Software companies, once on the periphery of Christian book publishing, find themselves increasingly taking center stage. Nowhere is that shift more evident than in Bellingham, Wash., where Logos Bible Software has grown from a two-man startup in 1992 to a company with an email list of almost 500 (though president and CEO Bob Pritchett notes that includes around 50 interns). And that’s in a period when Christian publishing houses have been downsizing. “We are able [now] to work with people who we might not have been able to get a call into before, which is fun,” says Pritchett of his company’s rise.
Adding an e-reader, apps, online video courses, and even old-school paper editions to its flagship Bible study software, Logos is leading the way in exploring opportunities afforded by the digital landscape. And Logos is not alone: as software, digital, and print converge, traditional publishing giants like HarperCollins Christian Publishing and B&H Publishing Group also are investing time and money to secure a presence in that space. Exactly where the tech revolution bus is headed is unclear, but the thinking is that it’s important to have a seat.
The Explorers’ Club
“Inside HarperCollins Christian we love great content and are really good at producing it,” says Rachel Barach, senior v-p of HCCP’s Bible Gateway and Olive Tree Bible study platforms; she oversees that division from Spokane, Wash. “The method by which that content gets distributed is going to vary necessarily over time, so we just want to be poised to support the content that is coming, in whatever way the consumer tells us is the right way,” Barach says.
Founded as a nonprofit initiative in 1993, Bible Gateway was acquired by HCCP’s Zondervan division in 2008. It operates as a “publisher-neutral” site, drawing almost 20 million unique visitors a month, though following a recent refresh and the addition of some new features, Barach says the site is also “dabbling” in e-commerce options. Olive Tree—designed for academics and other more serious Bible students—was added to HCCP’s portfolio this May. While the emphasis is on developing a content marketing platform and promoting brand awareness, Barach says the team has “toyed with some ideas” for original content. “It is an area in which we are open to brainstorming.”
Logos, which licenses around 40,000 digital titles, has pursued such possibilities more intentionally, albeit experimentally. The company has released some 40 original e-book titles under its Lexham Press imprint, including the Lexham English Bible. Debuted in 2012, “it’s not trying to compete with the NIV, or the NLT, or the ESV,” says Pritchett. “It’s a more literal translation. We describe it as your second Bible.”
The LEB is the primary text for Logos’s digital FaithLife Study Bible, which retails for $69.95 but is being given away free to the first 2.5 million users. There have been some requests for a print edition of the LEB, “and we may yet do that,” Pritchett says. Meanwhile Logos is “reconfiguring” Kirkdale Press, its digital imprint for new authors.
Other new ventures for Logos include audiobooks that sync between text and narration wherever the reader stops, as well as Faithlifetv.com, with video courses offering the equivalent of a seminary education. But, says Pritchett, “at heart I still think of us as a technology company. Digital is well suited to platform strategies. People want things to connect, they want to use their mobile phones and their laptops seamlessly and just have everything work, so we are working on making those connections happen.”
Platforms Are Launching Pads
Software innovation in religion naturally centers on the Bible, and David Lang, v-p of development at Accordance Bible Software, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, says that Bible software was “probably the most commercially successful form of electronic publishing prior to the recent e-book revolution.” For serious Bible students who want the ability to cross-reference, a digital edition just isn’t enough, he says. “The software used to read most e-books is relatively simple compared to Bible software programs like Accordance.”
It isn’t easy to find what you need quickly in a big library of ordinary e-books, says Jim Baird, publisher at B&H Publishing, as well as director for Wordsearch Bible Software. Southern Baptist–owned LifeWay Christian Resources, which includes B&H Publishing, acquired the company in 2011 and made it one of three divisions in B&H Direct, which was founded a year ago and includes all of B&H’s direct-to-consumer initiatives. “But it can be done if it’s part of a Bible software platform that enables your device not only to house that much content but to search it and access it” quickly, he says. The constraints of print publishing limit the breadth and depth of reference materials, while with database formats the potential is almost endless. For example, Logos has produced a Bible with an unprecedented nine lines of interlinear translation/commentary material.
Having a Bible study platform, rather than just individual e-books, also opens up the international market, adds Baird. Along with Logos, Wordsearch is building custom libraries for seminaries and other institutions. More overseas schools want to train their students in-country, in some cases because some of those they send to study in the U.S. don’t return. “That’s a whole new market that was not available to us a few years ago, or at least wasn’t as accessible,” Baird says. “But with more and more of the world able to access the cloud, all the barriers are taken down and we can deliver all the content they want.”
Maybe Yes, Maybe No
While major players like HCCP are adding software to their mix, one of Christian publishing’s other leaders, Baker Publishing Group, has decided not to. “It has been an active conversation,” says president Dwight Baker. “We have had some opportunities, and there are some folks here that have come forward with proposals.” But in the final analysis, he says, it was considered “off mission” from the company’s commitment to publishing. There was also some concern about the potential impact of vertical integration on existing publishing relationships.
“We have seen that historically with our regular bookstore,” Baker says—the company owns Baker Book House in Grand Rapids, Mich., a few miles from its headquarters. “What I have found over the years is that it’s okay as long as one of those aspects is low profile. If you get really good at both, you have problems on your hands.”
Tyndale House Publishers was an early innovator in Bible software, partnering with Visual Books Company in 2002 to release the multimedia iLumina Bible, whose creator, Nelson Saba, went on to release the Glo digital Bible through his own company, Immersion Digital. Including animation, virtual tours, and informational videos, iLumina sold 250,000 DVD copies and “paved the way for more innovation in the future for Bible electronic products,” according to Tyndale’s senior acquisitions editor Jon Farrar. But Tyndale has since discontinued the project, and associate publisher Blaine Smith says that “complex, highly graphic Bible apps have not proven to be the future of Bible usage. Rather, the most successful apps present a simple yet elegant reading experience of the text.”
Looking ahead, HCCP’s Barach sees a potential “magic mix” of new software capabilities and traditional publishing expertise. “I am excited to be a part of it now,” she says. “Not only is there a technological foundation, there is a consumer foundation, there is attention, there are resources and energy and excitement about where this could go. And when you put those things together, you have the spark for a real fire.”
Andy Butcher is a freelance writer based in Orlando, Fla.
