. Those items made very little difference in the number of items downloaded.
During the late summer of 2010, Brigada Today had been sporadic, and the editor sent six of the newsletters during one week about the middle of October to catch up. Right in the middle of that week one subject line read “October 13th Mailing of 2010/08/08—Brigada Today.” Item number 4 was titled:
“4) Snag this 62-page eBook on Missionary Marriage Issues –“
It said:
Hats off to Ron, a Member Care
Consultant for Go International, for making his ebook available free and online
at...
http://www.missionarycare.com/ebooks/Missionary_Marriage_Book.pdf
Learn about raising third-culture kids, marrying a national, ministry
separation, and much more. And with this price, why wouldn't we ask *everyone*
to read it! :-
Of course, I was glad that someone had placed the item in Brigada, but it was in the middle of a week of Brigada issues. It was such a short item, and the link took the reader directly to the .pdf download rather than to the page which included the description of the book and all of its formats, as well as all the other available books. In addition, the book was really only half as long as planned. Even though it was nice to have the item, I thought that little would come of it.
Much to my surprise, it resulted in not only a dramatic increase in the number of marriage books but also to the largest number of books overall that had ever been downloaded. Even though that October was half gone when the item appeared, 2543 books were downloaded during that month, followed by 2018 during November. During the next three years only three months fell below the previous record of 1898. All three of those were times when I went several months without submitting a book item.
During 2013, I began submitting similar items during the same month to the Global Member Care Network (GMCN) Newsletter (http://www.globalmembercare.com/) as well. The combined effect of both monthly newsletters set a new record of 9801 downloads during the month of September 2013. Brigada Today reaches thousands of people interested in the missionary enterprise generally, and GMCN reached thousands interested specifically in member care.
During those first seven years that books were available online, people downloaded a total of 71,829 books (mean of 10,261/year). During the three years that followed (when I submitted items to Brigada and GMCN), people downloaded a total of 168,316 (mean of 56,105/year).
I have also noticed that the effect of items in these newsletters is different from some other “advertising.” The first few days show the same “spike,” with the first day having the largest number of downloads, the second day about half as many, the third day about half of that, etc. However, the decline is less with these newsletters in that the effect lasts nearly two months. Of course, the first month has the most, but the increase is still noticeable the second month.
During October 2013, I placed the following item in both newsletters.
For Your Korean Colleagues....: Free Downloads—
Member Care brochures from the "What Missionaries Ought to Know...." series are available from the All Nations Mission Center where 52 of the brochures are available in Korean as free downloads in pdf. If you are on a multicultural team or know other Korean missionaries, please send them this link. They can't beat the price. Find the brochures at…
http://www.anmcusa.org/brochures
I had doubts about the effect this item would have. Previously I asked readers to download a book which was just a click away. This time I was asking them to contact other missionaries, and those were missionaries from a different country who spoke a different language. I was pleasantly surprised!
The previous record number of brochures downloaded from the Korean website during a single month was 38,597. During October people downloaded 50,374, and during November they downloaded 56,192. Clearly Items in Brigada Today and GMCN have a great effect.
Summary at end of October 2013
3 Websites (Pageviews)
· Missionarycare.com 3,410,550
· Crossculturalworkers.com 445,014
· All Nations Mission Center N/A
· Total Pages Viewed 3,855,564
94 Brochures (Downloads)
· Missionarycare.com 678,259
· Crossculturalworkers.com 264,824
· All Nations Mission Center 323,757
· Total Downloaded 1,266,840
15 Books (Downloads)
· Missionarycare.com 200,129
· Crossculturalworkers.com 40,016
· Total Books Downloaded 240,145
Database (only on missionarycare.com)
· Records 899
· Full citations viewed 833,473