Do you have a resource to offer the wider church and university?

We invite:

Submit an Original Digital Resource

We welcome original resources from Anabaptist individuals, organizations, and communities.  

We know that pastors new to ministry eagerly seek the counsel of more experienced pastors. We are aware that congregations look to implement processes that other churches have already navigated. We know that local church committees lead creative worship, plan unique educational events, and witness to their neighbourhoods in compelling ways.

We also know that congregations search for these home-grown, tested, original resources.

CommonWord is here to make the link by gathering and cataloguing your digital resources on this website - making them available for free use.  Digital worship materials are also shared with our partner, Together in Worship (https://www.togetherinworship.net) in addition to being posted here.

Submissions must:

• support corporate Christian worship, education, leadership, and faith practices, in any language or cultural expression;
• come from an Anabaptist source—an individual, group, congregation, or organization;
• exist in a digital format;
• be original and not hold copyright restrictions.  You must allow your work to exist under a Creative Commons license, as outlined below.

In addition:

• CommonWord and Together in Worship will use their discretion as to which items to post.
• All submissions will be formatted to fit our visual guidelines and may be lightly edited for content.

If you have a resource to submit or any questions about the process, please email info@commonword.ca. 

Further Submission Details:

Copyright

• We assume this is your work to share. It can’t include copyrighted content (e.g., any biblical passages, excerpts from previously published works).
• You allow your work to exist under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence, which essentially means:
  • you own this work;
  • you allow people to use it for free as long as they credit you;
  • you allow people to modify your work for their context, but they still need to credit you;
  • in no circumstances can someone sell your work (including the modified versions);
  • you can sell or share this work elsewhere;
  • you have the right to withdraw this license and make it a pure copyright at any time, which means you need to inform us, and we would need to take it down.

Remuneration

• This is a free service. You will be acknowledged but not remunerated. CommonWord or Together in Worship will not receive any payment.

Digital Format

• We need to be able to receive the resource by email or in a link from an online source.
• For text, we reserve the right to reformat the work to fit our visual guidelines, although we will attempt to keep elements of the original form if that is important to the work (e.g., a poem with distinct formatting).
• For images, we prefer .jpeg files of at least 1080px.
• For audio and/or video, we are happy to link to your source, or, if you don’t have a YouTube, Bandcamp, or another site for hosting audio and video, we can host video on our YouTube channel, and we would do the same with your audio.

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Sell an Original Item on Consignment

We welcome receiving requests to retail books, artwork, greeting cards and other items on consignment at CommonWord.  The following are the criteria and guidelines we will follow to determine a consignment agreement. 

Consignment Definition:

An agreement in which an author/artist leaves items in CommonWord’s possession as an authorized third party to sell.  In turn, CommonWord receives a percentage of the revenue from the sale in the form of a commission.  The author/artist retains ownership of their items and can ask for the inventory back at any time (at the author/artist’s expense).

Mandate:

Consignment items must serve the mission and ministry of the broader Mennonite and Anabaptist family of churches, and the program interests of CommonWord’s partners – CMU and MC Canada. 

CommonWord’s Mission and Vision

CommonWord is a Bookstore and Resource Centre that seeks to inspire Christian faith by resourcing and equipping the home, congregation, and university with a curated collection of Anabaptist and related books and materials to buy, borrow or access online.  In doing so, CommonWord seeks to strengthen the collective Anabaptist identity of Mennonite Church Canada and Canadian Mennonite University, serve the bookstore needs of the university community, and engage the ecumenical church and public.

Initial Agreement:

The initial agreement is for a six-month trial period to test whether an item will sell in our context.  If sales go well, CommonWord, at any time, may request additional copies.  After the trial period, CommonWord will evaluate the contract to determine if it should continue. 

Costs:

• CommonWord’s minimum gross margin is 25%, negotiated on an item-by-item basis.
• We also typically require one complimentary copy of a book title for inclusion in our resource library.
• Any cost of shipping inventory to CommonWord (or back to you) is the responsibility of the author/artist.

Cost and Retail Prices:

We ask the author/artist to either provide their cost price (the amount they wish to be reimbursed) or a suggested retail price for the item. 

How to calculate a 25% gross margin item:

• Cost price of $15 would retail at $19.99 (Cost price x 1.33333).
• Suggested retail price of $18.50 would have a cost price of $13.88 (Retail price x 0.75)

Shipping Price:

Retail sales that include shipment (within Canada or internationally) are shipped via Canada Post.  We base our flat-rate shipping costs on the average of Canada Post’s prices. 

It is very important to know that shipping costs increase dramatically (from $6 to $19) if a book weighs over 475 g and/or has a thickness of over 2 cm.  We recommend strongly that this is given consideration when writing/publishing.

It is not presently possible for an author/publisher to subsidize the shipping cost or have CommonWord offer a shipping discount to the customer.

Pre-Orders and Web Content

We encourage authors/publishers to make their book available online at CommonWord as soon as possible, even in advance of its release (for pre-orders).  To do so, we require the following:

• Full title, author/editor/illustrator/translator, contributing authors, length, publisher, ISBN number (if available)
• Cover photo (minimum 500 px wide, 300 dpi)
• Description of the book (up to 100 words)
• Weight and dimensions
• Retail and cost price
• Any reviews (optional)
• Digital content – e.g. table of contents, excerpt, video (optional)

Quantity:

CommonWord will determine how many copies of an item we can hold.  We are unable to “warehouse” large quantities. 

Monitoring Inventory:

An author/artist is free to inquire with us any time about sales and remaining stock numbers.  We will be in touch should we require more copies.

Reimbursement:

We will send the author/artist a cheque for their 75% portion of the sale revenue after a significant quantity has been sold, or we have sold all inventory, or we have reached our January 31 fiscal year-end.

Promotion:

CommonWord will promote consignment titles individually and as part of our “Friends of CommonWord” collection.  We will promote titles through our website, Curator email newsletter, social media, travel displays, and in other ways.

We encourage the author/artist to alert their contacts and networks of the title’s availability at CommonWord, preferably with a link to its profile on our website.

Ongoing Contact:

It is the responsibility of the consignee to keep CommonWord updated on any change in contact information.  If contact has been lost (after multiple attempts by CommonWord to reach the consignee over an extended period), CommonWord reserves the right to remove the item from its shelves.

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Host a Book Launch

We host evening book launches at Marpeck Commons.  Please contact us for details. 

• Book launch titles must serve the mission and ministry of the broader Mennonite and Anabaptist family of churches, and the program interests of CommonWord’s partners – Canadian Mennonite University and Mennonite Church Canada.

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