Looking for an Almanac Subject?

From the CEO of Standard Publishing:

“Happy Birthday Dear Bible…”

Next year, 2011, marks the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible. I’m still doing a little historical research, but apparently, the story behind the publication of the KJV Bible in 1611 was a little juicier than appears on the surface. It seems that the motivation for King James wasn’t quite as noble as we might have thought. But before I bash the poor king’s reputation, a bit more research is required.

So let’s stick with what we know for fact. We have it on good authority that, next year is, in fact, the 400th Anniversary of the publication of this ground breaking version of the Bible. I understand that there were other English language versions of the Bible prior to 1611. But printing one or even reading one was not a good recipe for a long, fruitful life. So the publication of the Holy Bible by the King of England opened up the Bible to many people.

With the publication of other translations, most notably the NIV and the new ESV, the KJV has lost a bit of its luster. But according to an analysis released by the ECPA last week, the KJV translation is still the second best selling version at 16% of all sales, second to the NIV at 34%. The core user of the KJV tends to be older, more rural, and likely to be from the “Bible Belt”. You may have heard the story about the southern legislator who, in a debate on requiring kids to take courses in foreign languages, commented, “Well if English was good enough for the Lord Jesus Christ, then it is good enough for me.” I’m guessing said legislator hasn’t rushed out to purchase the new ESV.

We are an unusual publisher in that the KJV version of our bestselling Standard Lesson Commentary actually outsells the NIV version. So we have a strong stake in creating awareness of the 400th Anniversary of the KJV. At a recent ECPA Board Meeting, we discussed what, if any, role the trade association should have in creating awareness and publicity for this event. It was noted that in England, quite a few publishers have banded together to launch a public relations effort. It is worth noting that, due to some level of concern about the declining share of the KJV, they are labeling this event as the 400th Anniversary of the English Language Bible. That’s not historically accurate. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, the good King James had a role in burning at the stake some of the people pushing earlier versions. Maybe he saw it as eliminating competitors. Who knows? But at least our English friends are getting behind getting the word out.

Which brings me back to our actions in the U. S. Ultimately, the ECPA decided not to launch a PR campaign as an organization. However, I indicated that we at Standard Publishing do want to get the word out and welcomed other individual publishers to join us.

Here’s my logic. I do a lot with the Boy Scouts. As you may know, the Boy Scouts haven’t exactly been the darling of the media due to their stand on homosexuality and belief in God. But 2010 marks the 100th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. They hired a PR firm and, lo and behold, we have seen a rash of positive stories on the BSA. I have seen very positive stories about the Scouts on very liberal news programs. Why? Because it is newsworthy. Regardless of the increased polarization of news programs due to their political bents, at the end of the day, they still have to report the news. I don’t know if the increased positive publicity has led to an increase in Boy Scout membership, but it couldn’t have hurt.

Now let’s apply that to the Bible. Although the underlying story is the 400th Anniversary of the KJV, which is a declining translation, I believe that the story will come off as a very positive story about the Bible itself. The more positive stories that get on the mainstream media, the better it is for the Kingdom and for Bible publishers such as ourselves. Reminding people of what the Bible is all about will create more curiosity among non-believers to check it out. This will lead to greater Bible sales for the publishers. So we are going to get behind this effort.

What will that be? Well, at a minimum, we will do a press release to major news organizations letting them know about this anniversary. We will devote significant attention to it in our magazines. We will probably create some sort of logo or icon that we will put on our catalogs and other publications. We might even roll out some new products that relate to the KJV.

Regardless of what we do, we welcome other publishers to join us in getting the word out.