Southern Baptists, With New Bible Translation, Cut Strategic Deal

by John Draper, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 8/10/2005

While Zondervan trumpets its Today's New International Version of the Bible (TNIV) with multiple full-page ads in Christianity Today magazine, Broadman & Holman continues a more under-the-radar approach to marketing its upstart translation, the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

Though the version never existed before it emerged from the Southern Baptist Convention last year, it's now in fifth place in terms of sales in evangelical Christian (CBA) stores, behind the King James, New King James, New Living Translation and, still at the top of the rankings, the NIV. (Meanwhile, since its release six months ago the TNIV has sold 200,000 units but is still at less than one percent market share.)

Broadman & Holman's latest marketing move was to sign a 15-year agreement with the American Bible Society for the ABS to distribute the HCSB across the globe. Ken Stephens, president of B&H, told RBL that he expects getting his company's translation via ABS into so many hands should prompt increased sales, even though many Bibles are distributed free through Bible societies. (B&H has licensed the HCSV to the ABS, which will pay a royalty on all the Bibles they produce.)

How high are their sites set? Can they overtake the NIV? "That would certainly be a very aggressive goal," Stephens said, noting that the NIV accounts for a close to a third of all Bible sales in America. The HCSB is currently sitting at around 5%. B&H is marketing the HCSV as aggressively as it can, considering its annual marketing budget of $1 million. They are outgunned by Zondervan, they admit.

B&H is owned by LifeWay, which in turn is owned by the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest denomination and one of its most conservative. Tired of paying hefty royalties to Zondervan to publish the NIV, and tired of what it saw as Zondervan's capitulation to those who wanted a more gender-neutral translation—which led to the TNIV—the Southern Baptists decided it was time for their own translation. (They tried three times to buy the NIV rights from Zondervan, without success.)

In its official press materials for the HCSB, Broadman & Holman takes a veiled swipe at Zondervan by saying the HCSV was needed . . . "to safeguard the Scriptures from trends toward cultural pluralism, political correctness and drifting ideology by having a translation controlled by a community of believers, not profit-driven business interests."

That said, the Southern Baptists don't seem to be above a few corporate stratagems of their own. LifeWay determined it would use the still-not-audience-tested version in all its curriculum materials. And at the same time, the Southern Baptist Convention declared the year of the version's publication The Year of the Bible. Despite all that, the HCSB is number three in LifeWay stores. The NIV still leads the way in sales.

Meanwhile, other Bible publishers had already formed distribution agreements with other Bible societies. For example, Nelson has licensed its NKJV to both the American Bible Society and the International Bible Society. Nelson also has licensing arrangements with several foreign Bible societies.