ParticipantsPaul Engle, senior vice president and publisher for church, academic and reference resources, ZondervanPaul Franklyn, executive director for Bibles and reference, Abingdon PressAndy Le Peau, associate publisher, editorial, InterVarsity PressMichael Stephens, acquisitions editor for Bible, reference, and curriculum, Thomas NelsonDamon Zucca, executive editor, Oxford University Press
PW: Have you seen an erosion in sales of encyclopedias, commentaries or other reference books?
Franklyn, Abingdon: Yes, we saw print commentary sales peak in 2002 with the completion of The New Interpreter’s Bible, which sold more than 40,000 sets and earned over $22 million in revenue. The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible was completed in August 2009. We expect this five-volume encyclopedia to sell about half as strong in units as the commentary series, though the economic downturn has delayed big ticket purchases (sales are about 25% lower than forecast) for personal libraries.
Engle, Zondervan: Certainly reference books are not immune from the impact of the economic downturn. One genre that has declined in recent years is concordances. But this is likely more due to the digital alternatives with their speed of search, rendering hard copy concordances not as critical to users.
PW: Do you think that free resources like Wikipedia or online biblical commentaries have diminished the market for religion reference books?
Stephens, Thomas Nelson: I do think that free resources on the Internet have diminished the market for religion reference books. There are many classic Bible reference works that have been made obsolete by Web pages and search engines. I can’t argue that a concordance is better for Bible study than a computer; it just isn’t. My concern is that readers may have come to expect reference books to be free and are no longer in the habit of buying—or even looking at—books in stores. This makes it extremely difficult to create new and interesting reference works, because we cannot get them to customers who would want them if they knew about them.
Franklyn, Abingdon: Yes, the marketing impact is apparent for laity or Sunday morning teachers who need to look up a very brief answer about a person or place in the Bible. Online resources such as Wikipedia contain a 19th-century Bible dictionary, for example. Some theological themes also get treatment online, but sifting the wheat from the chaff is a chore.
Le Peau, IVP: The wiki-type model is best where there is a widely distributed knowledge base and a large pool of people with time on their hands to contribute. But as one climbs the ladder of specialization, the knowledge is less widely distributed. I would implicitly trust the Wikipedia article on “American Football.” But when we turn to some of the articles on theological topics, say “Penal Substitution” or “New Perspectives on Paul,” informed readers will detect the controversies surrounding these topics being waged in real time within the writing of these articles.
PW: Is your company launching any new commentary series or print reference works? If so, will these have an online component?
Zucca, Oxford: All of OUP’s new print publishing in reference is now coordinated with our plans for online publishing. For example, earlier this year we published The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World in six volumes in print. The material was published simultaneously in electronic form through Oxford Islamic Studies Online, a digital study center that brings together entries from the Encyclopedia with other OUP reference sources, navigable through interactive versions of the Qur’an for a single one-stop resource for in-depth research on Islam and the Islamic world.
Engle, Zondervan: Yes, we are releasing several new commentary and reference works, all of which will have electronic digital versions in addition to the print products. These include the updated edition of the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible in five volumes (Oct.) and two new commentary series that will be announced in coming months.
Le Peau, IVP: We have a very aggressive reference publishing program in the works. In 2009 we are releasing all five volumes of the Ancient Christian Doctrine series, and in 2009—2010 we are releasing the first six volumes of 15 projected volumes in the Ancient Christian Texts series (both of which are companion series to the highly successful Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture). We do not plan an online component for these projects.
Stephens, Thomas Nelson: Our Word Biblical Commentary volumes do not have an online component, but we do have the books available in Logos Bible software format, and we find that we sell about one-third as many Logos downloads as printed books. We’ve even had a few of our commentaries on the Kindle. I didn’t think they would sell at all, because it is quite difficult to navigate a large commentary on the Kindle. I was surprised to find that WBC volumes regularly showed up in the top-five sales report for Kindle titles for our division. Unfortunately, converting the old volumes to a Kindle format is very expensive, so we have stopped producing them until the navigation and the support for Hebrew are improved. But there is definitely a demand.
PW: What’s the future of reference as digitally based research continues its expansion?
Engle, Zondervan: We expect that digital reference, both in owned software as well as online locations, will continue to grow. So we are strategically releasing most reference resources in print formats as well as simultaneous digital formats. We don’t see physical products disappearing, but see a growth in books that include digital elements within the book as well as in related online sites, some of which provide for user interactivity.
Stephens, Thomas Nelson: We have not started any online initiatives yet, but we have recently changed our manuscript preparation process so that all new works will be XML tagged. This is a first step in ensuring that the content of our books can be used in a variety of digital formats.
Zucca, Oxford: As more information migrates online, I think the single most pressing challenge for researchers at all levels is managing the immense amount of potentially useful content made immediately available through our computers. Reference publishers can help by providing authoritative sources of information to confirm facts and to guide further research. But I think we need to go further to help people cut through the clutter. Increasingly sophisticated searching tools will help, but in many areas expert guidance remains essential.
