Abingdon Press’s Long Time Coming by Vanessa Miller tops the fiction bestsellers list of black Christian authors in the November 2010 edition of the Black Christian News/Black Christian Book Company National Bestsellers List. The book is in Abingdon’s year-old fiction line, with 26 books published thus far. Publicity manager Maegan Roper told RBL, “Sales-wise we have exceeded our budget, and our fall list has sold twice as many units as last fall. The faith element [in these books] is more subtle, which has gone over very well with retailers within the trade market whose readers prefer a less aggressive message.” Miller is an Essence bestselling author, playwright, and motivational speaker. She also is the author of the Rain and Storm series for Whitaker House.
Thomas Nelson Publishers is preparing for the May 2011 launch of the Lucado Impact Plan, a three-year retail sales promotion and merchandising program for Max Lucado products. The program, which offers plans for stocking and displaying key Lucado titles each season of the year, encompasses Lucado’s 100 million in-print branded items, including books, greeting cards, and ancillary products across all Nelson product lines--adult, children’s, gift, Bible study, fiction, and Bibles, both frontlist and backlist titles. The program will be open to all retailers, including Christian and general-market bookstores; chains and independents; discounters and price clubs. In May Nelson releases a new trade book, Max on Life: Answers and Inspiration for Today’s Questions, and a daily devotional, Live Loved: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life to initiate the program. Nelson sales reps began presenting the plan to retailers this month (Nov. 2010).
HarperOne has included several special features with the first-ever e-book edition of Ram Dass’s seminal Be Here Now, originally published in 1970. Included with the e-book--timed to release at the same time as the print edition of Ram Dass’s new book, Be Love Now (Nov.)—are an original short film, “Ram Dass: Love, Serve, Remember”; a video guided meditation from Be Love Now and one from Be Here Now; the original music from the e-book of Be Here Now; and the first chapter of the new book.
Oliver Stone provided the impetus for Catholic publisher Orbis to sell the paperback rights to James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters to Simon & Schuster, which published its edition this month (Nov.). Stone held the book up on Bill Maher’s show last year and urged all Americans to read it; he repeated that message in the Huffington Post later in the year. The book argues that Kennedy’s assassination was the result of a conspiracy between the U.S. military and intelligence communities. On November 8 there was a panel discussion with author James W. Douglass, Oliver Stone, Lisa Pease (coauthor of The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X), and Orbis Books publisher Robert Ellsberg at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, Calif.; Douglass also signed books.
Zondervan and Biblica released on November 1 the updated New International Version of the Bible (NIV) online, in advance of the March 2011 print publication. The text is available for viewing at both www.BibleGateway.com and www.Biblica.com, along with an overview of the translation methods and approach used by the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT), which did the updating. CBT is an independent body of global biblical scholars, with members from various denominations and academic institutions. It was formed in 1965 to create a modern English Bible translation from the oldest and best-attested biblical manuscripts, producing the NIV, which, according to Zondervan and Biblica, is the world’s most read modern English Bible, with more than 400 million copies in print. Since the last complete update in 1984, CBT has met every year in accordance with the NIV charter, which requires constant monitoring of developments in biblical scholarship and English usage so these can be reflected in the text. Biblica, formerly known as the International Bible Society, holds the copyright to the NIV, which it licenses to Zondervan. Further information on the committee members, the NIV translation philosophy, and the research data used during the update process are available on CBT’s Web site, www.NIV-CBT.org. A new NIV Web site, www.theNIVBible.com, also launched November 1.
Zondervan is hosting 150 release parties around the globe—from California to Australia, for Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove (Dec. 2010). Held mainly during the first week of December, Common Prayer release parties in 28 states and 14 countries will celebrate the new prayer book. The parties are free, but tickets are required. Interested participants can find the nearest party and register online at http://commonprayer.net/parties. Everyone registered is entered in a drawing to win one of 1,000 copies of Common Prayer.
Christian Authors on Tour, a national group of Christian fiction and nonfiction authors, hosts a day-long Christmas Extravaganza on December 4 in Baltimore. The free events will include an afternoon panel discussion with 10 Christian authors hosted by the Black Writer's Guild of Maryland at Sojourner-Douglass College, and an evening event at the Barnes & Noble Power Plant/Inner Harbor. The latter is a family-oriented gathering, with readings by 15 authors and Christmas caroling. For more details, go to www.christianauthorsontour.com or listen to the Christian Authors on Tour Blog Talk Radio Show.
Zorba Publishers, a new press established in India to publish “eclectic western writings [for] the discerning Indian reader,” according to Geetu Goel, director of sales and marketing, has acquired the Indian rights to Relaxing into Meditation by Ngakma Nor’dzin. The book was originally published in Wales in 2010 and is available in the U.S. from Aro Books worldwide . About 230 million Indians speak English and, noted Zorba’s Goel, “With rapid economic growth, a decline in the age of the working population and increasing incidences of stress-related afflictions, we felt the subject of the book was particularly well suited for Indians to help them cope with their daily problems.”
