The backbone of this project to get more quality reading material into the hands of remote people is volunteer authors. We are looking for a wide range of literacy materials spanning many many genres and reading levels. Take a look at our sample list of project ideas to get a feel for the kinds of books we are looking to make available.
Contact us!
If this sounds like a fit for you or someone you know, please contact our literacy team by emailing cd-resources-admin@ntmpng.org and let us know a bit about yourself and how you might be able to help as a volunteer author. Please also include any potential book ideas you may have that’d you’d like to bring into reality.
How we acknowledge our authors
Any works that we create will need to be done so fully with the understanding that this is a volunteer effort, credit under a non-commercial copyright will be given but there can be strictly no offer or expectation of commercial or financial interest in this project. Currently any books produced will be published with creative commons copyright protection.
For more information on creative commons, take a look here.
With this type of copyright protection, we will be able to share our library with other organizations around the world free of charge or restriction while at the same time preserving acknowledgement to those who have written, illustrated, edited, translated or contributed in some way for each project we add to our library.
Authors frequently asked questions
Where can I start as an author?
Your first step would be to contact our literacy team by emailing cd-resources-admin@ntmpng.org If you’ve got an idea after a short discussion with us regarding your book or book series ideas, It is helpful if all of our books have a consistent layout because of the translation process tribal churches will put the books through later down the line. With this process in mind, a blank Microsoft Word template has been designed and it is available for you to download here:
How do I use the Template?
We highly recommend our volunteer authors to take a look at our “Working with the Template” section of this website as soon as you’ve downloaded the template.
If I take on a project, what kind of deadline will I need to work with?
This project is volunteer-driven. There are no hard deadlines. We ask that you consider whether you can put a couple hours a month into it before taking a project on. It is also helpful to strive for communicating with our literacy team somewhat regularly, perhaps once a month as to the progress of the project. Communication is key. If at any time it looks like the project is no longer doable please communicate this with the team as well.
Who is the target audience for this project?
While we have seen some interest from individuals on fields in other regions of the world, currently our efforts mostly target local Papua New Guinean believers many of whom live in very remote village settings. Still, any other audiences who find our content helpful are more than welcome to have access to our library. The audience includes adults as well as children, so to find a decent balance we are targeting a complexity level of around 5th to 6th grade writing.
Can I offer my content with more copyright protection than Creative Commons?
Before taking on a project, please communicate thoroughly your expectations. Our preference is to apply Creative Commons copyright protection to all of our materials, as this gives us the greatest amount of flexibility to use and share these materials while still protecting credit to the original content creators. However as long as other frameworks allow our target audience to gain access to quality materials in their own language, we are very willing to discuss other legal frameworks on a case by case basis.
I’m an author, not an artist. Do I need to create artwork for my books in order to submit them to this project?
Thank you for your willingness to help! We will gladly accept your help! Once your content has been created, we will try to recruit help from a volunteer artist if you aren’t able to create the artwork yourself. Thankfully we have a small but growing list of available volunteer artists we’d be happy to connect you with. However, if you know of an artist yourself who could help with artwork for your book or other books, please by all means help us with the recruiting too!
As a non-artistic author, how do I share my input with the volunteer artist who is working on my book?
A common way to share your vision with an artist is to add notes within parenthesis ( ) within the text indicating your artwork suggestions. Keep in mind, we are only passing on suggestions to the artists, not mandates. We want to give our artists considerable creative freedom, so any notes are simply suggestions which will be helpful to the artist. Always keep in mind our volunteer artists ultimately will create images at their own discretion. Instead of writing notes, some authors have put in provisional artwork in the forms of photographs or temporary artwork from the internet, these methods can also be helpful too in giving inspiration to the artist.
I’ve never been to Papua New Guinea. Can I write books for Papua New Guineans?
We ask all of our authors to research their content before writing. Ideally authors writing about Papua New Guinean subjects specifically would be individuals who have actually been here, built relationships with Papua New Guineans and gained and understanding of local culture etc. For this reason, our encouragement for those who cannot come here is to stick to other subject material.
I am a fiction author, can I help?
We strongly discourage our volunteer authors from creating content that deals with science fiction or fantasy (magic, talking animals etc.). With our target audience in mind, as new readers they often approach reading as an avenue to learn truth. Fiction material potentially can cause confusion and more likely than not, such content may even offend local audiences. Historical or real-world fiction however generally poses no such problems. By no means are we passing negative judgement on genres such as fantasy and science fiction content etc, simply it falls outside the scope of what this project is looking for.
Are we writing children’s books?
The primary target is not necessarily children, but certainly books directed towards younger audiences of various ages are also appreciated. But as you see with the subject matter of many of the books in our library these are not just children’s’ books. Still to strike a decent balance we are looking to develop books that generally land in the 5th to 6th grade reading level for complexity.
Can I write books from a non-Christian perspective?
Given the target audience of tribal believers, content that seeks to counter a Biblical world-view will necessarily fall outside the scope of this project. This includes promotion of evolution, humanism, atheism, agnosticism etc. Content that seeks to promote specific non-orthodox doctrines will also be subject to rejection.
Any guidelines for writing Bible Studies?
Bible studies are highly desirable for this project. We actively ask for missionaries and former missionaries from within our organization especially to consider helping their PNG brothers and sisters with Bible studies and other books that promote Biblical understanding on a range of subjects. That being said, we would like so much more content! So we would encourage any prospective authors to look at the Ethnos360 doctrinal statement and consider whether they can create content that fits within those guidelines. Content that seeks to promote specific non-orthodox doctrines may be subject to rejection.
What software do you use for writing books?
We have found great success using Microsoft Word to create content and then training native village translators to use MS Word to translate the document. As a free alternative, we’ve had some success in using WPS Office, which is mostly compatible with Microsoft Word, however while this has saved us money, it hasn’t been without its shortcomings.
I know Tok Pisin. Should I write my books directly in Tok Pisin or should I write them in English instead?
To make content available to teams throughout Papua New Guinea, our first target is to create content in Tok Pisin that can then be taken by local native village translators and translated into their heart languages. That being said, there are also advantages to creating content in English, particularly when working with English-only artists and sharing these resources with people from other fields where Tok Pisin isn’t known. Some authors who know both English and Tok Pisin find that certain content is easier to write in English first then translate into Tok Pisin and sometimes the reverse is true. Additionally there are some audiences in PNG who actually prefer English. So while not top priority we do also strive to create versions of our content in English in addition to Tok Pisin. If authors can create both English & Tok Pisin versions, we would encouraged them to do so if time permits.
Are there different reading levels?
Yes, because of the translation process, reading levels for our projects aren’t based on vocabulary usage or subject matter so much, but the text to image ratio. Predominately at this point we are looking for medium & Advanced reading materials. For medium level reading content, Ideally books will be 20-60 pages with an average of 35 to 90 words per page and generally with an illustration and 1-2 paragraphs of text per page. (such projects would use our standard template) We are also looking for advanced reading material, which can be 61-500 pages with word per page averages of 90 or greater and typically with many text-only pages and then having images throughout the book where they serve the needs of the content at the authors discretion (such projects would use our advanced template). In terms of complexity we are looking to develop content that lands around the 5th to 6th grade reading level.
If I take on authoring a book, are there any length requirements?
Yes, we require a minimum of 20 pages of actual content (not counting front matter) for all books before accepting them into our library. (typically an average of 35-90 words per page is ideal for Medium reading material and an average of 90 words per page or more for Advanced reading material ) Text size and page layout are all based on our template, so if you already have a book written that you’d like to submit, it may actually be long enough even if the page count is lower than fifty, so it’s recommended you transfer to the content to our standard template to determine it’s length in relation to this standard. Because publishing books involves some legal formatting requirements, most books require at least 8 pages of front matter (Cover, author/illustrator credits, copyright information, printing details, preface etc.) This cost is built into every book in our project and often our church planting teams when they look at our library to select the next book to introduce to their readers will find that really short books simply do not have enough content to justify that cost. Coupled with the fact that the whole point of producing books for this project is to help new readers with reading content, so often the more the better. (books longer than our minimum requirements are generally fine too).
Are there limits on how long a book can be for this project?
Generally this is not an issue, if your book however is going to be over 300 pages, it’s good at least to have our literacy team review it, in some cases, books may benefit from being split into multiple volumes etc, others are fine as they are, this would simply be on a case by case basis etc. Longer books do come with a larger printing price tag however, particularly detailed Bible studies and other church resources are so very critically needed that many teams would see such materials as more than worth the added cost etc. Text size and page layout are all based on our template, so if you already have a book written that you’d like to submit, go ahead and transfer the content to our standard template to determine it’s length in relation to this standard.
Will I be paid for creating content for this project?
This is a volunteer effort to strengthen literacy among local churches throughout Papua New Guinea. There is no profit to be made in this project, but still the need is vital. Thank you for your willingness to lend a hand with your time, energy and skills.
How do I get my book to your team?
We utilize Microsoft OneDrive services to host all of our materials online. If your book is ready or you’d like to even upload an in-progress copy of your work so far take a look at the “How to upload your book to OneDrive” section of this website for detailed instructions.